No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for September 8th, 2010

Presenting the Sgt. Schultz administration, rail edition

by @ 21:35. Filed under Choo-choos, Politics - Wisconsin.

The MacIver Institute is looking into the sudden disappearance of Oconomowoc from the list of the Milwaukee-Madison car-speed rail line stops after the locals started questioning the train. They filed a pair of Open Records requests with the governor’s office and the Department of Transportation asking for all records of discussions about that station between July 1 and August 16, when the plug was pulled.

The DOT hasn’t responded yet, but the Sgt. Schult…er, Doyle administration responded thusly:

We conducted a search for records related to your request and found no responsive records in the custody of the Governor’s Office.

That leaves three probabilities:

  • The Cleaners have been working overtime in the governor’s mansion.
  • They never intended on having any stops between Milwaukee and Madison to make the ramming process that much faster.
  • Doyle really believes he’s above the law.

The overseas betting lines are now open. I hear “none of the above” will get you 1,000,000-1.

Doyle weasels around campaign finance laws again

by @ 13:43. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Owen)

A short 4 years after Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/HoChunk-For Sale) coerced the former State Elections Board to take the unprecedented step of disallowing the bulk of a planned transfer of funds from former Rep. Mark Green’s federal campaign fund to his state gubernatorial campaign fund, he has found another way around the limitations on political donations in Wisconsin. MacIver News Service reports:

According to the most recent filings by Doyle for Wisconsin, the Governor’s campaign account had a cash balance of $1,826,791.21 in July.

The Greater Wisconsin Committee’s Political Action Committee’s report filed this week indicates that account has since been depleted by more than half.

The Governor’s campaign committee made million dollar the donation in two $500,000 disbursements, dated August 2nd and August 18th.

See the campaign finance report, here.

The Greater Wisconsin Committee PAC has been running television ads in markets across the state critical of Republican Gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker….

That’s right – even though no campaign committee can donate more than $43,128 (or 4% of what a gubernatorial campaign that accepts public financing can spend) to a gubernatorial campaign, and lesser amounts to other campaigns in Wisconsin, in an election cycle, that same committee can donate an unlimited amount of money to a PAC. That Doyle chose to give the lion’s share to the sleaziest operation in Wisconsin so they could slime Walker speaks volumes.

Given almost the entirety of GWC’s warchest came from Doyle, with just $251,000 over the first 8 months of 2010 coming from other sources, perhaps their ads should have as the disclaimer, “Paid for by Doyle for Wisconsin”. The ugly news is they still have $594,000 in the bank waiting for the winner of the GOP nomination, which would give the Barrett team over $3 million to work with on September 15.

Revisions/extensions (2:25 pm 9/8/2010) – Christian Schneider reminds us that Doyle could have given the money to the Common School Fund, but decided getting a third term by proxy was more important than helping the children.

Wednesday Hot Read – John Hawkins’ “25 Reasons to Send the Democrats Packing in November”

by @ 11:49. Filed under Politics - National.

John Hawkins listed 25 reasons to vote the Democrats out of power. I personally like #17:

In one of the most corrupt deals in American history, Barack Obama broke existing contracts and tossed away billions in taxpayer dollars to give his union pals an outsized ownership stake in Chrysler and General Motors. Now, every time you buy a car from one of those companies, you’re essentially contributing to the Democratic Party. Calling that sleazy is like calling the ocean “wet.”

Go over and read for the other 24.

9.6% – then and now

Once again, I’ll borrow the 4-Block concept from Tom McMahon, this time to demonstrate the ever-changing definition of a “good” economy in the Democrat playbook.

Measure of unemployment at 9.6% Democrat reaction
2004
U-6 (includes discouraged workers; “official” rate about 5.5%) “Worst economy since the Great Depression”
2010
U-3 (“official” rate; U-6 rate 16.7%) “The new normal”

Revisions/extensions (11:14 am 10/8/2010) – The September 2010 U-6 rate rose to 17.1%, while the September 2010 U-3 rate remained at 9.6%.

Operation Revenge Chaos is ON

by @ 8:37. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Charlie Sykes)

Damn if I didn’t call this one back in April when Kevin Binversie noticed the Democrats were busy trying to “deconflict” the one “major” primary they had going, their lieutenant governor race. Uppity Wisconsin made the effort to get Mark Neumann selected as the Republican nominee for governor official, noting he would be “a weak general election gubernatorial candidate.”

To set up for this, they even managed to quash any serious competition in the suddenly-opened 7th Congressional race out despite Senate Democrat leader Russ Decker’s decades-long lusting after the seat. The bad news, at least for them, is they didn’t quite finish “deconflicting” their lieutenant governor race by “encouraging” State Senator Spencer Coggs (D-Milwaukee) to drop out the way they did Milwaukee Alderman Tony Zielinski, which would have cleared the field for outstate Assemblyman Tom Nelson. Worse, for everybody involved, the Milwaukee Democrats are insisting on party purity in both the Sheriff’s office and the 7th Senate District, so the biggest potential “Astro-swell” for Neumann is effectively out of play.

Ask Egg – Duelling Ads edition

by @ 8:03. Filed under Ask Egg, Politics - Wisconsin.

It’s time to break out another edition of Ask Egg and offer some free advice to both halves of the Republican gubernatorial campaign that they really should have taken.

Dear Egg,

My opponent, who has been seeking office longer than I’ve been in politics, has been getting a lot of traction by pointing out I’ve been in politics 16 years. Our oppo research found a couple of votes that, if made public, could blow holes in both his “outsider” claim and his “tax-cutter” image. We’re thinking about amping it up to the max. What say you?

-Wobbling in Wauwatosa


Dear Wobbling,

Voting records are always fair game, especially since this is his 6th bite at elective office in 18 years. Pointing out he voted for $9 billion in pork in a bill that was, at the time, roundly criticized for containing the pork, and voted against ending the marriage penalty, are winners, especially since your ultimate opponent voted against the pork, and support for the pork in the opposition party was greater than the support in your party.

Taking it to the next level by invoking the name of the current leader of the opposition party in that body, especially since she has nothing to do with Wisconsin, would be a mistake.

-Egg

Dear Egg,

I finally took your advice, focused on what I would do as governor, and started to make the opinion shift in my favor. The bad news is, I went back to the negativity well by emphasizing how long my opponent has been in politics every chance I can get, and my latter-period voting record came back to bite me. That’s not fair because it’s supposed to be the second person to open fire that gets it. I know you’re for him, but you’ve been fairer to me than some others. How can I reverse the reversal?

-Wiggling in Nashota


Dear Wiggling,

I did warn you that those walls weren’t exactly made of brick I do, however, sympathize with your anger over the comparison to San Fran Nan; that was a cheap shot. Going back to the more-distant past isn’t an option; too many people still know 1995 came before 1998. I would point out how you’re not like her in the here and now and go back to what brought your campaign out of the July blahs.

One more bit of free advice – remember what happened to John McCain the moment he locked up the nomination in 2008.

-Egg

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