Jim Klauser, who was Terrence Wall’s campaign co-chair, was quoted by the Wisconsin State Journal responding to allegations from the former Senate candidate that Ron Johnson bought his endorsement at last month’s Republican Party of Wisconsin convention:
“I looked into it and I found nothing to support it. Sadly, I think this is all a part of his imagination. I think he is conjuring it up and demeaning a reputable individual in the process.
The Johnson campaign produced documents showing a total of 6 rooms paid for by the campaign, which the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports was for Johnson, his wife, and 6 campaign staffers.
Specifically on the delay of the endorsement vote, one can blame the deadlock on the lieutenant governor’s 3-ballot ultimate non-endorsement. I was there Saturday, and the endorsement process for governor and lieutenant governor took 6 hours.
Just as a reminder, the votes weren’t even counted after Dick Leinenkugel’s surprise drop-out and endorsement of Johnson from the stage before the Wall campaign hit Johnson for taking the endorsement of “Doyle’s favorite Republican”.
One more thing – buying votes at a convention is not illegal. Wall was as busy as anybody else handing out (and selling) trinkets all weekend long. Quoting UW-Milwaukee professor of governmental affairs Mordecai Lee, “not exactly” a conservative, from the WSJ article:
At the end of the day, what he has accused Johnson of is not illegal, so I’m not sure what he hopes to accomplish. But I think he better stick to non-partisan elections, if he ever wants to run for office again.
I guess that, since Wall won’t be replacing Russ Feingold, he would rather keep his tenant in office.
