Charlie Sykes secretly terrified for Scott Walker

Legendary coif in evident disarray

"Unlikely this will catch on in any big way," denies local medium-wave hominid Charlie Sykes. He's squawking about advice issuing from some Democratic quarters to forego the Democratic Party ballot and select a Republican one next Tuesday, to vote for Republican candidate for governor Mark Neumann against Sykes's favorite Scott Walker.

Wisconsin has an open primary, and a qualified elector needn't even declare party affiliation when voting. At the polling station, a voter receives separate ballots listing candidates for each party respectively, and then chooses one or the other in the voting booth.

It might be unlikely to catch on in a big way in Milwaukee County, where there are a number of competitive Democratic primary races and liberals won't pass up an opportunity to dethrone, for example, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke or State Senator Jeff Plale, both widely viewed by progressive observers as political impostors.

Dane County, the State capitol seat and repository of Wisconsin's second largest population of registered voters, is a different story. Left-leaning voters in Madison — which is nearly all of them, according to standard conservative mythology — could be sorely tempted to derail career politician Scott Walker's lifelong ambitions.

Late momentum favoring Neumann

And the temptation needn't catch on "in a big way," as the radio gabber fears. For one thing, Rasmussen Reports already shows Scott Walker and Mark Neumann in a dead heat,* and for another, Walker needs to deal with voters in Wisconsin's hardline conservative counties, among the next most populous after Milwaukee and Dane.

Potential Democratic shenanigans aside, those out-State voters are the ones the big city-bred Scott Walker really needs to be concerned about, and his comically desperate attempts to paint Mark Neumann as a Nancy Pelosi clone demonstrate that he's very concerned indeed.

No wonder Charlie Sykes's hair helmet is figuratively disheveled.

* Head to head against the (unopposed**) Democratic candidate, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Scott Walker and Mark Neumann are equally favored. Moreover: "Support for Neumann is up three points from earlier this month [at August 27] and is the highest measured for the candidate since polling of the race began in February."

The latter finding is the true source of the Scott Walker contingent's fear and trembling. Mark Neumann has captured the late momentum.

** eta: Whoops. Sorry about that, Tim John.

Wisconsin GOP primary ascends into farce

UPDATE: It was/is this "strategically significant" highway.

Pelosi attack flier was a "hardcore negative slam" — Neumann

The other day, Scott Walker sent out a mailing accusing rival Mark Neumann of voting with Nancy Pelosi on a 1998 transportation bill, when Neumann was in Congress. This is a grievous sin among Republicans: associating with Nancy Pelosi. The Heavens forfend.

It's only the oldest scam in the book, given the oft-mutating voting blocs within a 535-person (plus or minus Guam) bicameral legislature.

Never mind that dozens of other conservative Republicans — anybody top Jesse Helms? — voted for the transportation bill as well. Watch this comical WISN-12 teevee feature tracking Mark Neumann's agent as he stages an insurrection at Scott Walker HQ where, WISN's announcer gravely reports, the agent "received a chilly reception."

Cut the crap. Which highway in Canada did Mark Neumann pay for?

Please, let it be the Queen Elizabeth Way.*

* Disambiguation: #canadiansexpositions

THIS JUST IN: Top GOP mandarin demands Scott Walker stand down

On teh web: "Going negative" (complete with dropping bath towels).

Woman escapes kitchen, imperils GOP support

Republican candidate for governor Mark Neumann is finished, Journal-Sentinel political calumnist Patrick McIlheran can now report, based on the findings of an anonymous goof calling himself "Dad."

Why? Because Neumann, filling in for a local radio bloviator, brought his wife along into the studio. Worse, gawd forbid, Neumann "frequently asked for her input and/or approval on his thoughts."

Meanwhile, an April Rasmussen poll showed Mark Neumann having gained ground and running neck-and-neck with his Republican rival.

Mr. McIlheran's impeccable reportage is award-winning.

In Wisconsin, dark paranoias vs. carefree spirit

And F. James Sensenbrenner's falsehoods* probably don't help

Republican candidate Scott Walker claims Democrats are trying to hijack the primary and knock him out of the race.

Meanwhile, Walker's primary election rival Mark Neumann is "traveling the State in a school bus complete with a polka band."

Sounds like somebody's having fun and somebody else, not.

"Support for Mark Neumann is up three points from earlier this month and is the highest measured for the candidate since polling of the race began in February." — Rasmussen Reports, reporting a dead heat between the Republicans Walker and Neumann as of August 27.

It's the polkas, stupid.

* "[Scott Walker's communications director Jill] Bader suggested that because Sensenbrenner was Walker’s congressman, he would have supported Sensenbrenner’s position." Follow the logic: Because Russ Feingold/Barack Obama was Walker's senator/president, Walker would have supported Russ Feingold's/Barack Obama's position.

Exactly how dumb does the Walker campaign expect people to be?

Mark Neumann confirms he's not running for God

Thanks for clearing that up
Neumann also suggested that he would not hire an openly gay staffer

You can't be too careful, you know. According to enthusiastic Mark Neumann endorser Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, lesbianism is so out-of-control in the Sooner State they only let one girl at a time into the high school bathrooms.

Democrats double GOP in convention attendance

Update: So what I looked at was off by a factor of ten. Close enough.

While the Wisconsin Republican Party may have induced a few more bodies out to attend its convention last month in downtown Milwaukee, Badger State Democrats easily attracted hundreds more by streaming their proceedings live to tech-savvy supporters online.

According to figures tabulated by the DPW convention video provider USTREAM.tv, almost 2300 attended the virtual convention, in addition to the 1100 or so who made it over on the rainy, muggy weekend to a Marriott Hotel in Middleton, northwest of the Capitol.

In sum, the Democrats doubled the Republican attendance, 3400 against 1700. Sources said that during popular Milwaukee mayor and candidate for governor Tom Barrett's rousing speech this morning, 1700 online viewers joined about a thousand in-person celebrants.

[eta: Turns out it was more like 15,172 online viewers. Thus are there even fewer people with actual lives than hitherto imagined.]

However, at least two suspicious interlopers were discovered, one identified by his Twitter account as @ReincePreibus and who officials said should in all fairness be removed from the grand total.

"Troll alert," a Tweet had warned, as if sensing malevolence.

The status of the other was less clear. Mark Neumann, one of a pair of declared Republican gubernatorial hopefuls, showed up outside the Marriott surrounded by enthusiastic supporters waving Barrett signs.

At press enter time there were unconfirmed rumors the purpose of Neumann's pilgrimage was to re-gift disgruntled former benefactor James Klauser's ten thousand dollars to the Tom Barrett campaign.

Yet a number of bipartisan reports suggested that Neumann had recently been beating up another Republican and Barrett rival, Scott Walker, so hard that Neumann's $10K donation to the Barrett For Governor campaign would be seen as "largely symbolic."

Another wag quipped that Neumann was probably just lost.

Scott Walker plays the Canuck card

The ever vigilant Xoff spotted an internecine political mailer, in which Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker accuses his Republican primary election rival Mark Neumann of voting for a federal "bill that contained ... funding" for "a highway in Canada."

Et voilà:


Maybe somebody ought to ask Scott Walker which highway in Canada the U.S. federales funded, because it doesn't seem to be in here.



Could have been worse; could have been France (worse yet, Québec).

(Also I heard that road heads straight to New Flyer Industries in Winnipeg, which makes Scott Walker's Milwaukee County buses.)

Or at least put the question to Walker's coterie of communications professionals, whose replies might well be all the more implausible.

Moar:
→ Mark Neumann did pay for a highway in Canada
→ Who else paid for a highway in Canada?
→ Wisconsin GOP primary ascends into farce

Sensenbrenner must be voting for Tom Barrett

New Scott Walker ad, c/w F. James Sensenbrenner voiceover:

Mark Neumann voted 'Yes' for nine billion dollars in pork projects when he was in Congress. He voted 'Yes' to wasteful transportation spending. I voted against that bill because it was full of waste and payoff to special interests. Like me, Scott Walker opposed the bill* and the nine billion of wasteful spending. [Conclusion:] That's why I'm voting for Scott Walker.

Guess who else voted against "that bill"? Tom Barrett, Lloyd Bentsen, Alcee Hastings, Steny Hoyer, Robert Wexler, and ... David Obey.**

See how ridiculous these sorts of ads are? They practically depend on voter ignorance. And there could only be but one rational explanation for this one: Mark-Neumann-breathing-down-your-neck desperation.

Obviously, Scott Walker is feeling the heat.

Sensenbrenner and Walker have spent 59 years on the public payroll

* Except Scott Walker has never been a member of Congress.

** Mr. Obey's farewell speech to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention last June was quite possibly the most politically liberal peroration I've ever heard since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

(That's not facetiousness; it was a tremendous speech.)

Wisconsin Republicans seek activist judges

Update: Dear Leader affixes Great Seal of Kenya to health bill

In an unprecedented maneuver, two prominent Wisconsin Republicans are urging the courts to strike down federal legislation enacted contrary to their own personal preferences.

The Republicans, Mark Neumann and Scott Walker, both have designs on the Wisconsin governor's mansion and its "Cadillac" medical insurance coverage. Neumann is an affluent building developer who could afford to fly to Canada for heart surgery while Walker has been cashing a government paycheck for nearly 17 of his 42 years.

Yesterday they appealed to a third Republican, Wisconsin Attorney General J. Byron Van Hollen, to take affirmative legal action with a view to preventing thousands of working Wisconsinites from gaining improved access to basic health care services which for some reason they believe is an election-winning strategery.

In so challenging the law, the Republicans would join Texas, where this month all references to the reputed author of the Declaration of Independence and incipient Frenchman Thomas Jefferson were officially expunged from history books and replaced with paeans to Phyllis Schlafly, an heroic Disco-era opponent of equal rights.

Details of the contemplated lawsuits were sketchy, but according to some reports they were related to the federal government's power to regulate commerce among the several States, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled extends only to imprisoning a cancer patient for cultivating a medicinal herb in the privacy of her own apartment.

That Court, led by the progressive titan Justice Antonin Scalia, deduced that failing to imprison her would further encourage the activities of freedom-loving capitalist farmers in Bolivia.

Constitutional experts were astonished by Neumann and Walker's public entreaties. Several noted that it would mark the first time anybody other than a godless liberal Democrat had barreled straight into federal court to overturn the will of the people as duly expressed through their democratically elected representatives.

"These Republicans are taking a strip off Madalyn Murray O'Hair's successful crusade to rid the schools of prayer," said one. "And look what happened after that: General Motors stopped making Oldsmobiles and cable teevee started showing Bad Girls Club."

"Also, the gays," he added.

Neumann shooting deer at 13, Walker at 56

I'll sit out the general election if Mark Neumann is the nominee [for Wisconsin governor]. The Dems have to be loving this.* Get it through your thick skull, Mark. You're not going to be the nominee. If this is what your campaign is going to be all about, stop wasting your money and just GO AWAY.

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Republicans

Better: "Aghast" Neumann donor wants his ten grand back

* Lisa Kaiser is.

Just imagine the other 149

Supporter of local politician mortified by "publicity grab"

If there is one thing about Neumann’s latest publicity grab this sort of reminds me in last year’s Wisconsin Democratic Presidential Primary in which Hillary Clinton was desperate to get a debate against Barack Obama.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama since failed in their Democratic bids to become President of Wisconsin.

It ain’t no joke website here especially with me being named best blogger of the 2009 Americans for Prosperity National Defending the American Dream Summit. I competed with over 150 different blogs across the nation to win the award.

The AFP's national bestest blogger is therewith attacking GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann on "career politician" grounds in defense of Neumann's rival Scott Walker. Mr. Walker's photograph appears in the dictionary under "career politician."

Beg your pardon, "public servant."

Walker has had ... 16 years experience as a public servant.

The reason why Neumann is a career politician because he has spent four years with the party establishment against conservative values.

h/t WisOpinion.com, whose standards slipped a notch yesterday.

Pictured: Scott Walker delivers a fiery non-political speech on the importance of completing post-secondary education to an audience of two million tea ceremonialists in Milwaukee, September 19, 2009.

Neumann and Walker entertain the lefties

Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor Mark Neumann* is pretty clever if he predicted his YouTubes attack ad lampooning Milwaukee County Executive and GOP rival Scott Walker would immediately turn up on every liberal website in the State.

Then Walker was barraged with negative comments on Facebook. Just 48 hours later, Walker flipped.

According to Neumann, Walker went from being a "surprisingly tough" critic of a recently notorious Arizona immigration law, to whimpering like a baby at the mutiny of his Facebook BFFs,** to asserting he'd be "comfortable" signing the Arizona bill into law (whose own governor might be less comfortable with a Milwaukee county government functionary elbowing onto her desk and stealing her pen).

Which is intriguing because a few weeks ago Scott Walker announced he'd authorize his prospective attorney general to join a Florida lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a certain provision in the federal health care reform statutes.

Walker and his cohorts insist the latter's so-called individual insurance mandate exceeds Congress's power under the U.S. Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause (even though the federal government will primarily defend the mandate as a tax).

Yet the power to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" is specifically enumerated to Congress and not Arizona nor even Wisconsin. So to the extent that Arizona encroaches on Congress's enumerated power to legislate on immigration matters, the Grand Canyon State's initiative is a constitutional dead letter.

That is, among the scholarly set at least, it inspires little "comfort."

And that concern is entirely separate from the projected glut of unreasonable searches and seizures attached to attempts at enforcing the Arizona law (which some court's injunction is likely to prevent anyway, another reason not to get too "comfortable").

On the other hand, Congress's ability to impose a tax in the form of buying into a federally regulated health insurance system (there's no dispute that health care runs on interstate commerce, the regulation of which is also clearly federal domain) is a far more open question.

Fortunately Scott Walker isn't running for the Supreme Court, because evidently his "judicial philosophy" is lacking in consistency.

Meanwhile, F. James Sensenbrenner is still soliciting activist judges.

* Neumann has gone rogue, spurning the Party faithful at this weekend's State Republican debauch in Milwaukee, which culminates in Scott Walker's allegedly triumphant return from his Apology Tour of President Obama's investments in Wisconsin schools and families.

** We don't know which ones waited until they got off work.

Mark Neumann did pay for a highway in Canada

"Bridge to Nowhere"* was cool also, except for the Nancy Pelosi

At a press conference on Sunday, Neumann didn't dispute the assertion, but said that the comparison with Pelosi, a liberal Democrat, was a low blow and a "personal attack" against him.

Lots of other folks actually admire Nancy Pelosi and her achievements but for these people even the mildest association with the Speaker of the House is a "low blow," a "personal attack." Fine. That's politics.

Yet the fact that Scott Walker lied — the U.S. government does not pay for highways in Canada — in his official campaign mailer isn't even mentioned, not by Neumann, and not by the Journal-Sentinel, which incidentally launched a new "fact-checking" website last night.

So you are a worse person for simply blowing another reliable Fox News dog whistle at the other guy than you are when you flat out lie.

Which of those two things says more about your suitability seems clear enough. Scott Walker's getting away mighty easy on this one.

The people need to stop validating politicians' sins. Stop teaching them that merely "going negative" is worse than lying like a rug.

Isn't it obvious that no one's concerned with facts anymore?

— an astute JSOnline commenter

It's getting there alright.

* That long-ago proposed connection actually is directed in the bill.

GOP bigwigs to Neumann: Stop your nonsense

Ex-supporter was for giving Neumann $10K
before he was for asking him to give it back
Walker backers caught with pants down

— reporter Dan Bice obtains the note

McCoshen, a lobbyist and former top aide to ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson, sent the note to dozens of prominent Republicans — mainly, his fellow Thompson acolytes — last week.

And apparently to at least one non-acolyte.

Xoff: Turncoat Klauser turns Walker hatchet man
Foto: Mark Neumann rallies the opposition Saturday
Also: Doyle and Obey's legacy includes a pantload of cash

Neumann's contrivances "confusing enough"

A droll analysis from Jack Craver a.k.a. The Sconz.

Because Mark Neumann knows that when it comes to the easily confused, you got to hit 'em where it hits.

Terse Neumann acknowledges AGW

Premise accepted

Question: Should state take any steps to curb gases that cause global warming?

Mark Neumann: No.

On the issues.

Tom Coburn the RINO gyno

How dare he, the ruffian.

Just the other day a Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor, Mark Neumann, received Sen. Coburn's enthusiastic endorsement.

Ask Senator Tom Coburn why does he hate The Truth.

Note to Congress:

Don't create positions that Tom Coburn has no intention of filling.

Other blocked Obama nominees include Dick Morris for Chairman of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Snail Darter Commission.

Methane gas alert issued for Wisconsin State Fair

A most unseemly petting zoo

The first [live debate between Republican candidates for governor Mark Neumann and Scott Walker] on Aug. 6 will take place on Jeff Wagner's radio program on WTMJ-AM at noon. He'll be broadcasting from the Wisconsin State Fair.

They'd best cut the horses' and bulls' rations a day or two beforehand.

Mark Neumann champions robust democracy

While career politician Walker revels in backroom party accolades

Who else paid for a highway in Canada?

The following devoted Nancy Pelosiites, is who:

John Ashcroft (R-MO)
Sam Brownback (R-KS)
Bill Frist (R-TN)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Jesse Helms (R-NC)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Trent Lott (R-MS)
Rick Santorum (R-PA)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Fred Thompson (R-TN)
Strom Thurmond (R-SC)

Inter alia.

→ Mark Neumann did pay for a highway in Canada
→ Scott Walker plays the Canuck card