With all of this destruction, how do Scott Walker and Republicans keep getting elected in Wisconsin?

[Still In Wisconsin]

My opinion is that it has been a combination of things. I've lived in Wisconsin for 48 of my fifty years so I feel like I've got a pretty good understanding of the people here.

I think the most obvious reasons are a massive funding advantage... as all know Scott Kevin Walker is the Koch's boy, and he is rewarded handsomely for doing their bidding. As far as the Legislature goes, they have a big money advantage there too (some Koch money, some Bradley foundation, some other).

But it's not only money. The R's won big in the Republican wave of 2010, and gerrymandered the hell out of the state. They even wrote many sitting Dems out of their own districts. Then, we have had (in my opinion) a comically inept State Democratic Party Chair, who believes that we can win by turning out Madison and Milwaukee and ignoring the rest of the state. We have also not exactly had awe-inspiring candidates on our side. I have no big problem with Tom Barret or Mary Burke, but they did nothing to excite the base or swing independents.

Finally, I think the Milwaukee area media is incredibly adept at whipping up the closet racists in the 'burbs into a frenzy about the brown President, and they flock to the polls in droves. I grew up in the Milwaukee suburbs, and there's this prevailing notion there that the City is full of lazy black people who exist for nothing more than to collect welfare and drink malt liquor from 40 ounce bottles on their front porches. Most suburbanites who feel this way are not open about it, but watch their reaction when their daughter asks to go to prom with a black kid. I know, because that black kid was my best friend growing up. Anyway, that's in my opinion where the huge margins Walker gets in Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington Counties come from.

[Scuba]

1. Your reasons are sound, but I think you missed one ...

[postulater]

3. I can still smell that stink.

Something is really rotten here.

And it is not just that the "hard-working tax-payers" all though walker was the tits. I know lots of "hard-working tax-payers" that lost good jobs because of walker and surely didn't vote for him.

[deminks]

7. Yup, and there is still Kathy's Special Software

which I am sure is still plugged in. IMHO.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Have you seen the devastating piece on Mike Tate & his chosen heir

Jason Rae in Blue Cheddar? I posted it in the WI forum but will reprise it here for greater exposure:


The gaming of the WI Democratic Party by Jason Rae and Nation Consulting
by blue cheddar • May 27, 2015

This is an anonymous post from Blue Cheddar, very scathing in re: Jason Rae

Under outgoing, current Chair Mike Tate, the DPW went from supporting, at least to some extent, all its candidates for legislative office in Wisconsin, to hitting up all its legislative candidates for cash for the DPW itself. They spoke of a 72 county plan but instead they concentrated on the heavily populated counties of Dane and Milwaukee which contain the cities of Madison and Milwaukee, and largely ignored the rest of the state as well as those who bravely entered the political ring as Democrats.

In Wisconsin the Democrats are getting ready to practice democracy. In just over a week the Democratic Party of Wisconsin will be holding its annual, statewide convention. There they will ask their delegates to vote to select a new Chair, or leader, for the statewide party.

The firmly blue, democratic leaning city of Milwaukee is the site of the convention. Milwaukee, the city that is surrounded by a collar of white suburbs that voted in Scott Walker as County Executive and then backed it up by voting in Tea Party darling in democratic clothing, mouthpiece and pawn of the uber-right Bradley Foundation, Chris Abele.

Oh well, democracy is a relatively new concept and is not yet perfected. But still sometimes one has to wonder. Shouldn’t we be at least slowly moving towards a more perfect form of democracy? As I look around it seems that not only are we no longer moving towards a more perfect democracy, but rather that we are running and leaping away from a more perfect democracy.

Much, much more detail at

http://www.bluecheddar.net/?p=42262

[Scuba]

4. /\ This is important; please read if you have time. /\

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Hell yeah, we were sold out.

It was mostly disgust with the top end, starting with Joe Wineke before Tate, that nudged me out of more active participation in the county & state Dems.

These guys were mostly selling their influence to private lobbying interests on the promise of delivering Democratic votes--or at least, Democratic Party silence.

[HooptieWagon]

6. That's the same situation in Fla.

A completely dysfunctional state party, poor candidates, and gerrymandering. Registered Dems outnumber Reps by nearly a million, yet the state party keeps forcing ex-republican candidates on us. They even work harder keeping progressives off the primary ballot than they do defeating republicans. In my District, a progressive US House candidate was forced off the primary ballot to clear the way for the "Party candidate", with several threats to he and his family by state and local party. The "Party candidate" was, naturly, an ex-republican. He then had to withdraw after the filing deadline when it was discovered he lied about his college degree and credentials. As a result, there was no Dem candidate on the GE ballot....in a leaning blue district. We see first hand what the Third Way is all about...making sure the election winner (whether D or R) is going to support corporatism. I'm completely fed up, and will not vote for any candidate promoted by the state party. The "lesser of two evils" is still much too evil for me.

[hollowdweller]

10. Yeah never understood FL. Lots of immigrants, lots on Social Security or defined private pensions.

You'd think these people would understand the GOP is after them and their benefits.

Of course here in WV we voted in a republican legislature for the first time in 60 or 80 years last election and one of their first actions was to eliminate prevailing wage for unions, and limit people's ability to sue coal companies when they are injured on the job.

The construction workers and miners turned out at the legislature, some what hurt and confused by the fact that the guys they elected to fight against the so called "war on coal" and to protect their guns were more interested in cutting their salaries and weakening protections in the work place.

[awoke_in_2003]

8. ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#/media/File:The_Gerry-Mander_Edit.png

[Worried senior]

9. Having lived in

Ozaukee County I know full well the mentality there. There are Dems but not nearly as many as there are repubs and their attitudes are just what Still in Wisconsin posted.

Now, we live up north and it's the same mentality here, some of us are Dems but most think others are getting what they should have.

I heard from a friend of my next door neighbor that was talking about some couple said "and their democrats", almost as bad as having the plague I guess.