DougJ’s been off the grid, and the rest of us frontpagers have been remiss. I’m not sure anybody here has talked about the latest Rethuglican tactic — running “fake Democrats” (professional Republicans) in the Democratic recall primaries, in order to siphon low-information voters and possibly succeed in reducing the recall elections to a cruel farce where a “new” (pre-vetted, Republican) candidate claiming the “Democrat” label runs against the sitting Republican (partner in the crime). From a DailyKos diary by user Puddytat:
Next Tuesday will be Recall Primary Day for the Republican State Senators Districts we are targeting and I among, many, many others have been working our collective butts off to insure that the real Democrats defeat the Fake democrats to get a clear shot at their real targets: Republican State Senators who have rubber stamped every lunatic, RW thing that Walker and the Fitzgerald Brothers (each one in the Majority Leader of each of our legislative houses) put before them.
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The Fake Democrats are truly fake. They have raised very little money, but they don’t need funds because their purpose isn’t to run or win, but to delay the actual recall election and confuse voters…
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As a result, there are 4 important election dates coming up within the next month or so…
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Bottom Line: We need to keep our Democratic State Senators in office, prevent the fake Democrats from winning primaries (yes, we have open primaries in Wisconsin so the Republican Party is actively encouraging their base to vote for the fake Democrat), then win at least 3 of the recall elections in the State Senate to turn it to a Democratic majority.
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More good information is always available at We are Wisconsin.
Click over to Puddytat’s full diary for much more detail. And here’s a link to the Balloon Juice ActBlue page:
JGabriel
I fully expect the WI GOP to ratfuck Dems on the day of the primaries with automated calls saying, “Don’t forget to get out today and vote for the REAL Democrat, {insert Fake Democrat here}!”
I hope the WI Dems are prepared for that contingency.
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Retr2327
The problem is not that the fake deems might win, but that if they run, a primary is necessary before the recall election. So it’s a delay tactic.
VidaLoca
I live in Milwaukee and I’ve been knocking on doors and/or phone banking since February as a part of the effort to initiate a recall election against one Alberta Darling, co-chair of the Legislative Joint Finance committee and hence a key part of Walker’s agenda (her opponent is Sandy Pasch, mentioned in Puddytat’s article). I’d just like to say that Puddytat basically got it right: the presence of the fake Democrats has forced recall elections where previously none were necessary, causing the general elections to be moved back a month.
While there has been some of the “ratfucking” JGabriel has suggested (and of course more could come in the next 48 hours), it appears that the biggest motivation behind the “fake Democrats” ploy is to allow time for Walker and the Fitzgeralds to ram through a gerrymandered re-apportionement of the Congressional and Legislative districts.
Lockewasright
It’s important to get this info out there so there will be fewer of those low information voters left to be hoodwinked at the polls. I wonder if there is an article that I can post from a blog or news site that has any credibility at all left.
JGabriel
@Retr2327:
It may not be the primary concern, but it’s still a problem in a low turn-out primary. Remember Alvin Greene?
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VidaLoca
In Wisconsin, we have an “open primary” system — people can go to their polling place and vote either party’s ballot in a primary election. You don’t have to pre-register yourself as a member of any party. So the greatest danger Tuesday night is not from “low information” voters (whose motivation levels thankfully often match their information levels), rather it’s from the “high information” voters: people who are ideologically committed to cross-party sabotage. The only way to counter this phenomenon is (no surprise) to have the better GOTV machinery in place and have more high-information, high-motivation voters lined up. Speaking only for my own experience in Wis-SD8, I have no question that there are a number of such “electoral saboteurs” here. However on the whole it looks pretty optimistic: it doesn’t appear that the Republicans made the committment here to their electoral shenanigans that they would have had to make, in order to succeed.
VidaLoca
efgoldman:
Short answers:
(1). No, we have no concept of registration.
(2). Yes. That’s absolutely what they did.
agrippa
I think that the counter to fake Democrats running in the primary is a strong get out the vote effort.
Gravenstone
Was just going to toss out the info VidaLoca already covered. We have open primaries here so the real danger is that Republicans mobilize to elect the “fake” Democrats, then they simply have to come back out in a month to vote for the incumbent Republicans in the actual recall elections. That danger is greatest of course in the +R districts.
Spaghetti Lee
What about the three Democrats up for recall? Hansen, Holperin, and Wirch, as I recall. They likely to lose?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
if nothing else, wisconsin is becoming the laboratory of all republican tricks. they are so pinned to the red on the shame-o-meter they aren’t holding anything back.
there should be dozens of interesting and useful documentaries and books, that lay out the entire gop playbook in the land where they aren’t at all concerned about cloaking.
i will give more when i am liquid, i am fascinated like many outsiders.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Hi Anne and All,
I kicked in another $80 (+10%). Nothing would help restore national sanity quicker than to have the recall elections succeed. Thanks to everyone who is working so hard to make this happen. Keep up the fight.
Cheers,
Scott.
VidaLoca
Spaghetti Lee —
I don’t have the numbers available to me ATM but the 3 Democrats up for recall all look pretty safe. The most immediate concern then is not that we’ll lose any of them, but whether we’ll gain at least 3 of the 6 Republican seats, thereby flipping the Senate.
Sad Iron
I’m a state worker in Wisconsin–it only gets worse with these scum Republicans: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/125225179.html
Bender
But IOKIYAD.
Yet again, the least self-aware blog on the intertrons whines and moans about a election tactic that the Democrats relied on in 2008, running fake Tea Party “Republican” candidates against Harry Reid and others to try and split the conservative vote.
Again, just admit it: IOKIYAD.
kideni
The GOTV efforts for the real Democrats have been pretty intense, so I’m optimistic that Tuesday will go fine (and if the real Dems can’t beat the fake Dems, then there’s no way they would’ve won the general election anyway).
Here are the dates to keep in mind:
12 July: Democratic primaries in the 6 districts where Republicans are being recalled
19 July: Republican primaries in 2 of the districts where Democrats have been recalled; general election in Democrat Dave Hansen’s district (which should go fine, since the candidate that might have had a shot, a state assemblyman, didn’t bother to get enough signatures on his petition, so they’re left with a guy with a long rap sheet of domestic violence, building code violations for the properties he owns, etc.)
9 August: general elections in the 6 districts where Republicans have been recalled
16 August: general elections in the remaining 2 Democratic districts
A few weeks ago, Daily Kos had PPP do a poll in 3 of the Republican districts (Shilling (D) v. Kapanke (R), King (D) v. Hopper (R), and Moore (D) v. Harsdorf (R)); they’re apparently planning to poll the other 3 as well. Shilling was ahead of Kapanke by double digits, King led Hopper 50-47, and Moore was behind Harsdorf 50-45. It’s actually impressive that Moore did as well as she did, because she’s never run for office (she’s a teacher) and Harsdorf has been in office for over 20 years, and the way the Republicans have been targeting the district suggests that they’re really worried about it.
One of the sleazy things about the redistricting is that they’re redistricting several Dem senators out of their own districts: Sen. Wirch would have to move; Fred Clark would be in a different district if he beats Luther Olsen; Nancy Nussbaum would be in a different district by about a block if she beats Cowles. It sounds as though Sandy Pasch would still be in the same district if she beats Alberta Darling, but they’ve jiggered it enough that the demographics would be completely against her next year. This also suggests that the Republicans are worried about those districts.
Yutsano
@Bender:
Fail. Harry Reid wasn’t up for election in 2008. And Angle was all yours genius. I suppose you’re gonna say O’Donnell was a Dem plant too now?
Citizen Alan
What are you babbling about, you ignorant buffoon? Are you seriously suggesting that Harry Reid is somehow responsible for the fact that Sharon Angle was a deranged loon? That she was a fake candidate engineered by Democrats instead of someone perfectly representative of the insane death cult that the GOP has now become?
agrippa
kideni, I hope that you are right in your optimism!
kideni
agrippa @ 20: I hope so too. The real challenge will be 9 August. Remember that these Republicans were all elected in 2008, which was otherwise a banner year for Democrats in Wisconsin, so these districts are tough. Of course, the Republicans are incredibly creative ratfuckers, so I won’t put it past them to do something really shitty this Tuesday.
Spaghetti Lee
I suppose you’re gonna say O’Donnell was a Dem plant too now?
Of course she was. When you’re a member of the Jesus ‘n’ John Galt fueled Republican Cult of Self, you are never incompetent or ignorant, perish the thought. It’s those other people who are, and if they make you look stupid, well obviously it was some kind of dirty trick.
Mnemosyne
@ Bender
Sharron Angle must be one heck of a deep-cover Democratic mole since she was first elected to the Nevada assembly as a Republican in 1999.
Imagine her having to sit there in the assembly and bide her time, voting for Republican bills and pretending to be a Republican for over a decade just so she could sabotage Republican efforts to unseat Harry Reid in 2010. Man, those Demo-rats are sneaky, eh, Bender?
VidaLoca
kideni —
I’ve seen numbers similar to yours.
The general elections are still four weeks out from today so a lot can change but at the moment, here’s how it stacks up.
1. We probably hang on to the three challenged Democratic Senators.
2. Of the three additional (currently Republican) seats we need to win we’re strong on one, and at least ahead on another.
3. We need to pick up a third (net) seat from the remaining four to win however, and there’s no such thing as “being close”: being down by one vote is about the same as being down by a dozen; the Senate Republicans are more consolidated than ever and there will be no prying off a vote here or a vote there. And of these four races, we’re currently behind. Not by a large margin, but we’re behind.
QFT. On the other hand, it’s also becoming the laboratory of all left-wing tricks. We’re trying to bring it to them, and we have a good chance of succeeding.
I realize that my thanks doesn’t mean much but, I want to take the opportunity to thank each one of you who has dug into your pockets to support the cause here. It truly means a lot. We’re trying our best, we’re within reach of success, but your support and your solidarity are crucial to the outcome in August. So… thanks again to all of you.
Oh, and Bender? Bite me hard.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
you know who else was a plant by democrats. every republican that ever lost an election, palin, mccain, bob dole, santorum, reagan and ford in 76,goldwater, nixon in 60