This race is going to be close:
Latest poll puts Burke up by 1.
Actually, Scott Walker pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in Federal Prison.
Oh! you mean the Scott Walker of Wisconsin. I was talking about the Scott Walker of Mississippi. Never mind. You have to word your bets carefully when dealing with shifty characters like MfM. I guess Bricker dodged that bullet. Whew! 
In other news, Wisconsin GOP Endorses Basis for Walker Criminal Probe according to PR Watch: I commend them for coming around on this pressing public issue and I trust they will follow up with an endorsement of Mary Burke (D) for Governor. This is especially noteworthy given that Walker is not yet a target of an investigation, technically.
I’m pretty sure Karl Rove is not involved in the smears and lies being spread against Walker.
Except as a desperate attempt at a tu quoque, but that hardly counts, does it?
Regards,
Shodan
Karl Rove has been instrumental in moving American politics into the gutter over the last several decades. No one else, not even Dick Cheney, has done so much evil to American politics.
Lies about Walker? You mean some speculative, perhaps wishful thinking, on the part of his opponents that he would be indicted? Those lies? Or something else?
Walker outraising Burke:
So Walker “winning” out of state 4 to 1 and in-state 3 to 2.
No doubt Walker is also winning the dark money game, but we don’t know by how much and never will know. (Unless the IRS gets its act together and takes away the tax exempt status of political “social welfare” groups.)
With all that money to throw into the campaign it’s odd that Burke is keeping it so close. Of course Walker won the recall in 2012 when he had eight months to campaign compared to Barrett’s one month and outraised and out spent Barrett by something like ten to one. So perhaps he needs even more moolah to win this time.
Interesting fight by Walker and Burke over outsourcing.
Scott Walker: Criticism of Mary Burke not a criticism of outsourcing
Also interesting that the business person in this election is the Democrat and the life time politician is the Republican.
Should be fun to watch.
Nothing odd about it. Money is important, but it shouldn’t be a shock when the underfunded candidate wins. It’s only in cases of truly outlandish disparities(like when one candidate has $2 million and the other has $20,000) that victory can usually be assumed.
Walker will outspend Burke probably 2:1. Burke may still win if the voters don’t like the job Walker has done.
WEDC/DWD award recipients hosting Walker fundraisers
(FYI - WEDC = Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Walker’s pet project, which he chairs.)
and now,
Governor’s office clamps down on disclosures
.
Covering his tracks. Makes it tougher to find out where his out of state moolah is coming from and which companies are paying to play with the WEDC. Whatever happened to “the most transparent administration in state history”?
Serious question – did Walker ever promise such a thing?
Didn’t notice the date on this one, but it has to be sometime in 2014.
Running on transparency
Clearly it’s human nature to not want disclosure and, as a Democrat, I am very disappointed in the national administration. So, in this case, the “both sides do it” defense has some validity.
This is from 2010:
I wonder what that reporter would say today. And, as I said, human nature.
As with all other elections in non-locked-districts/states, Walker’s re-election hinges on one thing and one thing only: how do the voters feel about the economic vector of Wisconsin? Given that the race is fairly close, that is all that matters. If Walker can convince the state that things are on a non-negative trajectory he will keep his job. If not, it seems likely he might end up the guest of some of those prison guards whose benefits he was working so hard to eviscerate.
I rather doubt that Walker would actually be imprisoned for using public employee time to work on his campaigns. I suspect even lying to investigators wouldn’t be considered criminal enough.
A rising tide lifts all boats and, like the country as a whole, Wisconsin’s economy has been slowly improving. However, when compared to neighboring states and the country as a whole, Wisconsin’s economy is improving more slowly. Is that important enough to sway voters?
More slowly compared to other REpublican states, but next to Illinois… Seriously, Illinois can be used in that region as an example of the dangers of Democratic rule in every campaign.
What matters is not the numbers but how optimistic or pessimistic the voters feel about how things are. And, of course, if the whole state is intensely ambivalent, he will be re-elected by a margin of Waukesha.
Minnesota is far and away the best comparison. Similar demographic and economic mix to Wisconsin.
Revised and Updated Data Indicate Minnesota-Wisconsin Economic Activity Gap Increases
All state-to-state comparisons are valid if we’re going by level of improvement. And while Minnesota stacks up okay to Wisconsin, it gets left in the dust by Indiana, the Dakotas, and Michigan, which according to your argument should be at a disadvantage since it has similar demographics to Illinois.
I would dispute the highlighted portion. Show me where Wisconsin is more akin to Illinois than Minnesota.
You might more profitably compare Illinois and Michigan which seem somewhat similar. In Michigan they’re cutting off water to folks’ homes, imposing city managers and going bankrupt. Illinois certainly has its serious problems as well, no doubt. (Start with the gun murder rate.)
That’s what I meant, Michigan vs. Illinois. Michigan certainly has great problems, but all of those problems were inherited by the current administration and things have gotten a lot better. Whereas in Illinois, they inherited a lot of problem and things haven’t changed all that much.
What’s that you say, things in Michigan have gotten better? No, wait, a lot better! Now, *that *would be a cite for sore eyes!
Poppycock and balderdash, I say! Snyder had the good fortune to be in office when the car industry rebounded. He inherited a recovery. All he has done in office is appoint thugs in charge of financially unstable cities, resulting among other things in the theft of a lakeshore park in Benton Harbor to build a golf course for the elite. He has clobbered seniors by taxing their pensions and homeowners by virtually eliminating the propery tax credit. Worst of all, he rushed a union busting right to work bill through. He’s a one-termer in my opinion.
I won’t say Snyder’s a magnificent governor. Neither is Walker. But the policies enacted by the legislatures and enforced by the GOP governors are pro-growth, and naturally, growth results. Whereas the policies in Illinois are anti-growth, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Illinois’ neighbors are the only beneficiaries of their policies.
When the government exists primarily to promote the interests of the government itself, nothing good can come of that. Minnesota is Democratic-run, but Minnesota has a bit of a “maverick” history. They elected Jesse Ventura after all! Illinois represents Democratic machine politics at its worst, and Wisconsin wasn’t much better before Walker’s reforms.
It looks like Illinois will be electing a Republican governor. It would be a shame for other states in that region to go backwards when Illinois is finally waking up.
Kansas under Brownback is “waking up”, too. Waking up screaming.
And this:
“…GOP governors are pro-growth, and naturally, growth results…” is rather more controversial than you suggest.