Uh, if you’re going to recall an elected official, shouldn’t you at least have a candidate?

By Zach W On April 25, 2011 · 7 Comments · In News, Quick Hits, Those Kooky Conservatives!, Wisconsin Politics

I may not know a lot about the inner workings of political campaigns, but I do know one thing’s certain: you need to have a candidate to win an election:

[Recall organizer Dan] Hunt wanted Rep. Samantha Kerkman, R-Powers Lake, to run. But she said she talked about it with her family and decided not to run for Senate in the recall election. Hunt also said he is not planning to run but has not completely ruled it out.

Democratic State Senator Bob Wirch is no neophyte when it comes to running and winning political campaigns; after all, he beat some guy named Reince Preibus back in 2004, so it doesn’t bode well for Republicans that they can’t find a credible candidate to run against Wirch.

H/T to xoff.

Tagged with: Bob Wirch • recalls

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7 Responses to Uh, if you’re going to recall an elected official, shouldn’t you at least have a candidate?

Locke says:

April 26, 2011 at 4:54 am

Seems about right. Recalls are almost by definition not about who, but who NOT.

And with the recall fever we have, it’s all about stoking the flames, riling up the base and knocking the other side down in the hopes of changing the numbers. The hit jobs on the individuals is just the means.

If either side actually had a really good, positive candidate they’d build up momentum & name recognition & run in the next regular election. Hell, if they had somebody, they’d have run against the recall target last last time.

How many of these recall “villains” were unopposed in their last race?
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- Zach says:
  
  April 26, 2011 at 6:15 pm
  
  None of the State Senators who are the subjects of recalls were unopposed in 2008. The only State Senators who were unopposed were Republicans Lazich and Grothman and Democrats Taylor, Miller, Risser, and Coggs.
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  - Zach says:
    
    April 26, 2011 at 6:17 pm
    
    Actually, I take that back. Both Cowles and Olsen were unopposed.
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    - Locke says:
      
      April 26, 2011 at 11:01 pm
      
      Yeah, Cowles was one in particular that I had in mind because I remember hearing it discussed in the context of his seat being safe because of the percentage of votes or vote total he got when in fact, he had no challenger.
      
      Decided to go through & check Ballotpedia.
      
      Among the currently sitting Senators:
      5 Republicans were unopposed (Cowles, Olsen, Ellis, Lazich and Zipperer).
      2 more – Fitzgerald & Grothman were only opposed by Independents, not Democrats
      4 Democrats were unopposed (Taylor, Coggs, Miller and Risser).
      
      So out of 33 seats, 9 ran unopposed in fact, 2 more effectively unopposed. That’s one out of three that were handed their office, without having to answer to a challenger. That’s just plain pathetic. And sad. I don’t have the stomach to look over the Assembly races. I’d guess it’s probably 40-50% unopposed.
      
      Oh – and I realize that I got off track on the original point, about those being recalled who were unopposed. I’ll fully admit to having an agenda there – that unopposed races have become a bit of a windmill to tilt at for me. I still dream of creating an organization to do something about it.
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      - PartiallyBlue says:
        
        April 27, 2011 at 3:38 pm
        
        “I’ll fully admit to having an agenda there – that unopposed races have become a bit of a windmill to tilt at for me. I still dream of creating an organization to do something about it.”
        
        Want some help? I’ll send you an email.
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  - Locke says:
    
    April 27, 2011 at 11:46 am
    
    Anyway, back to the point I was making – the facts seem to support my conjecture pretty well:
    
    Democrats are trying to recall 4 Republicans who they failed to field a candidate against the last time they ran: Cowles, Olsen, Lazich and Grothman.
    
    Republicans are trying to recall 4 Democrats who they failed to field a candidate against the last time they ran: Taylor, Coggs, Miller and Risser.
    
    The message is pretty clear from both parties. We didn’t care before, but we really care now. We care enough to waste taxpayer money on recall elections when actually fielding a candidate in ’08 or ’10 wouldn’t have cost the taxpayers anything extra.
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Notalib says:

April 27, 2011 at 12:00 am

The Democrats are so scared that Hansen is going to get recalled they have been calling people up here harassing them, questioning if they really signed, asking if they knew what the signed. How pathetic, I sure hope they call me I can play games with them on the phone for a good 20 mins, my wife got a call from them and gave them an earful.

http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/news/local/green_bay/Dem-calls-tap-into-Aurora-Baycare-phone-line
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