Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk is “technically” the first to enter the race to replace Scott Walker as Governor of Wisconsin(Tim Cullen is supposedly also running). Here is her introduction to the race.
I really like Kathleen Falk and think she would do a great job. If you took a blind test comparing her record as Dane County Executive to Scott Walker’s record as Milwaukee County Executive, Kathleen Falk wins hand down. Unfortunately it is not a blind test and Walker is willing to spend millions to lie and distort his record. They will try and portray her as a “Madison Liberal” so that will be something that she will have to overcome, but that will be the talking point whoever ends up being the candidate. I will wait and see who all jumps in before I endorse, but I do think that Kathleen Falk deserves consideration.
On to the Primary.
Jeff,
What do you mean she’s “technically” the first to jump in the race? What about Tim Cullen and Cindy Kilkenny?
Cindy is blowing smoke and I have not seen anything official from Tim Cullen(i did mention him though).
Not that its my sole decision, but I hope someone other than Kathleen Falk is the democratic nominee.
I’m afraid Kathleen would be a disaster. Dane County liberal and choice of the union bosses, those are the charges she will face and the problem is that it will not be hard to make the case. She is a poor speaker and many people (me included) are not happy about how she sunk Peg Lautenschlager, I hope she doesn’t have more of that in store for the near future. If she wants to hold office that bad, why did she quit as Dane County executive in the middle of her term?
PLEASE RUSS!!!!!
I’ve finally heard a liberal admit that being a liberal is distasteful to most of the electorate. When the author states, “They will try and portray her as a “Madison Liberal” so that will be something that she will have to overcome” I would agree. For most working people who really are aware abhor being taxed to pay for those who do not pay taxes and will not work. The fact that liberals are in favor of that state of affairs shows common sense people quite a bit and the fact that it could be used as a cudgel against her is telling me that even you liberals know it.
That, I believe, is why you people continually change your name. It started with communists, then reds, then liberals and of late has become progressives. Even with the change in names used to run from the fact that you think with your heart instead of with your head, you do what makes you feel good instead of what is good for society and your victims we still know you. In some cases we pity you and in some cases we laugh at you. But in all cases we feel sorry for your victims. They are the ones who have their self respect and will to succeed taken from them when you keep them in the housing projects and give them their means to exist without having to work for it.
We know that the average liberal thinks they are doing a good thing by their actions but those in the lead are the real criminals. They are doing nothing more than buying votes using your and my money while doing this harm.
Jim,
I am with you lets make sure those bastards actually start paying taxes!
http://bloggingblue.com/2012/01/19/mitt-romneys-pitance/
While I think my girlfriend’s dog would probably stand a good chance against Scott Walker after the last 2 months, we can do a LOT better than Kathleen Falk and her ego.
And we will do better, because we will be the ones that make that decision, not the DPW elites.
Like I said I am not sure if I am 100% behind Kathleen Falk yet but she has a valuable voice that should be heard as part of the primary period.
That being said, if your girlfriends dog makes a campaign video let me know and I will post that also!
Jake from the LP,
No need to insult your girlfriend’s dog.
Jeff,
I thought you would miss the thrust of my retort.
I would like to see those without jobs working and, you’re right, paying taxes. I think you and those like you would rather enslave them to welfare and public housing because it makes you feel good about yourself.
That is the difference between people like me and those like you. You look for people to whom you can give my money to if they aren’t working. I, on the other hand, like to help them find a job so they can earn their own money and feel good about their own self worth.
That, my man, is a basic difference.
Clearly Jim’s a fan of sweeping generalizations and stereotypes.
I’d like to see those without jobs working…..does that mean I’m not a liberal? Hardly.
The basic difference between conservatives like you and liberals like me is that you don’t believe that the less fortunate deserve any help beyond telling them, “Hike up your bootstraps and get a job.”
Good ole Zach,
No, I do believe you are a liberal. You do believe in giving people an incentive to not work and not seek employment. We all see it each and every time the unemployment insurance period is extended and welfare benefits are expanded. More incentives to not work.
Those things make you feel better about yourself, that you are helping people. Your problem is that you can’t see that it destroys a person’s desire to go to work or even look for work. Why work when we can get by on our benefits and an unemployment check?
Well, those like you have the upper hand at this time but things are changing. I think the era of paid idleness is coming to an end. I think that most people are beginning to see your type for what they are and changing your name from commie to red to liberal to progressive will not fool them.
People realize that we cannot afford to subsidize your type of ‘liberalism’ any more. There are just not enough people working to pay the bill. We keep borrowing from China to make your constituency comfortable which inflates the national debt which is already out of control.
‘The times, they are a changing’ and this is just your way of kicking and screaming as you are being ushered out.
You really know nothing about me….lol.
I love how you write in sweeping generalizations and stereotypes, as if all liberals fit neatly into one box.
Well, since you like stereotypes so much, I’m just going to assume you’re a racist, since there are in fact some racist conservatives out there.
Zach,
Are you aware of my race?
Just like a liberal. They start losing an argument and they start calling names and casting aspersions.
I’m not calling you names; I’m simply throwing around stereotypes. I figured you wouldn’t mind, since that’s what you’ve been doing the entire time you’ve been here.
Jim,
Again I am with you. I want to see ALL Americans working. Join me in the fight for Rob Zerban and the end of our insane trade policies that keep shipping jobs by the thousands to China!!
See common ground my friend!
Jeff,
I would be glad to take a look at this guy if you could show me what he stands for. I went to his web page and his claim to fame is that he is not Paul Ryan. Admittedly, it was a quick perusal but being against someone is just not good enough. I get the feeling from his web site that if he made his views and proposals known his chances for election would nose dive.
Get back to me when he has something to say about what he wants to do and has the guts to explain it on his web site.
With regard to our trade policy with China, maybe we need to change our leadership in the executive branch. I’m sure Newt or Romney would welcome your vote. If you are serious maybe you should reconsider your leftward bent.
Jim,
I hope you’re livelier in person than your writing style would suggest. I can almost hear your loved ones snoring from way up here.
Whoa, Stevey. You’r the dude, dude.
How’s that? Suit your style better?
Yes, Jim. I r the dudey dude.
You know, Jim has a point about liberalism.
But what he is talking about is neoliberalism, aka the trickle down theory that we all knows works very well because the rich will give money to our economy — Oh. Wait. Something that all of the so called conservatives he embraces fully in mainstream culture.
The “Free Market” suffers from the same flaw that makes Communism impossible. They both deny the innate human desire to screw someone else for their own personal gain. To succeed at the expense of someone else’s failure. This is why neoliberalism has to come to a stop.
Sadly though, considering how majority conservatives follow lockstep in line with their respective leaders, that’s not likely to change anytime soon as they continue to pound our economy into the ground while they fantasize the left completely dying forever failing to realize the reason why America continues to run on such a broken system is because the left is dragging them out from the dangerous policies each time. (Not that all the Democrats or Obama aren’t guilty. It’s just the Republicans in power tend to not read and just go along party lines. )
T,
You make it all sound like as if this is a zero sum game. I think you are intelligent enough to know better than that. When someone gets a job and starts earning a paycheck that money stimulates the economy in that more and more workers spend more and more money buying products requiring more people to be hired to manufacture those products.
When money is taken from workers to give to those who do not work that money has to pass through another set of hands with a lot less of it getting to the market place. I’m not sure where you get this ‘succeed at the expense of someone else’s failure’ business but if you really believe that maybe you should go back to school, retake economics and really do the studying you were supposed to be doing the first time.
I am not, by the way, a republican as I have seen how they have become more and more liberal since Bush the elder, even before. I agree that both parties are the problem. I would like you to expound on your statement: ‘the reason why America continues to run on such a broken system is because the left is dragging them out from the dangerous policies each time.’ Did you just throw that out there to see if your fellow liberals would buy it or is it a thoroughly thought out statement? I doubt it is the second. Back it up, please.
Let me guess, you’re a libertarian. Or as I say it – a Glibertarian since you fundamentally are no different from a conservative, you just want to be called under a different name. You know, the ones that drove me out of the Tea Party I was originally curious about all those years ago in 2006. I could easily tell by the self indulgent ramblings. I used to be prone to that as well when I was a libertarian. Admittedly, at one point I was a libertarian as well and still hold some aspects of it.
What woke me up from being so high up and believing I was so independent as an island with those Ayn Rand self indulgent ranting like I’ve seen in your comments, was realizing those few ‘leeches’ were just that – a few out of the many who needed that safety net only temporarily to get back up on their feet to get another job. And those said leeches would just scatter to suck on another aspect of society if the welfare programs weren’t there. These types of people: don’t just take advantage of welfare programs – although they definitely do try to do every loophole in the book. They also take advantage of people, churches, and other organizations. By removing those welfare programs, you’re just giving them more to survive on because so many people would fall because of it.
It’s a known fact that neoliberalism has been putting this country into a slow decline ever since Richard Nixon then Jimmy Carter introduced it, Ronald Reagan pushed it main stream, and has been going down hill. When the Republican Party and the Democratic Party started dancing around the subject of Neoliberalism itself, only the Republican Party deciding grasp hands with the ideological perspective as well turning it into the present day Handmaiden’s Tale although a lot less extreme.
While it was certainly not perfect prior to Neoliberalism, particularly dealing with race issues, and so on — we were all considering, economically secure. This is the exact reason why I think Ike Eisenhower was the last ‘real’ Republican President.
Systematically, Neoliberalism is fixed for the money to eventually flow up to big corporations, where it would be impossible to start new successful businesses due to the monopolies and competing with companies that are now too big to fall. You can even see it in television stations. In every country that Neoliberalism has touched. The most extreme cases being in the United Kingdom, Greece, and United States – we have begun to see the severe decline, although people who were born in my position in society have seen it ever since it reared it’s head.
But as I said before: a huge portion of the Democratic Party and by far the majority of the Republican Party still believe Neoliberialism works (or at least act it because they’re benefitting from the situation) so there’s really no use to argue about it. What I’m talking about in terms of ‘liberalism’ – is the traditional kind that saved this country. Unfortunately, many Democrats and most Republicans at the top in Washington D.C. particularly now days are neoliberals in power.
The only way to hypothetically get us out of this situation is to make a solid infrastructure, have good education that everyone is able to afford, and many other aspects. Unfortunately, that takes at least twenty years to build up, and as long as this war of partisanship continues to go on, the less we will see an actual improvement because they are constantly destroying the work of the other side.
However: this is enough naval gazing for me. I rarely comment on this blog anymore due to lack of time, insults being tossed around about ‘intellectuals’ like yourself who cover their arguments in veiled insults, and blatant partisanship from both sides.
You can defend neoliberalism as much as you want honestly. At this point I’ve stopped arguing why it’s a bad thing because I’ve come to the sad conclusion our country is going to collapse because of it either way. And there’s not much we can do about it at this point except brace for impact since we have no control.
Running a country like a giant business has it’s downsides when you realize that many people who should able to afford your products can’t afford them anymore.
And honestly as someone in business? To succeed at the expense of someone else’s failure? I don’t think that is the worst thing in the world either, as long as it is within reason. What we’re having now is that there are too little succeeding at most people’s extreme failures.
There will always be haves and have nots, but we can’t continue to be a society of so little have-alls and so many have-nones.
Jim, a couple things. while robs website is much more than that and a 2 second search on google will answer all your questions, just NOT being Paul Ryan is enough in my book. Paul Ryan isdevastating for wi.
as for your other point that’s so funny it’s scary. mitt made his fortune firing American works, I’m sure his trade policy would finish what he started as we still have some good jobs left.
Jeff,
I’m sorry, but I need a bit more than just being against Ryan. I’m not enamored of Ryan but the next guy had better be able to show me something more than your guy has. He just seems reactionary to me.
As far a Mitt goes, I agree with you. He scares me and I don’t like the fact that he has the republican establishment on his side.