Sullivan recall fails, is CRG yesterday’s news?

As first reported by WisPolitics.com’s Milwaukee Notes, the effort to recall State Senator Jim Sullivan has failed. According to Orville Seymer of the CRG Network, the recall effort failed after the plan to recall Sen. Sullivan was not fully implemented, resulting in the recall effort petering out. The plan, according to Seymer, was to enlist bar and restaurant owners in the district to help collect recall signatures against Sen. Sullivan from angry customers, which would make up the bulk of the signatures needed, with a limited amount of door-to-door canvassing needed to collect the rest. While Seymer says the recall effort failed because the “plan” wasn’t fully implemented, I’m willing to bet cash money the effort failed because of a lack of outraged constituents. After all, it wasn’t a secret that Sen. Sullivan was a supporter of a statewide smoking ban – he said as much when he ran for the State Senate – so this recall effort seemed doomed from the start.

Perhaps the bigger story in the failure of the recall effort against Sen. Sullivan is the failure of CRG – yet again – to find any success in a recall effort they’ve been involved in. In fact, since the pension scandal in Milwaukee County that led to a number of recalls of elected officials, the CRG hasn’t had any success recalling anyone. What’s more, I’d argue the recall efforts in Milwaukee County earlier this decade were a product of elected officials who were embroiled in the pension scandal being low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking. I’ve always believed CRG is overrated, and their lack of success since earlier this decade bears that out.

Capper, Xoff, and Jason Haas have more.