Recall Effort Moving Along at a Nice Clip

Reports are coming in that the effort to collect signatures is going much better than expected.  People are lining up to sign.

From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

The recall drive is rolling around Wisconsin, with petition circulators holding everything from midnight parties to this curbside collection effort. Scores of drives statewide have been held on some days, focusing on everything from Black Friday retailers to deer-cleaning stations, sporting events and holiday parades.

Organizers of the recall effort against Walker say volunteers such as Nelson gathered more than 105,000 signatures over the first four days, though the figure can’t be independently verified. If accurate, that number easily tops early figures in a similar petition drive in the larger state of Ohio as well as what Wisconsin organizers say were their own targets.

Melissa Fazekas, a spokeswoman for the group that carried out the drive, We Are Ohio, said that organizers there gathered 214,399 signatures in the first month, starting on April 22. That’s slower than the pace at which United Wisconsin says it is gathering signatures here, even though Ohio has about twice as many people.

In total, We Are Ohio gathered 1.3 million signatures in more than two months, with 915,000 of those officially being certified by the secretary of state. Fazekas said the early Wisconsin figures were impressive.

“It sounds incredible for the first four days,” she said.

It is indeed incredible that this people-powered movement is succeeding so massively in the face of withering criticism from the right and millions of dollars of Koch-funded front group money supporting their puppet, Scott Walker.