Starting November 15 the official Recall Walker campaign began. I have to admit these people are going at it 100%. In Wisconsin (unfortunately) there is no standard for a recall. No crimes need be committed. You simply need to gather enough signatures and you can force a recall election. This must be changed, but that is a different subject for a different day.
Driving home from work they have set up signature gathering posts on busy streets. Even on Thanksgiving day I saw a guy standing outside trying to gather signatures.
They were at Best Buy soliciting signatures from the Black Friday campers but they were chased away by the Best Buy management.
The people who want this are, apparently throwing everything they have at it. I have a few thoughts below the fold if you are at all interested.
All of the above is true, but then again, I live in Madison. I would find it hard to believe the fever is at such a high pitch in, say, Rhinelander or Eau Claire as it is here.
Once the low hanging fruit is collected, the job gets much tougher. They need over a half million signatures to force a recall election. That averages out to over nine thousand a day (the deadline is Jan. 15). Toss in days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and that makes the average higher. Throw in cold weather, snow days and the like and the task gets tougher yet.
Still, I think the signatures will be gathered. The signature gatherers would be wise to book about a 10% safety cushion because there will be challenges. The GAB (Governing Accountability Board) must then verify the signatures. I don’t know if they have computer software to do this and I imagine the Walker folks will have some serious legal challenges to the signatures. I am sure some idiots will forge signatures, sign twice, and the like.
After all that, if we have the recall election, who is running? From what I have seen nobody stands a snowballs chance against Walker besides maybe Russ Feingold, who has said repeatedly that he doesn’t want to do it (a loss in that election would end his political career for sure). The Democratic bench is very thin.
Scott Walker’s agenda passed. We have conceal carry, voter ID, and the unions are spending all of their time and energy fighting a rear guard action. Times are still good. Oh yes, we also have a Christmas Tree in the rotunda once again, after several decades of having a holiday tree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNRd52xABDo
My perception is that the lack of “standard” for a recall is offset by the high signature requirement and, in this case, the timing. The recall effort would need significantly more than a 10% margin even if they were working from registered-voter lists and going door to door. Winter in Wisconsin is not conducive to going door to door; nor is the two-month deadline. If I were in charge of the signature drive I would be deploying people in every public place I could get away with and aiming for a raw count at least 800,000 (and hoping for closer to a million).
If there is also a geographical-distribution requirement (as by having to gather a minimum number of signatures in each Congressional District), they’re doomed. Even if not, it’s going to be very tough unless they have a huge number of highly competent volunteers. One good day in nice weather in a high-traffic spot will yield about 100 verified signatures. By my count, they need 8,000+ of those in 60 days, say 150 per day, every day, in weather that most people won’t go out in for any longer than they absolutely have to. If they do pull this off, they deserve to win.
There is no geographical requirement or this thing would be dead out of the gate.
I am sure they will focus as much of their resources as possible in Madison and Milwaukee. Petition collectors are going to be at the UW football game today but it is raining here and pretty nasty. They are telling their volunteers to try to stay off of private property. They are already getting bad press for their incursion onto Best Buy’s property and I am sure they don’t need to repeat that.
I think that they really need to get as many signatures as possible before the serious cold and winter weather hit or it is all over.
Dan – the unions are going to put a lot of money into this because as they see it this is the last chance.
I don’t see how one could have a malfeasance provision in recall requirements – unless the office holder was actually convicted which is an entirely different level of difficulty.
Look at Eric Holder.
We got rid of Gray Davis simply because most people couldn’t stand what he was doing.
In all the euphoria we elect Schwartzenegger.
Go figure.
The way it went here if the WI deadline wasn’t so close I would say they would have a good chance – spending 10s of millions with negative TV ads 24/7 (as they did here against Arnold) but with such a tight deadline I would say they will have a tough time.
He sounds like a good guy – if the winters weren’t so brutal I’d like to move back!
But then one of my favorite automotive columnists, Peter Egan – writes for Road and Track – some years ago decided to chuck Newport Beach (with the warm sun, beach, traffic, expense) and move back to his native WI where he still writes for the magazine.