For Scott Walker, Today's Word Is "Routine"

The Walker campaign a week ago after the DA's presentation - - a link here - - after the Rindfleisch sentencing:

Walker campaign spokesman Tom Evenson said Monday the campaign and county staff were not doing anything improper. Evenson called their work "routine."

"It is not unusual for campaign staff and elected official's staff to routinely discuss the appropriate way to schedule meetings, determine a point of contact for emergencies, or how to address media inquiries directed at both the official office and the campaign office," [Walker campaign spokesman Tom] Evenson said in a statement.

"Balancing the daily calendars, meetings and issues covered by the media for an elected official present challenges in the course of a campaign that requires routine communication by both sets of staff."

Walker to the AP today:

Walker on Monday described the contacts as routine.

The morning phone calls were about coordinating staffing and scheduling issues between the campaign and county office and discussing how to handle questions from the media, Walker said.

"Often times there's not a distinction between asking a political question in the official office and the campaign office," he said. "All those things are things that need to be coordinated. There's nothing wrong with that."

And does "coordination" mean direction? From The Journal Sentinel:

The Campaign Group vetted news releases that were issued from Walker's county office, [Assistant Milwaukee County District Attorney Bruce] Landgraf said. They included messages about...news reports in the Journal Sentinel in August that year about patient sexual assaults at the county Mental Health Complex...

In one exchange among members of The Campaign Group, [campaign manager Gilkes admonished Walker's county staff to be more forceful in responding to questions about the patient abuse issue, which included highly critical state and federal inspectors' reports.

"Tell (county Deputy Corporation Counsel Timothy) Schoewe we're getting the crap kicked out of us," one email said. "I would like him to stop being a lawyer and think political," Gilkes wrote...

Walker's campaign staff also vetted the county response to the June 24, 2010, death of 15-year-old Jared Kellner, who was killed by a concrete panel that fell from the side of the O'Donnell Park parking garage at the lakefront.

Gilkes, in an email written the day of the accident, advised Walker's county staff to "make sure there is not a piece of paper anywhere that details any problem at all."

Nothing wrong with that?

More context, here: