Friday, March 20, 2015

Walker's preposterous John Doe amnesia in South Carolina

After jettisoning a hand-picked social media consultant earlier in the week for having made his campaign on social media look ridiculous and disorganized - - a consultant with national conservative credentials whom he'd hired during his 2012 recall election, by the way - -  a campaigning Scott Walker is now offering to South Carolinians some self-serving spin about his high staffing standards to explain away his campaign's mismanagement.

"One of my clear rules is, if you're going to be on our team, whether on the paid staff or a volunteer, what I always say is you need to respect the voters," Walker said. "Because really if you think about campaigns, it's not about the candidate or the staff. It's about the voter. It's about how to help people's lives be better. 
"One of the things I've stressed...in the last few days as I've looked at the possibility of running is you have my firm commitment that I'm going to focus on making sure that the people on my team should we go forward are people who respect voters."
"Respect the voters?"

"Helping people's lives be better?"

In what parallel, fiction political universe?

Walker made these claims without apparent challenge by media who know better, despite these known facts:

*  Kelly Rindfleisch, the sixth former Walker donor, direct staffer or associate convicted of crimes during his Milwaukee County Executive days in a Grand Jury-like probe known in Wisconsin as a John Doe proceeding, had lost earlier this week what is her final felony conviction appeal in state court for campaign-related misconduct in office.

She was a long-time GOP staffer and operative, and was hired by Walker despite her having received immunity in the so-called caucus scandal some years earlier when a number of staffers and elected officials in both parties went to jail for campaigning on state time.

And that office she misused  was just down the hall from Walker's when she served as his Deputy Chief of Staff, but used the office to work on GOP campaigns via a secret email system set up clandestinely by another convicted Walker staffer, Tim Russell, a long-time Walker aide who had preceded her as Walker's Deputy Chief of Staff.

*  Walker, his county staff, and his campaign staff actively managed the news through private email for his political benefit after the death by starvation of a woman at the County-run mental health complex and, separately, also after a death, and injuries, following the collapse of a 20-ton concrete slab at a county-owned parking structure.

Tell me how these situations respect the voters and make their lives better?

2 comments:

where are the feds said...

Christie operation in NJ revealed to be surprisingly similar to on operated by Gov Wanker. Campaign staffers running the state?

Neverending Story: Feds' Bridgegate Probe Takes New Turn


Based on the speed with which Fulop’s endorsement decision was communicated from Christie’s campaign to the Office of the Governor and translated into scheduling changes with the principals of six state agencies, there was no practical barrier between the governor’s campaign and state employees in his Trenton office. It’s worth noting that a similar collaboration was shown to have happened among Stepien, Kelly, Wildstein, and Baroni during Bridgegate, when Bill Baroni forwarded a letter from Mark Sokolich to Bill Stepien with the annotation “following up.” Is it illegal to cancel a meeting? No. But granting or withholding of public services or funds based on a mayor’s election-year endorement of a governor from an opposing political party may be what is attracting federal attention.

Anonymous said...

...and don't forget about how he "respect[ed] the voters" by lying to them as political strategy to get elected (dropping the collective bargaining "bomb", R-to-W, etc.), much of which is on video, as you already have documented.