By now you have heard that Wisconsinites turned in well over one million signatures to recall Grand Imperial Wizard and Grand Poobah Governor Walker from office. One million ... that is just 120,000 shy of the number of votes he got when he won the election.
Now, if I had 25,000 people collecting over a million signatures to recall me from office, I am pretty sure I would realize that I might be in trouble. But not our governor. After he picked up a large check in New York for standing up for the poor oppressed 1 percent he made a statement about the recall:
"In my first year in office, we did just that by eliminating a $3.6 billion budget deficit without raising taxes, all while the state added thousands of new jobs. Instead of going back to the days of billion-dollar budget deficits, double-digit tax increases and record job loss, I expect Wisconsin voters will stand with me and keep moving Wisconsin forward."
(Emphasis mine)
Talk about living in an alternate reality ... of course the statements keep coming from Walker, this one about the signatures:
"We'll certainly look at them, just because you saw the stories of people saying they signed them as many as 80 times. There were other items out there."
And this from the Ben Sparks, the Republican Party of Wisconsin communications director:
"Well, of course they got a million signatures, when they're allowing people to sign 80 times; they're allowing them to include Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. There was never any doubt in our mind that the Democrats would be able to rally their liberal base of supporters around this baseless and expensive recall effort."
Really? The only place that anyone signed a petition 80 times is in the mind of a conservative right-wing talk show host. Duplicate signatures would not have even been a problem if the right-wingers hadn’t stirred up trouble with fake petitions and threats of, and in some cases actually, destroying recall petitions.
Of course to show how fully out of touch the Republican Party is here is Republican National Committee Chairman Reince (who names their kid Reince?) Priebus's statement:
"Today, Big Labor and their liberal allies launched yet another assault on hardworking Wisconsin taxpayers. Their vain attempt to recall Gov. Scott Walker is a cynical ploy by the special interests to undo the work of Wisconsin's elected leaders and return to the days of big government and political corruption."
I am kind surprised he did not throw “union thug” in there as well, but I digress—this is not about unions, this is not about collective bargaining. This recall is what happens when elected officials do not listen to their constituents. We 120,000 people that were around the Capitol in February and March were not there because some “union boss” told us to be there. We were there because you pissed us off!
Word to Scott Walker, the Koch brothers and the Republican party: Don’t fuck with a Badger!