The President of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, Mahlon Mitchell, announced this morning that he will run for the office of Lieutenant Governor in the upcoming recall election.
Recall organizers gathered enough signatures to force an election for the office currently held by Republican Rebecca Kleefisch. Kleefisch is best known for equating same sex marriage with marrying a table or a clock.
Elections were also forced for Governor and in four Wisconsin State Senate districts. Mitchell will run as a Democrat.
Mitchell, who has never held public office, has been active in protests and demonstrations against limits on collective bargaining for public employees. Those limits were proposed by Governor Walker in February, 2011 and eventually passed under questionable maneuvers by the Republican-led state legislature. Members of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin were not affected by most of the changes, but came out strongly in support of other public unions last year during political demonstrations. They repeatedly expressed their belief that they knew they'd be next for cuts in salaries and benefits and for restrictions on collective bargaining.
On the one night I spent in the Capitol (March 9/10, 2011), Mitchell and many other firefighters were there. I had a chance to thank him personally that evening and I told him if he ever ran for Governor I'd vote for him. I'm very pleased that I will have a chance to cast a vote for him for Lieutenant Governor. It has been a blast listening to him at various events over the past year. He's developed a really sharp sense of humor that he injects into his speeches, along with an ability to fire up a crowd.
Two of my favorite ideas that he repeats often are that Wisconsin citizens didn't start this fight but are going to finish it, and that firefighters don't run out of burning buildings - they go into burning buildings to put out the fire.
Mahlon Mitchell is going in. This will make a lot of on-the-ground activists very happy.
UPDATE: Official campaign web site for Mahlon Mitchell is here. You can donate there, sign up for text and email alerts, and learn more about Mahlon Mitchell.
From the web site:
“I have been a fire fighter for 15 years. When firefighters see an emergency we respond. We respond because we care about our community. It’s a level of service and a calling that only a few decide to take. I look at being LT Gov as another part of this service. As fire fighters, we have a motto – all hands working. Every fire fighter on scene is doing a task or job to stabilize the tragedy. We need all hands working now in our community to deal with the emergency in Madison.”