The lengths the Koch Brothers will go:
http://www.jsonline.com/...
A national conservative group — a Super PAC supported by the Koch brothers in the past — is lighting up social media with nine light-hearted ads promoting the Libertarian candidate for governor, Robert Burke, because he wants to legalize marijuana.
The videos almost immediately stoked concerns within Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke's camp that this was a cynical Republican ploy meant to peel off young voters or confuse people. Five of the nine marijuana ads attack Mary Burke, who is opposing GOP Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday.
"They know that with the last two polls of the election showing a dead heat, they are pulling out all the dirty tricks to try and save Walker from defeat," said Joe Zepecki, spokesman for Mary Burke.
Robert Burke, the Libertarian candidate, agreed with his namesake on the ads.
He said it is clear that the online videos are aimed at drawing "young liberal voters from Mary Burke to vote for Robert Burke." He continued, "While I endorse the full legalization of cannabis, I do not endorse in any way the message of this ad."
But Walker's folks said Mary Burke's staff must be smoking something because, they noted, there is no evidence linking them to the ads. The first-term governor takes no hits in the marijuana ads.
"Hopefully, once the pizza and Doritos arrive, the Burke campaign will quiet down," said Joe Fadness, executive director of the Republican Party and a frequent spokesman for Walker.
Mary Burke supports medical marijuana while Walker opposes it. Both oppose full legalization.
The American Future Fund began running nine spots -- some 15 seconds and the others 30 -- on Twitter and other social media late last week. The ads were put together by Craft DC, a Washington, D.C.-based PR firm headed by a former GOP operative. - Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, 11/3/14
Republicans and the Kochs are doing everything they can to take down Burke:
http://host.madison.com/...
Questions about Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke's departure from Trek Bicycle sparked last week's most-read story on captimes.com.
Madison alder Denise DeMarb, a former Trek executive, said reports that Burke was fired from her family's company in 1993 don't match with what she knows.
DeMarb also called into question the credibility of Gary Ellerman, the company's human resources director at the time, who alleged in a Wisconsin Reporter story that Burke was forced out of her job in 1993.
DeMarb worked at Trek for nearly 20 years, retiring as director of finance about three years ago. She said she was disappointed someone would try to discredit Burke's work so close to the election, adding that she didn't know how it could be "anything but meant to hurt." - The Capital Times, 11/2/14
That's because Republicans are desperate to give Walker a second term:
http://www.slate.com/...
The Wisconsin governor’s race is one of the closest in the country. And, according to conversations with top Republicans and conservative activists, it’s also the single most important. Walker is revered among national conservatives for taking on Wisconsin’s powerful public sector unions at enormous political risk. A National Review cover depicted him as Perseus slaying Medusa, and the American Spectator has already declared that if he pulls off a win on Tuesday, “he’s our man” for 2016. While many of the potential Republican presidential nominees are highly polarizing for the right—Sen. Rand Paul has been in hawks’ crosshairs since Day 1, and Jeb Bush’s stances on immigration and Common Core already have Tea Party types seeing red—Walker is the rare Republican star who nobody hates. He matters so much to some Republicans that if Wisconsin’s governor loses on Tuesday night, winning the Senate would just be a consolation prize. “In my mind, if Scott Walker loses, it’s a bad election cycle even if there are big wins everywhere else,” says Phil Kerpen, who runs the fiscal conservative advocacy organization American Commitment, “because the impact on public policy will be more negative than any political upside elsewhere.”
Winning statewide as a conservative Republican in Wisconsin isn’t easy. Even though five of its eight congressmen are Republicans and the GOP controls its statehouse, Wisconsin is a very blue state. It’s historically been a union stronghold, and it hasn’t gone Republican in a presidential race since 1984. For progressives, the Republicans’ fragile hold on state government is an insult, an affront that should be corrected.
Given those realities, you might expect a Republican governor to govern coyly. Walker hasn’t. He won the 2010 gubernatorial race by 5.8 points, and in February of 2011 he proposed Act 10 to dramatically curb public sector unions’ collective bargaining power, to bar unions from automatically collecting dues from members’ paychecks, and to demand higher health insurance and pension contributions from government workers, along with a host of other changes.
The progressives’ response was immediate—and not particularly subtle. Activists camped out in the Capitol building for weeks, Democratic state lawmakers fled the state to try to prevent a vote on the bill, and national progressives charged conservatives with a “Republican jihad.” None of that worked, and Walker signed the bill on March 11.
Unions and their allies pushed back hard. They challenged the bill in court and lost, worked to vote out a conservative state Supreme Court justice and lost, tried to recall 10 Republican state Senators and lost 7 of those contests, and in 2012 tried to recall Walker and lost by 6.8 points. (Also worth noting: Republicans forced three recall elections for Democratic state senators, and Democrats won all three of those.)
So Walker and his Wisconsin allies have faced an enormous number of brutal electoral battles. But given polling, Tuesday’s gubernatorial race is Democrats’ best shot to get rid of Walker for good.
That would be a boon for Wisconsin progressives, of course, but it would also have national repercussions. A Walker loss would send the message to Republican governors across the country that if they take on unions and push for hard-hitting conservative policy overhauls, they will be punished. “If we don’t send Gov. Walker back to Madison, that sends a message to every principled conservative leader that if you stand up for your people, if you grow jobs, if you grow businesses, and you balance your budget, you won’t be rewarded,” said Rep. Sean Duffy, who spoke to a crowd of volunteers in that Eau Claire parking lot a few minutes before appearances from Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, and Walker. - Slate, 11/2/14
Right now, both Burke and Walker are pushing hard to get out the vote:
http://www.jsonline.com/...
With two days to go before the polls open, GOP Gov. Scott Walker and Democrat Mary Burke spent Sunday in southeastern Wisconsin as they tried to motivate their core supporters and persuade independent voters.
"Walker has had four years and he's not gotten the job done," Burke told a cheering crowd at a strip mall on Milwaukee's northwest side.
At a stop at a Kenosha strip mall, Walker countered: "What's at stake here is that something nationally is going on. The big-government special interests have picked a candidate in this race.
"We took the power away from the big-government special interests and put it in the hands of the hardworking taxpayers of the state of Wisconsin."
Voters will decide Tuesday whether to give a second term to Walker, who turned 47 on Sunday and is the first governor in the nation's history to survive a recall election. A poll released Wednesday by Marquette University Law School showed Walker leading Burke 50% to 43% among likely voters.
Southern Wisconsin is key to both candidates. Walker wants to drive up the vote in Milwaukee's suburbs, a GOP stronghold. His opponent, Burke, 55, is putting her energy into Milwaukee and Madison, which are dense with Democratic votes.
Kenosha, where both candidates stopped on Sunday, also could prove crucial because of support there for a Hard Rock International casino proposed by the Menominee tribe.
Federal authorities signed off on the plan last year, giving Wisconsin's governor the final say on approving it. Walker and Burke have not said whether they would approve it. - Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, 11/3/14
We can't let the Koch Brothers dupe voters out of voting for Burke. Click here to help out with GOTV efforts for the Burke campaign:
http://burkeforwisconsin.com/