Posted on 01/15/2012 1:33:56 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Waukesha - Martha Ryan puts in 10 hours a week to support Gov. Scott Walker.
She works the front desk at the Waukesha County Republican Party headquarters, answering phones, greeting visitors, and, when they're in stock, handing out lawn signs that say, "Stand with Walker."
Ryan also does a lot of listening.
"People want to vent their frustration," she said. "I tell them, they're preaching to the choir here."
Mainly sidelined for two months as Walker's opponents gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures in hopes of triggering a recall election, the Republican base now appears poised to demonstrate its support for the governor.
On Tuesday in Madison, recall petitions will be filed against Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators.
Signatures were gathered by Democrats, labor groups and a grass-roots organization called United Wisconsin. They need 540,208 valid signatures to trigger recall elections against Walker and Kleefisch and lesser amounts to force elections against the four state sena tors, including Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).
Republicans say they're ready to scour the signatures to make sure they're up to snuff. More than 5,000 people have volunteered for the verification effort through a website, a Republican Party spokesman said, while hundreds of others have signed up at county GOP headquarters. Verification will begin once the petitions are made available by the state Government Accountability Board.
"We are putting together this comprehensive statewide effort to assure that Wisconsin electors are not disenfranchised," said Ben Sparks, a GOP spokesman. "This is in response to the repeated allegations of fraud that have permeated this process from day one."
Democrats say, bring it on.
"The Republican narrative that there are vast numbers of fraudulent petitions is a fiction designed to demean the people of Wisconsin who have voiced their opposition to Scott Walker, as well as rig the clock in Walker's favor by creating delay after delay after delay," said Graeme Zielinski, the Democratic Party spokesman. "Scott Walker himself has said this election is inevitable, so just what the Republicans and tea party are doing with these 'verification' efforts defies understanding."
Local Republican leaders say their base is fired up.
Jim Geldreich, Washington County GOP chair, said enthusiasm is strong and volunteer sign-up for the recall verification is "off the charts."
David Karst, Milwaukee County GOP chair, said volunteers are determined to keep Walker in office.
"We had an election (in 2010)," Karst said. "Their voice was heard. Now, we have to go ahead and confirm that vote again. We're in constant campaign mode. The opposition just won't let it go."
Walker supporters are even going out on their own to back the governor, some with homemade baseball caps and signs.
An idea that was triggered among Facebook friends has morphed into a planned pro-Walker rally for Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. at Hart Park in Wauwatosa. Among the scheduled speakers, three Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate: former Gov. Tommy Thompson, former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald of Horicon.
Two of the rally's organizers, Paris Procopis and Noelle Lorraine, said the event just evolved over the last few weeks with volunteers pooling resources to get the thing off the ground.
"No one in their right mind will rent the park in the winter, but we feel so passionate about this," Procopis said.
"Effectively, our democracy is in jeopardy if they succeed in removing Walker. It sets the precedent that anytime you don't like someone, you can remove them from office. It will prevent people from being bold," added Procopis, a Republican activist who fell eight signatures short of qualifying for the ballot in 2010 to run against Rep. David Cullen (D-Milwaukee).
The energy to back Walker can now be seen most vividly in Wisconsin's Republican stronghold, Waukesha County. Pro-Walker yard signs are popping up even though a recall election might not take place until summer.
There's also a lot of activity at the county's GOP campaign headquarters, which normally doesn't open until July of a big election year. Volunteers are on the phone contacting voters. Visitors want yard signs, but they're often on back order.
"The passion is going to skyrocket to keep Scott Walker in office," said Keith Best, a member of the Waukesha GOP executive committee.
Cathy Waller, the Waukesha GOP executive director, said new volunteers are signing up every day and energy is high.
"I think it is way beyond what I've seen before," she said of the volunteer activity. "A lot of new folks, new faces."
Cathy Waller, executive director of the Republican Party of Waukesha County, works with field director Ethan Schuh on Friday to prepare a training area at party headquarters in Waukesha. The office is open months earlier than usual because of the recall effort against Gov. Scott Walker.
Wisconsin Walker Backers Fight Back Ping
If you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list, just FReep Mail me and it shall be done.
Let’s make Walker POTUS.
Hurray for Wisconsin!
Standing, not for the polititians, not for the unions, but for a government for the people, by the people and of the people!
Come on freekitty,
The Republican party would NEVER nominate Walker to be their presidential standard bearer. He doesn’t stand for the status quo like the “elite” of both parties do.
After all they are ALL making good money with things the way they are.
Walker may seem "Conservative" in comparison to the wild eyed Communist insurgency in Wisconsin, but he doesn't hold a candle to Mitch Daniels (for example).
The labor unions must win this fight. If they don’t win then there will be many more venues that will prohibit automatic dues collection through payroll deduction. If that happens then stick a fork in them...they are done.
Fight for Walker or watch what happened to CA happen to your state.
Way to go, I just sent Walker a few bucks, and I hope that if there are enough signatures for recall, the people of WI, confirm his first election in a landslide.
If that happens, the unions across the country and the other pubbies that are afraid of their own shadows, may even get the message.
The laws that were passed in WI are helping every one in the state {except the public unions} and I hope the people realize that it is because of Walker.
Walkers toast and a few of those senators as well. Unions have more money and in a state full of dumbasses thats all its gonna take. Im on the ground so i know.
There was one part of the story that bemoaned the fact that some history teacher in the area would be forced to decrease his time teaching history in order to teach some psychology class. Well, like they say, there's your problem. Another teacher wailed that she wouldn't have the time to get to know every one of her students personally and discover their motivations and whatnot. Yee gads, the current teachers are supposed to be psychiatrist-guidance counselors?!!?? Fire the whole lot of them.
Sounds like a Sunday morning troll. The unions are losing money. Walker can raise unlimited money right now. And who’s going to run against him? A Madison communist? The Mayor of Milwaukee who lost to him last time and used Walker reforms to save 26 million in the Milwaukee budget?
I guess adding html tags killed my paragraphs...
This is the kind of negativity and primate-like feces throwing that used not to happen at Free Republic.
From Ground Zero.... Walker has received credible death threats. His children have been harassed. He has been portrayed as Hitler, Mubarek and a male organ. There have been rallies at his home. People have been feature on television for yelling “F U” and blowing horns every day when they drive by his house which is on a fairly busy street.
The Lieutenant Governor has received credible death threats. http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/protection-costs-for-walker-kleefisch-more-than-double-sb2vipc-133496163.html She was described on an FM station in Madison in terms I can’t even type here.
The State Senators that supported him have received credible death threats and were physically intimidated every day for months. One of them was assaulted by having a glass of beer poured on him by a guy who had stalked him to the bar.
Walker (and Priebus) was at every Tea Party rally I went to. He cut government spending and reduced a 3.6 billion dollar deficits. His key method, ending collective bargaining, will probably contribute to improved education to our children. He shepherded in concealed carry. He pointedly lit the “Christmas Tree” in Madison. He is backed by us Tea Partiers. This is ground zero. Obama made Walker a focus and much of the wisconsin agitation was funded/directed by Organize for America.
This unending shitstorm shows how important this is to labor and the left. If Walker gets replaced it would shrink the nads of conservative elected officials nation-wide.
I don’t care how Walker fares on your little color conservative gradation scale. He has been enormously courageous and has moved in the right direction. We all had better drink a big steaming cup of “team spirit” for this recall election and until Novemberbecause we have a terrible foe in the White House and a lot of evil people in his administration and just like Wisconsin they will resist by all means necessary losing their power.
Facts are facts. He picked a fight with the most powerful union in the country. They won the last bout of recalls and are about to win this one. Deal with it and move on. We do not have the organization or the money to fight.
I've been a member here since 1998, and I can assure you that the "feces -throwing" has been going on since well before you got here, as we continually strive to make "pretty good the enemy of "perfect". It has never failed to amaze me how we can puff ourselves up as the side of the political fence that has values while the other side fights dirty - we're the side that has adults while the other side acts like petulant children - we're the side that respects people while the other side uses them as pawns to advance their power - the list of contrasts goes on and on.
But HERE, on OUR OWN forum we shriek at at other like a bunch of wild hyenas and make ad hominem attacks on each other for doing nothing more than advancing different schools of conservative thought to an argument or having a difference of opinion on the relative credentials of our office holders and candidates.
Yeah, we're the grown-ups - you couldn't prove it by reading some of these threads.
I’m not seeing any facts posted by you. You almost sound like a union propagandist.
Lost the recalls? “There are no tanks in Baghdad”
Here are the facts, for all of us.
Big thug unions went 2 for 6 in that election. Even your central propaganda organ said >>>>>
The outcome was seen as a victory for Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican whose move to curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers this year set off a firestorm of protests, then counterprotests and finally a summer of unprecedented recall efforts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/us/politics/10wisconsin.html?_r=1
<<<<<<<
Kapanke lost because he was in a blue blue district. Unfortuate. Until we have conservative talk radio in western Wisconsin, we have a big disadvantage there.
Hopper lost because of a one-of-a-kind girlfriend problem. He started an affair with a 25 year old girlfriend, bad divorce, etc. Even with this anchor around his neck he only lost by 1251 votes or 2 percent. Do you union guys really want to crow about a 2 percent “victory” when the loser was a shown during the election to be philandering scum? Do you like to brag about kicking cripples too?
Money? Walker’s got so much that he’s running multiple ads per night on television now. He has lighted billboards on I-94. With these advertisements he finally gets to point out his achievements, quietly solidly, night after night week after week right in our living rooms. And now that the recalls aren’t going to take place until summer, and Walker’s ads can run - without opposing responses - Mr and Mrs Normal Wisconsinite are going to be asking what’s all the fuss about?
But you know what speaks even more loudly for him? The vast majority of Wisconsites tax bills which for the first time in years went down or didn’t go up. And most of the Wisconsin school districts where the sky didn’t fall and there weren’t teacher layoffs.
And union money that’s going to dry up more and more. In case you haven’t heard, Obama’s going to need that money and there are more and more teachers that are going to figure, ‘what’s the use of paying dues when we can’t use it do anally extract dollars from the taxpayers?’
Wisconsinites that are paying attention aren’t going to like the price tag on this recall 9-18 million dollars. That’s a lot of money that could have gone to education or to healthcare or roads.
After Walker wins this recall he’s going to be in a more powerful position in Wisconsin.
Where are you located? Walker backers are standing firm around here. I question whether they will get enough signatures. I know they will turn in enough, but a lot of them are going to be challenged. So, we shall see what we shall see at the end of the day.
Oshkosh.
For a guy who can expound at length on just about any subject, you are sadly mistaken on this. I've known Scott Walker personally for many years, and I can assure you that Walker is no "establishment" toady. He has a record of turning the establishment upside down and making government more efficient and taxes lower -- all without the help of a friendly Board, or Legislature. He is a good and honest man. And he does all that work with a smile on his face.
There is going to be an outdoor rally for him (independently organized) next week. Here, that means that the weather might be -20 degrees, or in the middle of a blizzard. It also might be a nice day, but it certainly will be cold. I was thinking this morning that Scott Walker is the only man that can get me out tramping in the snow. Not even my husband can get me out to tramp in the snow. I marched in a parade with Scott and his family on the most bitter day of the winter in 2006 handing out lit when he previously ran for Governor. He was doing well until the Republican ESTABLISHMENT prevailed upon him to drop out in favor of their designated candidate. The Republican establishment candidate went on to lose spectacularly to the corrupt Dem incumbant giving us 4 more years of dreadful government and higher taxes and a huge deficit.
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