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."
Well, then I forgive you because Oshkosh is a heavily union area, and your neighbors must have a different point of view. However, I certainly hope they are not in the majority, and I can assure you that their signatures will be carefully scrutinized.
The facts smart mouth have been blasted on the radio, tv and news for quite sometime in case you missed it.
Know that; but they aren’t the entire republican party.
I’ve been on since the Clinton impeachment years. I had to change my identity once cuz I lost my password. I really think there’s a real slippage in the discourse. My memory is of a place where there were frequently some very intelligent,judicious and well-supported posts. I really miss that.
With a anti-American, Bill Ayers loving, Jeremiah Wright following, 2d Amendment subverting, constitution shredding socialist in the White House, I’m not spending a lot of energy tearing down politicans who don’t achieve the ideal of idealogy.
So tell your Oshkosh neighbors that Walker is going to beat the Unions and the leftists AGAIN and we are going to keep Wisconsin on lower taxes, better education, more freedom path.
You'er still trying to get your state government back from the public sector unions ~ Indiana has moved on to Right to Work. Virginia, where I live, alreadyhas Right to Work.
Talk to me in about 10 years!
Not that I wouldn’t vote for him if I lived in Wisconsin, but then again I wouldn’t live in WIsconsin!
Wisconsin is Right to Work. It’s just that there are some companies that have unions. Our problem is not with unions in the private sector, our problem is public sector unions. And, they are on the wane.
Wisconsin is also a community property state which protects the ladies, unlike VA which treats its women like chattel. One of my daughters’ friends had her house foreclosed right out from under her by a dishonest (now-ex) husband.
I’ve been here since 1998, and I agree on the discourse here. We used to have people wrote their own, carefully thought out and researched essays (John wang 2 [sp] and Luis Gonzalez).
I live in the midwest, so my day starts an hour later from our earliest posters (unless they stayed up all night). I used to never be able to find anything to post here because it was already on the board. Now, I get up every morning and I find things all over that are not yet posted at FR.
Did all of our veteran, reliable posters leave for other places on the web? Die? I know the answer to both of those questions is “yes”, but I hope that it doesn’t represent too many.
Virginia respects a concept called SEPARATE PROPERTY. Whatever the bride or groom owned or possessed before marriage belongs to the bride or groom respectively throughout the marriage ~
Community Property is usually very destructive of career women.
We’ve moved more into the “subtle nuance” brand of commentary. With much better news coverage on the net there’s actually less we need to do, but Freepers actually pushed several doctrines that prevailed in the case of John Edwards, and I’m not sure we’d had that outcome if they hadn’t.
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