CHEATER
Posted on 07/28/2002 12:52:19 PM PDT by Dog Gone
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- A state senator running for governor submitted nomination papers with at least 231 falsified signatures with nonexistent or invalid addresses, a newspaper's review of the papers found. One person listed as signing has been dead for three years.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review found pervasive problems among the signatures Milwaukee Democrat Gary George submitted, including 82 people listed who say they did not sign their names.
The 231 signatures, which is in addition to the 180 signatures already invalidated by the State Elections Board, would leave George 39 short of the 2,000 needed signatures to stay on the Sept. 10 primary ballot.
Elections Board rules require that illegible or invalid addresses be excluded when a candidate's total is counted.
George's spokesman Dave Begel would not comment Sunday and said George had no comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
Prosecutors and the Elections Board were already investigating the nomination papers after a college student filed a complaint alleging George included invalid signatures.
After a July 18 hearing, the board opted to allow George to stay on the board. They are planning a meeting Wednesday to reconsider the decision, executive director Kevin Kennedy said. The board must make a decision by Aug. 11.
The student who filed the complaint was assisted by Joel Gratz, a campaign volunteer for Rep. Tom Barrett, who is challenging George in the Democratic primary for governor. Barrett has denied any involvement in challenging George's petitions.
Falsifying nomination papers or certifying them without personally obtaining the signatures is a felony in Wisconsin.
And Dave Begel used to be a sports writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One of the Packers coaches banned him after he stood on a car to look into the closed practice field, then published the results of his observations.
| Elections Board rules require that illegible or invalid addresses be excluded when a candidate's total is counted.
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BTW, let's not forget the Friendly Sons of Guadalajara, who are being illegally registered in droves by the Demos, in every state in the Union.
I hope you guys put someone in jail for this, even it it's not him personally.
State Sen. Gary George's nomination papers for governor contain at least 231 falsified signatures and non-existent or invalid addresses, a number that would leave him short of the signatures needed to be placed on the ballot, a Journal Sentinel investigation has found.
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And the total does not even include dozens of illegible signatures and addresses on the petitions that are impossible to verify. Nor does it include 180 signatures already invalidated by the state Elections Board because of incomplete information.
Under Elections Board rules, illegible or invalid addresses are supposed to rule out counting signatures toward a candidate's total. Further, only residential addresses must be used - unless a signer is homeless.
If the Elections Board were to invalidate the questionable signatures and addresses uncovered by the Journal Sentinel, it would leave George with 1,961 valid signatures. He needs 2,000 to get on the Sept. 10 primary ballot.
The Elections Board has tentatively scheduled a meeting for Wednesday in Milwaukee to reconsider whether to keep George on the ballot, said board Executive Director Kevin Kennedy. The board must make a decision by Aug. 11.
"I'm really appalled," said Steven P. Ponto, board chairman, after being told of the newspaper's findings. "Signing a nomination paper is a serious business, and it has to be done according to the law. We really need to maintain the integrity of the process."
Through a spokesman, George would not comment on the newspaper's findings.
Three district attorneys and Elections Board staffers are conducting their own investigations into George's nomination papers.
The board requested the prosecutorial review after allowing George to stay on the ballot following a July 18 hearing into a complaint filed by a Madison college student. That student, Daniel McMurray, was assisted by Joel Gratz, who is a former aide to state Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala and a campaign volunteer for U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, who is challenging George in the Democratic primary for governor. Barrett has denied any involvement in challenging George's petitions; Chvala has not commented.
George submitted 2,372 signatures to the Elections Board, and the board accepted 2,192 of them as valid, which means George is hanging onto a slim margin of 192 signatures.
"The magic number is 193," said Kennedy.
The prosecutors reported back last week that they found troubling inconsistencies, prompting them to launch criminal investigations. They forwarded problematic cases to the Elections Board but have not publicly disclosed the number of invalid signatures or addresses they found. Two of the prosecutors said they had found no evidence thus far of any complicity or knowledge by George.
Although the prosecutors would not reveal overall numbers, the La Crosse County district attorney said almost all the 70 petitions circulated in that county had phony addresses or names on them. Prosecutors in Milwaukee and Dane counties are examining the petitions as well.
Many people incorrectly listed as signing George's petitions were upset when contacted by the Journal Sentinel.
"It leaves me a little concerned that someone is using my identity," said Susan Taylor of New Berlin. "No, I did not personally sign any petitions for Gary George. That definitely was not me. This really concerns me."
She has no connection to George; in fact, she tends to vote for Republicans, she said.
Despite the potentially serious consequences for the George campaign, some of the findings bordered on whimsical.
The address provided for two Hmong signers is George's Milwaukee law office. And Chad Taylor, chief legal counsel for McCallum, was less than happy about his name appearing on the list. He said he never signed.
Overall, the newspaper's investigation found:
The non-signers fell into four groups: former campaign donators or supporters of George; members of the Hmong community who had attended earlier George events; people active in politics for other candidates and parties; and those who did not have the foggiest idea how their names were obtained.
For example, Milwaukee attorney Emanuel Rotter's home address is alongside the signature of a Hmong man. "Never heard of him, and he doesn't live in my house," said Rotter.
Not included in the tally of 231 bad signatures or addresses are at least 75 instances in which neither the signature nor the address was legible and could not be verified for accuracy.
Page after page, the nomination papers strain credulity. What appears to be the same looping and scrawled writing appears for line after line.
The newspaper did not find problems with all nomination paper circulators. Rather, a pattern of problems emerged within petitions circulated by Locha Thao, a Hmong man who is a paid campaign staffer for George, and Dave Begel, George's campaign manager who also is member of George's legislative staff. Many people who denied signing petitions certified by Begel and Thao have been contacted by the district attorneys' offices, the Journal Sentinel found.
Begel declined to comment when told about the newspaper's findings Friday. Thao last week acknowledged that he did not personally witness the petitions being signed, although circulators are required by law to do so.
The newspaper found numerous Hmong signatures that appeared fraudulent. For example, all of the non-citizens listed on the petitions were Hmong.
Ya M. Yang, a councilman and county supervisor in Wausau, was outraged to learn that his name appeared on the papers, along with the address of the community group where he works.
"I wonder which individual put my name on it," Yang said, denying that he signed the page. "I am not going to sit back and let these people abuse the system."
He said anyone who falsified signatures "took advantage of our community. Our people are not that stupid."
Many Hmong contacted were at least familiar with George's name; the senator has aggressively sought the Hmong vote in the governor's race. Only Attorney General Jim Doyle, another contender for the Democratic nomination, has done as much outreach with that community, according to Hmong leaders.
Bee Vang, a case worker at the Milwaukee Christian Center, said: "I do support him, but I didn't sign any paper. I met him the last time sometime in March. I looked at the sheet, and it's not my signature. That's really strange. I don't sign like that. It bothers me because we want things to be the truth."
Thao said he certified nomination papers containing signatures he had not actually collected. He said that he had distributed some of the papers to community groups and churches, and that he told an investigator with the Dane County district attorney's office the same thing.
Falsifying nomination papers or certifying them without personally obtaining the signatures is a felony in Wisconsin. And, as a general rule, if people certify nomination papers they did not actually circulate, none of the signatures on those pages counts, Kennedy said. The 40 to 50 pages Thao certified - representing more than 400 signatures - will have to be reviewed one by one, Kennedy said. Thao did not tell the newspaper how many of the pages he did not personally circulate.
This is Thao's first experience in Wisconsin politics. He moved to Madison last year from Fresno, Calif., to work on George's campaign. Thao said he had organized fund-raisers for Colin Powell when Powell was considering a presidential bid. Thao said he met George in Washington, D.C., and was invited to Wisconsin to work full time raising money for George. Thao was paid more than $19,000 in the first half of this year, according to George's most recent campaign finance reports.
As a member of the Madison Park Board, Thao also was behind a proposal early this year to name a park in Madison after prominent Hmong general Vang Pao.
Many Hmong people listed as signing but who say they did not had attended a fund-raiser for George held in Milwaukee by a fledgling Hmong political group or a rally in support of the park.
Some of the purported Hmong signers, who do not speak much English, expressed confusion over why their names appeared; a few even seemed fearful.
"No, I did not sign it. Who put my name there?" asked Cher Pao Xiong of Madison.
Tang Yang translated for his mother and stepfather, Pang Vang and Koua Yang of Milwaukee. Koua Yang is not a citizen.
"They don't know who is putting their name down," he said after asking them directly. "I think somebody just puts their name down on this stuff. They didn't know who was doing it; they didn't sign it."
Ge Xiong, executive director of the Hmong Educational Advancement Association in Milwaukee, said he was concerned about the apparently false signatures because "being involved in the political process is very new to the Hmong community. . . . Very few candidates have come out to meet with the Hmong like Gary George and Jim Doyle have done. They do take that as a gesture of understanding and good will."
His wife is listed as signing the petition; she said she didn't.
At the fund-raiser that many of the non-signers attended, the roughly 100 Hmong who showed up filled out donation forms for George, said Amoun Sayaovong, board member and secretary of the United Hmong Coalition, the non-partisan group that organized the event.
Sayaovong said the list was forwarded to George's campaign. "That was for our records, partially, to keep track of them. Part of it was just so the George campaign would know who contributed to that campaign," he said.
The fund-raising list included Hmong who were not citizens, he said, because the group was tracking contributors, not voters.
Some other examples of what the newspaper found:
He died three years ago.
Lois Reideman said she and her husband weren't active in politics. She has no idea how his name ended up on the page.
Schreiber said she would have signed George's nomination papers - had she been asked.
Richard Lee, who lives at 314 Sand Lake Road in Onalaska, said he did not sign the petition.
In numerous other instances, the first and last names of people were interchanged.
"We've lived here for 38 years, the same address," said Lee's wife, Trudy. "We never, ever would have put Sandy Lake Road."
"I think it's fraud," Jaszewski said. "Just like in Chicago, when they have all the dead people from the cemetery voting. That's terrible."
Contributing to this report were Gina Barton, Don Behm, Dan Benson, Dennis Chaptman, Jeff Cole, Charlie Corr, Jesse Garza, Jessica Hansen, Tom Held, Amy Hetzner, Marcia Jergensen, Mike Johnson, Richard P. Jones, Mike Nichols, Vikki Ortiz, Georgia Pabst, Dan Polley, Christina Relacion, Amy Rinard, Tania RuizdeLuzuriaga, Steve Schultze, Dave Sheeley, Linda Spice, Amelia Styer, Leah Thorsen, Jennie Tunkieicz, Leita Walker, Nathan Wallin, Steven Walters and Molly Williamson, all of the Journal Sentinel staff; and correspondent Kevin Murphy in Madison.
Yes and no. He has run for governor before with little success. However, he is a powerful state senator due to the fact that his constituency is solid--the white Dems couldn't replace him--and the fact that the Dems hold a 1 seat majority in the Wisconsin senate. He has parlayed that into substantial authority in state budgetary affairs. The rumor locally is that the real force behind the exposure of the signature fraud is Chuck Chavla, the Democratic leader of the state senate. As far as the primary is concerned, George probably is the biggest threat to Tom Barrett. Barrett is a congressman from Milwaukee whose district disappeared in the last census/redistricting. Barrett stands to win most of the Milwaukee Dem vote against Kathleen Falk (Dane County [Madison] Executive) and Jim Doyle (Wis. Attorney General) because these two lefties have their power base in Madison. If George took the black vote (overwhelmingly in Milwaukee County) that cuts directly into Barrett's home base.
Were I him, I'd play the race card right now. He should scream that they are making an issue out of the false signatures only because he is black!!
Still involved only 3 years after death? Not even close to a record!! In St. Louis, they got active party member voters who have been dead for 20 years. It is OK, though, because they had been prevented from voting for many years and there is a very honest medium who is able to contact the other side to get their current preferences.
The really tough decision that democrats always have to face in a fraudulant voting issue is who gets the fee. Where a Mexican national votes for a democrat, there is no question he gets the fee no matter how many times he votes or petitions he signs. But, with a dead voter there are always disputes.
The fraud is being investigated around the state; the state's attorney in Milwaukee is a "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil" Democrat. Odds are low anything will be done. However, if the Republicans in the state legislature develop some cajones, they will reintroduce a bill calling for a voter ID. This idea was passed in the assembly after the vote fraud in 2000, but defeated in the Dem controlled senate.
Conservatives give mixed reviews to McCallum. And Tommy Thompson's brother, Ed, is running for governor on the Libertarian ticket. My guess is that faced with a structural budget deficit in the next few years, and with taxes already about the highest in the country, most will come around to backing McCallum this fall, out of sheer self-preservation.
I've always lived in states where the primaries are held in the spring. Your election, like Florida's, comes awfully close to the general election.
He does seem to buck Chuck at every opportunity, though, which is an eyebrow raiser. Democrats aren't supposed to do that in Wisconsin. They all know they'll get squashed if they do, no matter what color they are. Chvala calls the shots. The end. Oppose him and you end up in the political equivilant of cement shoes.
I imagine Gary George thought being black made him immune from Chvala's tractor beam. What's funny is I bet Chvala doesn't have a racist bone in his body, and therefore is above fear of racial politics. He is Der Leader, and now Gary George is smoking ruins - and all Chvala had to do was turn over the cards he knew were there.
Hey, you mess with the Mafia, think you're going independent, the Mafia knows how to bring you down and keep its hands clean.
What's hard to figure out is why they pulled this stunt. All they had to do was spend a couple of afternoons in my neighborhood to get signatures. Someone spent more time badly forging signatures than it would have taken to get more than enough legitmate signatures. It doesn't make sense - unless he's been elected to the State Senate the same way, then incurred Chvala's wrath. Turn a badly behaving Gary George over? Piece of cake.
George's problem was that he (or his supporters, who knows) thought he could deviate from the system yet still play by the same rules, overestimating his own imagined power, and underestimating Chvala's and the machine's *real* power. Chvala need not soil his hands. A mere college student just had to raise his.
Gary George: A Cautionary Political Tale, or How to Glom Real Political Power, by Charles Chvala.
My feelings towards McCallum are definitely lukewarm. I'll vote for him, but I'd rather it be somebody else (don't as me who). I'm underwhelmed.
And if Ed gets any votes, it'll be from those he can drag out of the taverns, if campaign signs are indicative of voting patterns. A cruise on Main St. in Green Bay shows "Ed Thompson for Governor" signs in front (or beside) three taverns last week (this was in a 2-3 mile stretch). BTW, they're horrible-looking signs--goldish small lettering on a black background.
Mafree, would you concur in this? Or, am I missing something?
And then there's Ed Thompson.
The Libertarian candidate for governor spent last week hitting up donors at, yes, Dairy Queens in Saukville and Kewaskum. And on Monday, you could have found ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson's kid brother at a $20-a-head event at the Ding-A-Ling Supper Club in Mercer.
Thanks for the best laugh I've had all day :-))
The mystery is why Upchuckwalla is backing a Milwaukee RAT in Barrett instead of a fellow Madistan RAT.
It looks like Gamblin' Ed is going for the video gaming vote.
Bold prediction - the only charges, outside of Brian Burke (the third and most-powerful person to try to stand up to Upchuckwalla), that will be filed is the "nothing-burger" (TM Jeff Wagner) of campaigning, while the serious charges of graft that could be leveled solely against Upchuckwalla and his fellow RATs won't ever be filed.
The only things that mitigates against immediate charges are that he's not up for re-election in his Senate seat until 2004 and they might decide to pull his name off the ballot, knowing that the black voting population is a bunch of lemmings. Still, I'd expect him to be charged by the end of August.
You've got to hand it to Brian Blanchard.When it comes to finding a law firm that will provide services cheaply, nobody does it better.Two Downtown Chicago law firms threw fund-raisers for the Dane County district attorney, and neither even bothered to bill Blanchard's campaign for the room, food or liquor - that is, until after we asked questions about one of the events. One of the events happened nearly two years ago.
It seems the lawyers simply forgot, explained Melissa Mulliken, Blanchard's campaign manager.
Loop lawyers who don't send bills? That's Blanchard's story, and his folks are sticking to it.
Blanchard and Doyle are quickly loosing all credibility as corruption fighters. They'll be lucky if they don't end up in the pokey before Burke.
Credit the immigration services department of Catholic Social Services. If I remember correctly, we've had Hmong immigrants since the early 80's.
However, my Hmong neighbors are quite nice, the kids are well-mannered and very polite. A few of the older Hmong have license plates that read "Lao Vet."
Probably a simple mixup, which explains why all the Siberian immigrants were sent to Tampa.
Thanks for the ping.
You are basically right but I must add that there isn't as much Black support for Gary George as you might think. Many Blacks are supporting Barrett or Doyle, and most who meet Falk like her too. Gary is perceived by many Blacks as someone who plays the race card only when it's convenient for him, and he hasn't been visible enough in the Black community during this campaign. Yes, some Blacks will still vote for him and a few will likely be upset if he is kicked off the ballot, but don't look for massive Black protest if that happens.
I know Gary personally and I think he definitely has the smarts to be Governor or anything else he wants to be but I must say that if he doesn't have enough signatures then he shouldn't be on the ballot. Them's the rules.
Looks like Black supervisor will face a recall election and they're re-starting a recall on another one. I'd like to see two more bounced but the folk in their districts have to get movin'
Gov. Scott McCallum's re-election campaign charged Sunday that U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett was involved in the effort to remove fellow Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gary George from the ballot.
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"We are saddened to see the efforts to remove Senator George from the ballot," McCallum's campaign manager, Darrin Schmitz, said. "We are even more saddened to see those efforts linked to Tom Barrett."
Barrett's campaign shot back that the Milwaukee Democrat had nothing to do with the controversy swirling around whether George's campaign workers collected enough legitimate signatures to have George's name placed on the September primary ballot.
"We have said repeatedly that we knew nothing about this effort," Barrett spokeswoman Brigid O'Brien said.
"It is unfortunate that our opponents are trying to link Tom to this investigation. We have been forthright from the beginning. Tom has told Senator George himself that he had nothing to do with this investigation, and people who know Tom know that to be the case."
Earlier this month, a Madison college student filed a complaint contending that some of the signatures George had on his nominating petition were invalid. An investigation by the Journal Sentinel last week discovered that more than 200 signatures were falsified or otherwise invalid. At least one signer was a dead man, and other signatures featured non-existent or false addresses.
The student, Daniel McMurray, was helped by Joel Gratz, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala and a Barrett campaign volunteer.
Chvala did not return a reporter's phone calls Sunday.
Barrett was campaigning Sunday in Waukesha County and could not be reached, O'Brien said. McCallum was on his way to a campaign event in Kohler and also was unavailable, Schmitz said.
For their part, neither George nor his campaign staff would discuss the controversy, campaign manager Dave Begel said.
"The senator's position is the same as it has been," Begel said Sunday. "He has no comment."
Regardless of whether Barrett had anything to do with the petition signature imbroglio, it's not good for his name to be linked to the controversy, said Evan Zeppos, a public relations consultant and political observer who supports Attorney General Jim Doyle's bid for governor.
The campaign - the primary will be held Sept. 10 - is entering the period in which each of the four Democratic candidates is trying to break from the pack, Zeppos said. The problem for Barrett is that voters might not hear his message because they are concentrating on whether he had any role in the controversy.
The state Elections Board and three district attorneys are conducting separate investigations into George's petitions.
The Elections Board asked for the district attorneys to get involved in the case after a July 18 hearing in which the board allowed George to stay on the ballot for now.
George's campaign submitted 2,372 signatures; the Elections Board accepted 2,192 as valid.
However, an investigation by a team of Journal Sentinel reporters last week found 231 falsified signatures and non-existent or invalid addresses. That would leave George with 1,961 valid signatures, 39 short of the 2,000 needed to remain on the ballot.
If George ends up getting thrown off the ballot, there will be a backlash from African-Americans in Wisconsin, Rep. Annette Polly Williams (D-Milwaukee) said Sunday.
"I can promise there will probably be some anger in the African-American community," Williams said.
She added that fouling up petition signatures, particularly when so much is at stake in the governor's race, is not something that is likely to be done out of simple incompetence.
"It looks like to me that Senator George had someone in his campaign (who) was there to sabotage. But then again, the ultimate responsibility comes back to the person running the campaign. They have to check every name because you might have someone in your campaign who doesn't have their best interest at heart," said Williams, who supports George.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the severity of those errors - it was deliberate."
Milwaukee community activist Reuben Harpole, who has been active in local campaigns, said a candidate should be the person getting signatures for his petitions.
"It's good to have helpers, but for your main signatures that really count, get those yourself," said Harpole, a supporter of George.
Whether George is forced off the ballot is up to the Elections Board, which has tentatively scheduled a hearing Wednesday in Milwaukee on the George petitions, Executive Director Kevin Kennedy said Sunday.
"Everybody is looking forward to the findings of the election board," said John Kraus, a Doyle spokesman.
Doyle was campaigning at county fairs in western Wisconsin Sunday and could not be reached, Kraus said.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk had no comment on the controversy, campaign manager Tom Russell said.
"We really want to stay out of this," Russell said.
The other campaigns all said they collected well over the 2,000 signatures needed to get on the ballot. Candidates can turn in up to 4,000 signatures.
"We collected 22,000 signatures, from every county in Wisconsin," said O'Brien, of the Barrett campaign.
The campaign reviewed every petition, O'Brien said. If anything looked the least bit questionable on any page, the campaign did not hand in that page. The campaign handed in the maximum 4,000 signatures.
George supporters on Sunday rallied around their candidate, saying they doubted he did anything wrong. They added that if there was any wrongdoing, they believe that George didn't know about it.
"I am concerned about what is happening," said Karl Rajani, a Greenfield businessman who contributed $10,000 to George's campaign, "but I have no reason to believe Gary George was involved."
"I am a little disappointed right now, but I still think Gary is a good guy," said Ramesh Kapur, owner of the Glendale-based engineering firm Kapur & Associates, who contributed $4,000 to George's campaign.
Zeppos said the larger problem in the signature flap would be a boost in voter cynicism because Wisconsin residents will have even less trust in their elected officials.
"This is going to be a great time to an outsider," said Craig Peterson, executive vice president of the Milwaukee public relations firm of Zigman Joseph Stephenson.
The ultimate outsider in the governor's race - Libertarian Ed Thompson - said the scandal was helping his campaign. Potential voters are telling Thompson, the younger brother of former Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, how fed up they are with scandals ranging from the Milwaukee County pensions to Enron and WorldCom.
Since the scandals have become public, more people are attending his rallies, perhaps because they seem disgusted with the incumbents, Thompson said.
"People are so sick of what's going on," Thompson said. "All I hear is that it doesn't matter which party. People say (Assembly Speaker Scott) Jensen and Chvala are the same. People are fed up."
And this one says that Green Bay area voters (that's me) will decide the Dem primaries....a few well-placed crossover votes might do it :-))
Madison - The four Wisconsin Democrats running for governor insist they can win the Sept. 10 primary election to become the party's nominee.
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But three of the four will be disappointed.
And Wisconsin's political scene is likely to be reshaped by forces beyond the candidates' control - independent campaign ads that began airing in the Milwaukee area last week, pending criminal investigations of legislative leaders and their aides, and voters' anger at incumbents.
There also are regional considerations: Two of the candidates are from Milwaukee County, the largest source of Democratic votes, and two are from Dane County, the home of Democratic nominees for governor - most of them unsuccessful - for decades.
Odds still favors Attorney General Jim Doyle winning the Democratic nomination, since the three statewide races he won give him a higher name identification than any other Democrat and a statewide base of supporters.
But, if he's the leader, Doyle is looking over his shoulder at U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, who has been winning Milwaukee votes since he went to the Legislature in 1984, and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk.
Falk's TV ads, which begin today on Milwaukee-area stations, could give her a favorable first impression with southeastern Wisconsin voters.
The fourth Democrat, state Sen. Gary George (D-Milwaukee), must survive a serious challenge to signatures on his nomination papers to stay on the primary ballot. "Clearly, I have to be on the ballot to win," George said last week.
Based on more than 20 interviews with party workers, all four candidates, campaign advisers and observers, here are the strategies each Democrat is relying on to get enough of what could be 600,000 Democratic votes statewide on Sept. 10.
"I'm not a political insider," said the 51-year-old Dane County executive, who visibly winced when asked nuts-and-bolts questions such as whether she must win Dane County to win the Democratic nomination.
"I'm in politics because I don't like it," she added. "I don't start with, 'I'd like to be governor,' and then craft a strategy on how to get there. I want to change things, and being governor is one vehicle for changing things to get a different vision for our state. What I offer is this set of skills, solutions and vision."
But the I'm-not-a-politician card Falk repeatedly plays is a key part of her campaign strategy, professionals note.
Falk is "targeting" three groups of potential voters on Sept. 10, they say:
Falk also could benefit from the kind of fierce, personal attacks that were seen in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary in 1992. If Doyle and Barrett begin attacking each other, it could sow enough anger among voters that they hand Falk 35% of the vote - just enough to win.
But each day that goes by without a Doyle-Barrett mud fight makes that scenario less likely. And, Falk and Tom Russell, her campaign manager, admit they can't depend on her two better-known opponents destroying each other.
Instead, Russell said their strategy depends on TV ads that tell voters who Falk is, the difference that she has made in Dane County and the difference she can make as governor.
"There are a huge number of undecided voters," Russell said. "Upwards of 40 percent to 50 percent of the electorate are undecided now. That means we've all got a lot of work to do."
No stranger to controversy, George said last week that he plans on surviving the challenge to his nomination papers and remain in the primary. He insists his "things-must-change" message will catch on among Democrats statewide.
Voters are focused on family vacations now and won't start paying attention to the Democratic primary until late in August, George said.
"The face of the campaign you see right now is not how the campaign is going to look on September 10," he added. "We still have the serious part of the campaign to go."
When voters begin paying attention, George predicted they will support his reform plan for the Capitol: Ending fund raising when a state budget is pending, giving the Legislature only 90 days to pass a budget and limiting the budget to financial matters, which would abolish the practice of legislators anonymously sticking hundreds of special-interest provisions in spending packages.
George said he didn't solicit as much campaign cash as his three rivals for a reason: "I can't be a reform candidate if I'm going to sell myself the way the others are."
But George said his campaign will still have enough money to run TV ads, although it had only $34,908 on hand on July 1.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee government affairs professor Mordecai Lee, who served with George in the state Senate, said he respects George but doesn't expect him to win the party's nomination. George has already run for governor and U.S. Senate without finding widespread support, Lee noted.
But Lee, a Barrett supporter, said George has been counted out before, only to resurface.
"He's like a cat," Lee said of George. "He's got nine lives."
Wisconsin's attorney general and his advisers like these numbers:
Doyle, 56, was re-elected with 1.1 million votes four years ago, getting even more votes than four-term Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson and winning all but one county. And, the number of votes Doyle got from Milwaukee County voters has soared over his career from 141,102 in 1990 to 212,097 in 1998.
Betting that Thompson would not seek a fifth term, Doyle announced in spring 2000 that he would run for governor. That early announcement carried advantages, including being able to hire a formal campaign staff and solicit donations and endorsements before anyone else, and disadvantages that include being perceived as having campaigned forever.
Doyle campaign advisers won't discuss their strategy, but the candidate said his record is the best reason why he'll be the Democratic nominee for governor.
"My strength is that I'm a statewide candidate," he said. "I have run strong in every (media) market in the state. Other candidates are regional candidates that have to really do well in one place or another. This is a total statewide campaign that we're running."
Others say Doyle has built a solid, professional campaign that, if it doesn't stumble and its TV ads remind voters who Doyle is, is still likely to win the primary.
But they also say Doyle's support comes from the oldest Democrats, who remember that Doyle's mother was one of the first women elected to the Legislature in 1948 and that his father put the statewide party together after World War II and went on to serve as a popular federal judge.
With his strong statewide name recognition, one key Democrat noted, Doyle is the only one who could win the nomination even if he finished second in Dane County, behind Falk, and third in Milwaukee County, behind Barrett and Falk.
Yes, Barrett conceded, he must win Milwaukee County - where Democrats may cast one out of every four votes statewide - to be the party's nominee.
And, Barrett predicted, he will finish third in Dane County behind the county's two favorites, Doyle and Falk.
But he said he will win the party's nomination because of his neighbor-to-neighbor "grass-roots organization" and endorsements by almost half of the Democratic members of the Legislature. His was the first campaign to open six regional offices.
Experts say the first strategy of Barrett, 48, was to sell himself as "warm and personable" - the kind of governor who could tear down the Capitol's high walls of partisan distrust.
Now, Barrett campaign manager Joel Brennan said, the campaign has a twofold strategy to win support outside the Milwaukee area: Use TV ads now running in northern and western Wisconsin to introduce Barrett in areas where he is not well known, and then have local campaign volunteers identify and contact individual voters.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Ken Goldstein said he's impressed that Barrett tailored his first TV ads in northern and western Wisconsin to those regions. They feature U.S. Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wausau), dean of the state's congressional delegation, for example, and acknowledge that the issues are different in rural Wisconsin than in Madison and Milwaukee.
Goldstein's said the four Madison- and Milwaukee-area candidates could pretty much cancel each other out in their hometowns, which would leave it to Green Bay-area voters to decide who is the Democratic nominee for governor.
"All of these candidates are less well known in the Green Bay-area," he explained.
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Gary George Nomination
It leaves me a little concerned that someone is using my identity. No, I did not personally sign any petitions for Gary George. That definitely was not me. This really concerns me. 
State Elections Board:
DAs launching criminal probes into signatures (7/25/02)
Milwaukee County: 26.6% of the Democratic vote statewide.