Thursday, December 27, 2007

Pandora's Box is Open

Uh-Oh, Pandora's box is open, the cat out of the bag, or the genie is out of the bottle.

Pick you own cliche, but one thing is certain, the truth about the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign in coming out.

On December 24th, a columnist in the main stream media, Daniel Bice, picked up on the fact that there are some serious issues with the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. This is a fact that many on the conservative side of the blogosphere has known for while now.

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has billed itself the watchdog of Wisconsin politics and policies. WDC claims to be against all special interest money. The WDC has twisted itself into what must be painful contortions, screaming about Annette Ziegler and her conflicts of interests for the last year.

Doing a some investigative work Daniel Bice has discovered that the WDC has their own problems with conflicts of interests.

Earlier this year, the WDC came out in support of the Healthy Wisconsin plan touted by the Democrats. The problem is that some pretty serious campaign laws were allegedly broken by the Democrat leaders of Healthy Wisconsin, Senator Jon Erpenbach and Senator Judy Robson.

Some special interest groups, along with Senator's Erpenbach and Robson financed a poll to support Healthy Wisconsin. Erpenbach and Robson both used their campaign warchests in order to partially finance the poll with the special interest groups.

Obviously, this is a campaign no-no.

Being the campaign watchdogs for the state of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign mysteriously had very little to say about this campaign no-no. In normal conditions, the WDC would be out banging their pots and pans demanding justice and integrity. Not in the case, they are not.

It appears that WDC's support of Healthy Wisconsin might have affected their judgment and the reason they had little to say about this campaign infraction.

Clearly, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, has a major conflict of interest problem sitting right in their lap.

One of the biggest problems with the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is that the main stream media continues to bill them as a non-partisan campaign watchdog.

If the main stream media took a few moments to scratch the surface of the WDC, they would be able to clearly see what so many others including Professor John McAdams from the blog, Marquette Warrior, is able to see- the WDC is anything but non-partisan.

So let's scratch the surface just a bit:

Mike McCabe, Executive Director of the WDC had this to say in a speech at the liberal Fighting Bob Fest:
So here we are . . . in the midst of a disastrous war, in the midst of the biggest political corruption scandal in our state’s history. There’s no better place than these fairgrounds to ask ourselves: What would Bob do?
Clearly, the chief finger pointing watchdog is a anti-war zealot, speaking at the liberal anti-war zealots festival. As an individual, Mr. McCabe is certainly allowed to think and feel any way he chooses. However, Mr. McCabe was speaking as a representative of a non-partisan watchdog group. This is certainly not non-partisan behavior.

So we already know that the leader of this so-called non-partisan watchdog group is not exactly displaying non-partisan behavior, how about the rest of the leadership?

From the pages of the "WDC- Who are we?", you can clearly see who they are.

WDC Board of Directors President, Sheila Guilfoyle is with the Progressive Dane.

Now, I ask you- do the name "Progressive Dane" even sound the least bit non-partisan to you?

No? That is because they are not. This is their webpage. You cannot get much more liberal than this.

Also on the WDC Board of Directors is Mark Evenson with AFT-Wisconsin.

AFT Wisconsin is united with the AFL-CIO, here is their webpage. I don't think that the AFL-CIO even tries to hide their liberal politics, so there is no sense even asking which political direction they lean.

Another member of the WDC Board of Directors is Leigh Roberts with the Wisconsin Association of Retired Teachers.

Need I say more? Teacher's union, WEAC, etc... A little common sense is all that is needed to tell which direction this group leans in it's politics.

A quick scan alone of the WDC coalition identifies a series of liberal political special interest groups and left leaning groups.

AFT Wisconsin
Burlington Progressives
Common Cause in Wisconsin
Madison Teacher's Inc.
Peace Action Wisconsin
Progressive Dane
Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

Between WDC's executive director, liberal board members and coalitions with liberal groups, it is very difficult to understand why anyone would reasonable believe that they are non-partisan.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with these individuals or groups supporting whatever cause they choose to support. This is America, we are all allowed to do this.

For the media to continue to identify this group as non-partisan is very difficult to understand when clearly there is a ideological bend to the WDC.

Let's stop pretending.

If it look like a liberal duck, waddles like a liberal duck and quacks like a liberal duck- it is probably a liberal duck.

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