Holy Money in Politics & Dem's Response to June

Yesterday mornings news from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign that the recall spending was so absurd really took a whole day for me to digest, especially considering the e-mail I got from Mike Tate and the Wis Dems later in the day as a reply to the survey that the sent out a few weeks back.

First, the money thing... 80.9 Million Dollars? You've got to be kidding me. $80.9 Million and only a 58% voter turnout. Yikes. But more than the absurdity of the money, which is pretty absurd, is the fact that $58.7 Million of that was Republican money and only $22 Million Democrats. It's amazing how much information is contained in the press release which is located at this link: http://www.wisdc.org/pr072512.php and seriously, I would recommend looking at it. (It will take you 10 minutes and you will thank the world that people like WDC exist)

The other thing contained in the release are 3 tables. The first shows how much each group (Read: SuperPAC, PAC, Corporation, Union) donated, and if the name is a little "obscure" who the group is tied to. Yes, the Republican Governors Association came in #1 with almost 10 Million alone. Below that there is a table documenting the total expenditures for groups between both the 2011 & 2012 Recalls, and further on below that a table which shows the individuals who donated the most money to campaigns. Wisconsin's Diane Hendricks topped the list, but I hate the fact it's made up of so many out of state people.

Mike McCabe and his group at WDC do great work. It's no wonder so many people will fall in line behind a governor who clearly is nothing more than a facade to billionaires and the corporate establishment with such money backing their cause. But really, Democrats are still organized in this state and still hold the advantage for Obama moving into November, which means Democrats are still alive and well in Wisconsin.

Which leads me to State Democratic Leader Mike Tate's message and results from Democrats following our June loss in the Gubernatorial Recall. You can download the .PDF from the Act Blue page, located here.

If you are a Democrat, Liberal, or Progressive, I would read it and take it to heart. Tate has taken a lot of fire over the last year or so, some of it earned, some of it not so much IMHO. But I think this little "memo" as he terms it, lays out some good things related to the fact that he certainly seems to have heard our gripes. Now, how they are going to be addressed will be the truest test to how the state party is doing in trying to correct their ills.

He breaks down the memo into a few areas: Big Money, Messaging, Field Program/Voter Contact, & Growing the Bench. He then addresses some of the complaints that they fielded, but couldn't do anything about, such as the fact that people got hit so many times by canvases because the groups cannot coordinate. His replies are short, to the point and explanatory, and something we as state members should take in, digest, and figure out how to best apply for the fall campaign. I can't always say I agree with everything he says, or all of the answers he gives, but something is better than nothing.

Let's take this & the "Cullen Flap" in stride and see what we can do to better organize ourselves and coalesce together for a successful run this November. Remember, we still did amazing things, and were so mobilized for the past year and a half that the energy that created in many people (including myself) is not dying.