Hey AssDems!
I know you've got a big budget vote coming up next week, and word on the street is that you're still at least a dozen votes short. Considering you've got a bunch of liberal, Milwaukee sympathizers on a Finance committee chaired by two dyed-in-the-wool Madison lefties, I don't think any of the sane thinkers are surprised that your "solution" to Wisconsin's budget problem is one that a lot of your members are balking at.
Now, I have some experience with this issue. I had a nice seat for a number of years where I could watch conservative asshats in the AssGOP slowly run out guys like DuWayne Johnsrud, Terry Musser, and a number of other more reasonable members of their caucus. You would be wise to remember some of the what the AssGOPhas taught you, before you try and repeat it yourselves.
First off, remember that you reclaimed the majority by winning a bunch of swing seats and Republican leaners with moderate Democrats. Don't let yourselves fall into the trap of thinking you can treat these guys like the AssGOP treated Terry Musser. In case you missed it, Ann Hraychuck isn't running in suburban Dane County. Neither is Louis Molepske, or Amy Sue Vruwink, or Chris Danou, or Mark Radcliffe. If you are expecting them to go home and defend a budget that is basically a Trojan horse for pent-up liberal policy wishes, I think you are setting yourselves up for failure.
Did you guys on Finance ever talk to your backbench members? Or is it part of your grand strategy that your rural, blue-dog Democrats are putting out a stream of releases about how much they hate a lot of your budget provisions? Is this some high-risk attempt to make them look like players back home? Because I think it just makes it look like you don't know what you're doing. That we're going to have to watch a Democratic Assembly and a Democratic Senate go to conference to resolve a budget originally proposed by a Democratic governor is damn near the funniest thing fourth floor East will ever see.
A couple of other quick notes:
Next week will be an interesting one for you guys, and I for one am very excited to watch you govern. How you handle your big moment could have a big impact on whether you guys are able to consolidate your majority in 2010 or whether you're going to hand it back to the AssGOP, a group that isn't in any better a position to govern than you are. Good luck!
Smooches,
RS
I know you've got a big budget vote coming up next week, and word on the street is that you're still at least a dozen votes short. Considering you've got a bunch of liberal, Milwaukee sympathizers on a Finance committee chaired by two dyed-in-the-wool Madison lefties, I don't think any of the sane thinkers are surprised that your "solution" to Wisconsin's budget problem is one that a lot of your members are balking at.
Now, I have some experience with this issue. I had a nice seat for a number of years where I could watch conservative asshats in the AssGOP slowly run out guys like DuWayne Johnsrud, Terry Musser, and a number of other more reasonable members of their caucus. You would be wise to remember some of the what the AssGOPhas taught you, before you try and repeat it yourselves.
First off, remember that you reclaimed the majority by winning a bunch of swing seats and Republican leaners with moderate Democrats. Don't let yourselves fall into the trap of thinking you can treat these guys like the AssGOP treated Terry Musser. In case you missed it, Ann Hraychuck isn't running in suburban Dane County. Neither is Louis Molepske, or Amy Sue Vruwink, or Chris Danou, or Mark Radcliffe. If you are expecting them to go home and defend a budget that is basically a Trojan horse for pent-up liberal policy wishes, I think you are setting yourselves up for failure.
Did you guys on Finance ever talk to your backbench members? Or is it part of your grand strategy that your rural, blue-dog Democrats are putting out a stream of releases about how much they hate a lot of your budget provisions? Is this some high-risk attempt to make them look like players back home? Because I think it just makes it look like you don't know what you're doing. That we're going to have to watch a Democratic Assembly and a Democratic Senate go to conference to resolve a budget originally proposed by a Democratic governor is damn near the funniest thing fourth floor East will ever see.
A couple of other quick notes:
- That oil franchise tax is a total loser now that you're finally admitting that there's no constitutional way to keep oil companies from passing it on to consumers. You've screwed the pooch on this one. In fact, the pooch was first screwed when your Democratic governor capitulated on the repeal of gas tax indexing. Even if you stopped raiding the transportation fund to buy everything else, you still need another source of revenue for highways. This, however, ain't gonna be it.
- Those changes to joint and several liability are a total albatross and you need to ditch them sooner rather than later. Is this an amendment that you really want your vulnerable members to have to vote to table next week? Or are you going to totally freeball like you did on the smoking bill and end up in a position where you're screwing up the vote on the amendment to allow smoking in hotel rooms? It's tabled! It's not tabled! It's reconsidered! We're standing informal! What the hell are we doing up here?!?!
- Speaking of procedural votes, remember what Steve Freese told you 2 1/2 years ago: "If anybody ever says a procedural vote will never come back to bite you, don't believe them because I can point to examples all over the state." If you think asking rural Dems to kill amendments on liability, and QEO, and pork provisions, and driver's licenses for undocumented residents, and dozens of other potential lightning rods won't cause you problems, you're crazy. A couple of them, fine. But the GOP will have dozens, if not hundreds of these things teed up, and your vulnerables will be casting ballots on each and every one.
- There are no AssGOP votes for you. Sorry. They're way too disorganized to have any kind of a game plan that isn't going to just involve running against your budget. And your handling of the budget thus far hasn't exactly engendered a lot of confidence in your abilities to lead a functioning majority. You can carp all you want about how the GOP took its ball and went home, but at the end of the day, voters don't care about procedure. What they'll care about is that this budget is ugly and it's your budget. You're going to have to own it all by yourself.
- Side note to Jeff Wood: We all know that nobody trusts you or even really likes you, except for maybe Suder. You should hold out your vote until the Democrats agree to endorse your re-election bid in 2010. I mean, what else are you going to do, cast your vote on principle?
Next week will be an interesting one for you guys, and I for one am very excited to watch you govern. How you handle your big moment could have a big impact on whether you guys are able to consolidate your majority in 2010 or whether you're going to hand it back to the AssGOP, a group that isn't in any better a position to govern than you are. Good luck!
Smooches,
RS
6 comments:
Yeah, it's more than a little disconcerting that the AssDems are coming up short on votes for their budget, but it shouldn't shock anyone, given some of the stuff in the budget. Though I'm a "liberal," I could do without the drivers licenses for illegals provision.
Here's the thing RS: when Majorities flip in the House, all they do is exchange playbooks. Neither side learns anything; they simply repeat the mistakes of their predecessors. And the Monona two-step goes on.
Oh, yea...this driver card permit is going to be a real bug-a-boo for the Dems.
Plus, they created an "don't ask, don't tell" provision in the budget, whereby the cops can't inquire of a person status while they're staring directly at a their state-issued ID that confirms their status.
Whatever.
The way this budget is shaping up, I don't think the powers that be even listened to the more moderate members. Too many earmarks, too much policy that should be separate from the budget, not enough saying "hey, we can't even pay for what we have now, so we can't give you any money for your pet project that you owe some group for their votes". The Dems got in because they won the middle; they are trying very hard to lose it.
Apparently Pocan is better suited at getting into the majority than he is at helping run the majority. What a complete disaster the AssDems leadership team has thrust upon their caucus. If I were a newly elected Dem freshman or a Dema vulnerable, I would start updating my resume because this is going to be rough. Honestly, I think even the AssGOP could have handled this better, so that should tell you how bad this thing is.
Great post as usual. As I predicted, as I've considered just giving up and calling myself a Democrat they go and do something like this budget. It's so devoid of any tough decisions, anything that puts the state on a more sustainable path, anything that wouldn't get an MPA flunked out of his grad program.
Maybe we need to start a grassroots movement to ban political parties.
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