Gazette baffled - survey meaningless

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If the Gazette had their way, failing to respond to a survey about campaign accountability would have been good enough reason to suspect politicians of corruption. But that was not to be. And judging by the papers editorial rollcall of Wisconsin politicians, only Jim Doyle(D), Kim Hixson(D) and Chuck Benedict(D) deserve credit of sorts because they were the only ones to fill out the questionaire. Sounds like a balanced editorial, right? However, nothing could be further from the truth, remember this is the Gazette.

Jim Doyle, the big tuna here, turned in the ethics survey in good fashion, but his challenger Mark Green(R), did not. One can only imagine the frustration among the Gazette editors as their expectations were shattered by these hard realizations.

JG excerpt:
In District 45, Democratic incumbent Chuck Benedict answered yes to all six questions. Oh, but he’s running unopposed.

Oh, but he running unopposed. What’s that supposed to mean? That his responses don’t count? Whether or not a candidate is running unopposed has no bearing on their political posture on campaign reform. The editorial lightly questions the politics of those who did not return the survey and then discredits those who did. Yep, you guessed it, Chuck Benedict is a Democrat.

Paul Bucher did not return the survey, but the Gazette then offers Buchers response for cover. Yep, you guessed it, Bucher is a Republican.

JG excerpt:
Bucher says he would create a corruption unit to review all campaign financial and ethics board reports filed by candidates to determine whether the donors received state business.

I guess Bucher feels he’s independent enough to investigate corruption within his own office. His long winded answer actually was a resounding no to at least two of the six questions on the survey. Unfortunately, today’s editorial was not really meant to inform the public of a little noticed survey.

Once again and all too often the Gazette slyly used their editorial powers to smear democratic incumbents. But even worse, they abused the good intentions of three independent watch-dog government groups by using their survey to repeat meritless accusations just for the sake of repeating them.

If Wisconsinites really want to reclaim their state from the influence of dirty money, we need to completely overhaul the way government does business. But just as importantly we need to cleanse the government of the party tied to big business, corporate handouts and special interests. Yep, you guessed it, Republicans.