With Republicans, Reform Wasn't Necessary

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The April 15th edition of the Janesville Messenger contained an article written by Jim Lyke in which he offered his perspective about the recent local elections.

There is widespread agreement that the non-partisan state supreme court race was dirty, but Lyke along with many others think a candidate shouldn’t dig too deeply into the work record of their opposition. I strongly disagree. They could frame it as a “private” investigator hired to dig up dirt, but in Ziegler’s case with the hundreds if not thousands of decisions and positions a judge makes during their career, you need an investigator to pour over these documents to find the truth. Clifford’s investigation did just that but revealed nothing about Ziegler’s private life during the campaign and without that “investigation,” no one would have ever suspected Ziegler’s conflict of interest. Even her victims didn't know. Compared to Ziegler, Clifford ran a very clean campaign. But she lost because heavily financed negative campaigns work.

But I also find the typical assumptions that partisans often make regarding chambers of commerce and business interests in Lyke’s column. For instance the very idea that because Democrats are in the majority, the WMC shouldn’t be too rigorous in their efforts to further the interest of the business community, otherwise they will make enemies, implies that Democrats are anti-business. Lyke also defends Forward Janesville as a bi-partisan or non-partisan institution simply because they don’t publicly endorse candidates or have a political action committee? Forward Janesville clearly has a political agenda and beats the very same, only slightly smaller drum as the WMC. There may be a token streak of democratic ideals somewhere in their mission statement but they are clearly a tool of Republicanism.

Chambers of commerce like Forward Janesville have been flying under the political radar for years in Janesville. Even their questions of the school and council candidates were framed with assumptions to elicit a certain response that could have spelled disaster for an indifferent candidate. Some candidates clearly played it safe with very "under the counter" answers.

Finally, Lyke bashes Doyle for the school funding crisis by saying he opted for the easy way out using his partial veto power to fund education with millions of extra dollars. Well then, had not the Republican-led state legislature sent Doyle a woefully inadequate budget, he would not have had to revive the monster with his scalpel. Simply put, had Doyle not performed a major transplant, the Janesville school deficit could have been $5 million instead of $1.8 million.

But I do agree with Lyke on at least one issue. The time is now for Madison to push budget reforms and have some serious discussions about school funding because if the WMC continue to buy Republicans back in, the school crisis today will look like the “good ol’ days.”

Hey Jim, don’t tell me you’re a liberal, let me continue to figure it out, it's more fun this way.

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The editorial in the Messenger was another one of those GOP in-denial exercises where they defended Biskupic and his railroad job against the poor Georgia Thompson. I almost fell off my chair in hysterical laughter when I read this passage.

JM Editorial Excerpt:
Just once, we'd like to see even a modicum of humility.
After all, his administration's craven fund-raising created the political climate that attracted media attention to the travel contract, and ultimately, the scrutiny of Biskupic's office.

In all due respect. Ha-ha-ha-he-ho-he-ha-ha-he-ho-ho. Stop it please!
Don't raise too much money Jim Doyle, you might attract attention from the right-wing media and they in turn will put a republican lackey like Biskupic on your tail. And when he sends an innocent person to jail out of blind stupidity, its your fault because suspicious minds thought you raised too much money. No evidence of politics here - no sireee.