Dear Mayor Barrett,
If you win today, please re-consider and reschedule the unity rally that was planned for tomorrow night in Madison. You can not call for unity amongst the candidates, and then cancel the unity rally because you think you are going to win and want to avoid protestors. You insult the people of Wisconsin who worked so hard and gave up so many of their personal hours away from family and friends to get here.
It was honorable of Mike Tate to fall on his sword to cover for you, but it begs the question if he has to do that before you are even elected, what do we have to look forward to for the next two years?
The prevailing theme has been, we will unite behind whoever wins. While I agree with that, leadership starts at the top. In America, we elect officials, not leaders. Leadership is something over and above that, that needs to be earned. This is a chance to start out your successful campaign(if you prevail today), by showing leadership and unity amongst all the citizens of WI.
We have had a year and a half of politicians doing everything they can to avoid protestors. It is time we had a candidate who governed so we do not need protestors.
Please, Mayor Barrett, if you win, (for that matter whoever wins)RESCHEDULE the unity rally.
Forward!!
Sincerely;
Jeff Simpson
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
The unity rally is going on in any case. Those candidates who wish to show up may do so. Anyone who doesn't want to be associated with unions or the peoples' movement is free to spend the evening with his campaign conultants.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Barrett, my wife said "It's like having a boyfriend who says he loves you but doesn't want to be seen with you in public".
WTF?!? If the unions had planned on protesting a Barrett win, then they should be thwarted. That is exactly the type of behavior that is turning the independent voters in Walker's (and potentially Barrett's) favor. This state's political institutions don't belong to the unions any more than they belong to the far right-wing backing Walker.
ReplyDeleteProtesting the representative elected by the 85% of citizens (70% of Dems) who don't belong to a union is political suicide. If we can't rally behind whoever emerges to challenge Walker, and we fail at this attempt to bring civility, cooperation and compromise back to our state, the unions will get what they deserve - crushing defeat followed by RTW becoming the law of the land. And that's just the start.
What part of unity don't you understand?
DeleteGee, I'm surprised Tom Barrett confided his evil plot to avoid protesters to you. You must be very clever to have gotten him to do that.
ReplyDeleteAre you certain that the rally was cancelled by Tom Barett? I ask because the response I got from his campaign staff is this:
ReplyDelete"Unity Rally was cancelled because the Democratic Party of Wisconsin decided to focus on voter contact operations instead of trying to turn out thousands of people to Madison for a weeknight rally.
Tom is attending a Unity Breakfast with all of the other candidates, so there is still a unity event."
Oh, please, like they would admit to the biggest PR blunder in years.
DeleteOops, I spelled "Barrett" incorrectly. Need more coffee. :)
ReplyDeleteFYI-Here's the response I just got from DPW: "We all will need to be united to defeat Scott Walker. Our emphasis is on voter turnout as the best way to achieve this goal."
ReplyDeleteNews Flash: Party supports party-backed candidate!
DeleteThe rally isn't cancelled. It's not the Democratic party's rally to cancel. Just as it wasn't the Democratic party that started the wave of protests and organizing that led to the recall. The Democratic party has been riding the wave and are under the mistaken impression that they are the wave.
ReplyDeleteWasn't the "Unity Rally" Barrett's idea?
ReplyDeleteA unity pledge was Barrett's idea, but another candidate would not go along with it.
ReplyDeleteAs for this event, a Dem unity event was becoming a union event -- a Bell-and-Beil event -- and they don't deserve it for what they did to Dems in 2010. The teachers' union's refusal to endorse the Dem candidate in 2010 helped to elect Walker.
Most teachers cannot go to the Capitol tomorrow, anyway. They will be in their classrooms all across the state, unified in their goal to get Wisconsin educated to vote more wisely to pick its leaders -- in the Capitol or in the unions.
I've got my sheets of folks to call (less enthused, leaning Dem folks----the key to our win) and am ready to call. Forget the rallies and GET TO WORK!
ReplyDeleteYeah, and what will you be telling them? "Vote for ______!"?
DeleteWow, Anonymous at 11:26, you sure make it sound like teachers around the state are busy brainwashing the youth of WI to vote for Dems...it doesn't surprise me, but the fact you said it does...I thought teachers were only about "the kids"? So much for that rhetoric.
ReplyDelete"Most teachers cannot go to the Capitol tomorrow, anyway. They will be in their classrooms all across the state, unified in their goal to get Wisconsin educated to vote more wisely to pick its leaders -- in the Capitol or in the unions."
First thing is the unity march is/was scheduled for the evening and to the last anon(can you guys at least make up screennames?) why wouldnt teachers want to protest? you are not seriously suggesting that if they protest they dont care about the kids are you?
ReplyDeleteBarrett knows tying his campaign to the unions is a death warrant. The people of Wisconsin do not support the union entitlement recall that is why Falk will lose by such huge numbers. By Barrett continuing to pretend this recall was about jobs and not union money he hopes to win in June and does not need the union albatross around his neck.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Mr. Unity, Tom Barrett, should attend the unity rally. I would look forward to see him give Marty Biel and Mary Bell a big wet smootchie. You know, they're the ones who told him not to run because they wouldn't support him. Also, a photo of Barrett on the stage with the union thug leaders would be priceless. Maybe then the recall could be about collective bargaining where it started. Of course, if it really was about collective bargaining, the issue only 12% of the public cares about, then Walker would win by a landslide. You go, Kathleen! Run as a write-in candidate!
ReplyDeletebravo, you guys are coming in here desperate to make the issue not about the workers of WI. That shows you either havent read the polls or you have and your scared!
ReplyDeleteJeff,
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't Barrett or Falk just say, "I want to run against Scott Walker because I want to bring back collective bargaining."? No phony women's issues, no promising to bring the state together to sing Kumbaya, just say what the reason for the recall really is: Collective bargaining, and union money and power.
^Walker troll.
DeleteThe protests started about Walker's violation of legal and longstanding process in this state, actually -- and that remains the reason for me and my family, along with the huge hits to my take-home pay. The process for any bill is to have hearings sufficient for concerned citizens to speak about it, so for bills of such impact as Act 10, there usually are many hearings, across the state, and each for many hours.
ReplyDeleteWalker's Act 10 was to have a hearing only in Madison, only for 2 hours, and with only a day's notice. That is what brought protesters -- many of them not teachers but other public employees (watch the hearings, as I did), because teachers did not walk out to protest until days later -- to the Capitol. And they forced the hearings to go longer, and so many of them waited to speak that they had to wait into the night, and then Dem legislators kept unnofficial hearings going for two more days, which meant more waiting through the nights -- and that is how the occupation of the Capitol began. And then more teachers came, too. . . .
But from the start, so did a lot of us who are public employees but not teachers and not union members, as we did not have collective bargaining rights -- but we were going to take the hits in our take-home pay, and we wanted a chance to speak to Walker's legislators about that, just as we want all legal processes followed in our state. To keep saying that this is all about or even mainly about collective bargaining revises history and the important reason for the start of the protest, a lesson about process and citizen participation that all politicians ought to heed. And to keep saying that this is all about or mainly about collective bargaining dismisses my reasons and those of many others in this state who still are not being heard -- by the unions and by their backers.
We want to win. And for the right reasons, all of the reasons that we need to win back. And we can win more recall backers if we know the lessons of the recent past to explain to them that they need to care about processes that protect them, too, with more bad laws ahead.
I love these people who keep trying to impugn unions. Look at United States history and look at the last time union membership levels were so low and income disparity so high. The issues are historically linked. Unions aren't another special interest, they are in the public interest. Candidates distancing themselves from the economic well being of common working people and their unions is the failure point of the Democratic party. It is the reason I can't support Tom Barrett and have a hard time getting behind Barack Obama too.
ReplyDelete