Monday, April 4, 2016

Abele's Endorsements

During every election cycle, politicians and candidates scramble to get endorsements from various groups and individuals even though the importance of these endorsements to the voters is debatable.

Sometimes these endorsements can tell the voter very little.  After all, Democrats are going to endorse Democrats, Republicans are going to endorse Republicans.

Other times, they can tell the voter quite a bit.  They can sometimes confirm or deny allegations being leveled at the candidate.  They can also tell the voter if the candidate is being up front and honest about who they really are.

For example, look at the race for Milwaukee County Executive.

Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele has been trying to smear his opponent, State Senator Chris Larson, by implying that Larson was racist because he didn't pander to the sellout senator, Lena Taylor.  Abele also laughably tried to claim that Larson was in cahoots with the Big Banks and other special interest groups and not did not stand up for the people.

But when you look at Larson's endorsements, it tells a very different tale.

As the gentle reader can see for themselves, Larson is being endorsed by such prominent African American leaders such as Congresswoman Gwen Moore, the Honorable Vel Phillips, State Senator Nikiya Dodd, and State Representatives Mandela Barnes, David Bowen, LaTonya Johnson and Leon Young.

And those special interest groups?  Yeah, they include things like the Sierra Club, Wisconsin Jobs Now, Voces de la Frontera, several Grassroots groups and most of the major unions, including AFSCME, the Steelworkers, MTEA, AFT, ATU and the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.

Abele's endorsements, on the other hand, also are rather telling.

First of all, it should be noted that all of these endorsements are rather late coming in.  And when the gentle reader casts an eye at them, a pattern can be seen:

  • Former US Senator Herb Kohl - who made a profit of hundreds of millions of dollars with the sale of the Milwaukee Bucks, a deal that went though with the help of Abele promising over a hundred million dollars from Milwaukee taxpayers.
  • State Representative Peter Barca - why a state rep from Kenosha is endorsing in a Milwaukee County race is one thing, but records show that Abele gave not only Barca but his caucus group a lot of money.
  • Former Governor Jim Doyle - yup, a lot of donations from Abele again.
  • Mary Burke - not only do multimillionaires have to stick together, but Abele put a lot of money into her failed gubernatorial bid.
Yup, in other words, one could honestly say that it sure seems like Abele bought these endorsements, just like he's trying to buy the election.

Interestingly, Abele does not have one endorsement for a Milwaukee representative or senator.  He does, however, have a number of local municipal mayors endorsing him.  This isn't surprising, since Abele has been in deals with them to take over things like county parks.  As a bonus, these municipalities would also be given great chunks of county taxpayer money to run them.   It's also worth noting that most of these mayors are Republicans or Corporate Democrats.  

What is really striking about these endorsements is not who is on the list, but who is not on it.  Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is not endorsing his long time friend, even though just four years ago, they announced their bids for reelection together.  Not only does Barrett disagree with Abele robbing the poor to pay for the Bucks arena, but he recognizes that Abele has become so toxic that it could sink his own reelection bid.

I would be remiss not to mention that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which had once said that they would no longer make any endorsements, has endorsed Abele for some unfathomable reason not based on reality.  Then again, this is the same paper that repeatedly endorsed Scott Walker.

The gentle reader would be hard pressed to find someone supporting Abele who hasn't received something from him or was promised something from him.

Another interesting aspect besides the endorsements are the donations.  Not counting Abele's loan of millions of dollars to his own campaign, Larson is far surpassing Abele in donations.  For every person who donated money to Abele, 118 people donated to Larson.

Now which one of these two candidates is the one that is one of us working for us?  (Hint: It's not Boss Abele!)

Elect Chris Larson on April 5!

1 comment:

  1. And Tate.
    You forgot to mention Tate.
    But you did mention Burke who was Mikey's best gal last time.
    Good job!

    ReplyDelete