Getting Ugly

The Democrats' plan for the 2006 elections is to make all races about President Bush, an attempt to exploit his low approval ratings.

I suspect that even Dem candidates for dog-catcher will be running against the President and his policies.

Naturally, Jim Doyle's minions are following suit.

The Doyle smear machine is trying to connect Mark Green with the Bush administration's so-called "Culture of Corruption," the brainchild that Dem elected officials, party operatives, and their mouthpieces in the lib media have been yapping about for months and months.

Anti-Green ads produced by the Greater Wisconsin Committee, a Doyle front group, latch on to the Dems' "Culture of Corruption" mantra. They suggest that Green is involved in some sort of wrongdoing, as well as criticize him for inviting President Bush to an up-coming fundraiser.

Those attack ads do what they are designed to do -- ATTACK!

They are intended to be ugly and they are. There's nothing positive about Doyle in them, just negative, often unfounded, and flat-out goofy messages about Green.

While these ads create the illusion of Green as a corrupt politician and can certainly be damaging to his campaign, Doyle has a much greater problem to confront.

Doyle's corruption issues aren't the illusory stuff of radio and TV ads by political hatchet men. His corruption issues are real and snowballing.

Madison -- Former Administration Secretary Marc Marotta met last year in his state office with a Philadelphia-area attorney who gave Gov. Jim Doyle $10,000 on the same day, state records show.

Katie Boyce, Doyle's fund- raiser, helped arrange the meeting, said Anson Kaye, a spokesman for Doyle's campaign. Marotta's calendar lists Boyce as an attendee to the meeting, but Kaye said she was included on the calendar in error.

The April 6, 2005, meeting was with Richard Schiffrin and Nicholas Pullen of Schiffrin & Barroway, a firm that specializes in shareholder lawsuits. That same day, Schiffrin gave Doyle's campaign $10,000, the maximum allowed under state law.

Marotta, who stepped down as secretary in October and became Doyle's campaign chairman, did not return phone calls. Sean Dilweg, who served as Marotta's top aide, said the lawyers met with Marotta for less than an hour to discuss hiring the firm to ensure that the state's pension fund signed on to successful shareholder lawsuits. The firm did not get any state work.

The donation and meeting were in no way linked, Dilweg and Kaye said.

As secretary, Marotta was a member of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, which runs the pension fund. The attorneys met with board staff members the day before; Marotta advised them that those were the people the attorneys should talk to, Dilweg said.

The meeting "was completely about what business they could offer to the state, and he referred them swiftly to SWIB," Dilweg said.

Rick Wiley, executive director of the state Republican Party, said the explanations from Doyle's aides were not credible.

"That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard coming out of their campaign," Wiley said. "I think they're lying about this. This is just another example of the arrogance of Marc Marotta and Jim Doyle."

...Blanchard and Lautenschlager - who, like Doyle, are Democrats - have been involved in investigations into ties between campaign donations and state business. Campaign records show Lautenschlager received a $5,000 donation from Barbara Schiffrin of the same firm a day before Richard Schiffrin donated the $10,000 to Doyle.

...[Marotta's] calendar lists Boyce, by last name only, as a meeting attendee. She is not listed as an attendee for other meetings she arranged for Marotta. Instead, those entries include a notation that says "per K. Boyce."

A call to Boyce was returned by Kaye, the campaign spokesman. He could not explain why Boyce was listed as a participant if she was not supposed to be at the meeting.

...Released Friday under the state's public records law, the calendar also shows that Marotta attended after-hours meetings at Boyce's request, such as a Feb. 9, 2005, budget briefing for the Governor's Circle, a campaign group. On Feb. 15, he attended a dinner with building contractors at the governor's mansion at Boyce's request.

Dilweg said the governor has hosted a number of dinners at the executive residence for various groups, but they were not campaign related.

The schedule also shows Marotta attending a fund-raiser for Senate Democrats in Spring Green from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. May 26, 2005, at Boyce's request. But the schedule also shows Marotta worked past 9:30 that night because he traveled to Eau Claire to speak with the League of Wisconsin Municipalities.

It's ridiculous for the Doyle army to think that they have the standing to attack Green on trumped up charges of unethical behavior when this very real scandal continues to swirl around Governor Doyle.