Isn't This Special?

In their Jim Doyle ads, the Greater Wisconsin Committe and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin characterize Mark Green as a special interests puppet.

One of the Jim Doyle ads released by the Greater Wisconsin Committee ends with this:

Tell Mark Green to stop siding with the special interests and start looking out for Wisconsin families. Whose side is Mark Green on, anyway?

I can't believe that Dems are criticizing Green's supposed special interests connections when actually Doyle is controlled by special interests.

It's amazing how indebted Doyle is to them. More and more information keeps trickling out about his casino backers with no end in sight.

They own Doyle.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A Feb. 2 fund-raising dinner for Gov. Jim Doyle at the Kenosha Country Club yielded $135,000 - much of it from backers of a proposed off-reservation casino, including local construction firms eager to capture a slice of the $808 million casino-hotel development.

Campaign records filed with the state show that at least 28 attendees wrote checks to Doyle, including six who gave the maximum $10,000 each.

Among the givers were executives of the Mohegan tribe or its gambling operation, who gave $6,000; owners or board members of Dairyland Greyhound Park, who gave more than $24,000; and executives of Kenosha-area construction firms, who gave the rest.

The Connecticut-based Mohegan tribe is partners with the Menominee tribe of Wisconsin in a bid for a Kenosha casino, and the cash-rich Mohegans are helping to bankroll the project. Dairyland owners have a $40.5 million deal to sell the track and surrounding property for the casino.

John Camosy, senior vice president for his family's Kenosha construction firm, said he attended the event and gave $5,000 for several reasons, including his interest in having the casino come to Kenosha.

...Camosy's only contribution to a state candidate in the past was $100 to a Republican legislator in 1993.

Gee, do you think that Camosy believes so strongly in Doyle's policy positions that he felt compelled to fork over thousands of dollars to Doyle's campaign?

Given that he hasn't made a contribution to a state candidate for thirteen years, Camosy must be truly moved by Doyle's leadership.

...Melanie Fonder, a spokeswoman for Doyle's re-election campaign, said the donations would have no influence on Doyle's decision on the casino.

"Of course, no donation would influence the governor in any way on any issue," Fonder said. "People support this governor because they believe in his leadership, his tremendous record and his visions for moving Wisconsin forward."

Oh, come on!

Fonder has got to be kidding!

"[N]o donation would influence the governor in any way on any issue."

Sure.

...Kenosha businessman Dennis Troha, the casino's developer, said he helped arrange the Feb. 2 Doyle fund-raiser and helped invite construction firms. Troha said he had made "absolutely no assurances, no threats" to persuade the contractors to make large donations.

Troha said, however: "Anybody who is a friend of the project, a friend of the governor's, is a friend of mine."

...Troha, members of his family and employees of his firms have given a total of nearly $237,000 to Doyle since 2002, according to figures compiled by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Those donations and comments by Troha are beyond suspicious. They reek of impropriety.

Does the Doyle campaign really think that they can get away with this stuff?

Whose side is Jim Doyle on, anyway?

That's becoming very apparent.

Doyle can be bought.