Who? Huh? What? Me?
Sometimes, it amazes me how some supposedly intelligent, savvy people can be so incredibly stupid.
DEMOCRATIC Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and his sleazy brigade were working with the State Elections Board to fix the decision to throw out precedent and demand that his Republican opponent Mark Green give back PAC money from groups not registered with the state. Green acquired these funds when he was a U.S. representative.
Madison -- A lawyer for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's campaign repeatedly lobbied three Democratic members of the State Elections Board before they voted with the majority to order Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green to divest $467,844 in donations from out-of-state political action committees, records show.
Attorney Michael S. Maistelman bluntly told Democratic Party members of the board he contacted why they should publicly sanction or punish the Green campaign, according to documents obtained by the Journal Sentinel under the state's open records law.
..."Even if this ends up in Court it is a PR victory for us since it makes Green spend money and have to defend the use of his Washington DC dirty money," Maistelman said in a 9:31 a.m. e-mail one day before the vote. He sent the message to Carl Holborn and Kerry Dwyer, board members appointed by Democratic leaders of the Legislature.
..."I'm an elections lawyer retained in connection with a matter before the Elections Board," said Maistelman, who campaign finance records show has been paid more than $21,000 by the Doyle campaign since January 2004.
"Of course I had conversations with the board members about the legal issues involved in this case, and the merits of Congressman Green's arguments, as I'm sure counsel for Green did," Maistelman said.
Asked why the Doyle campaign hired Maistelman, spokesman Anson Kaye said that Green's campaign "broke the law" by taking the $467,844.
"There was an important matter before the Elections Board," Kaye said. "We retained an attorney to advocate on our behalf, just as the Green campaign did."
Mark Graul, Green's campaign manager, said "nobody from the Green campaign" contacted any Elections Board member before the board's vote Aug. 30. The Journal Sentinel's open records request turned up no e-mail correspondence between Green aides and Elections Board members.
...Eric Schutt, Green's deputy campaign manager, on Wednesday called the documents outlining Maistelman's actions "yet another example of Jim Doyle manipulating state government for political gain."
"The information provided in these e-mails proves the decision was made well in advance of the State Elections Board meeting and that the decision was orchestrated by Jim Doyle's attorney," Schutt said.
UNBELIEVABLE!
No, actually, it's not. It's exactly true to form for Jim Doyle and the sort of people he has working for him.
Maistelman's contacts with the three board members were legal, said board legal counsel George Dunst. Any member of the public, and officials of the Green campaign, could have contacted board members to argue their position before the vote, Dunst said.
Dwyer noted, "Certainly, people contact us - that's what happens when you are in our positions."
E-mails and other documents obtained under the open records law show that Maistelman carefully chose which board members to lobby to avoid a potentially illegal "walking quorum" of board members scheduled to vote on Aug. 30 on whether to penalize Green's campaign.
At one point, Maistelman noted that another Democratic board member, Sherwin Hughes, Doyle's designee on the board, must be kept "out of the (contact) loop as I do not want to run into a violation of the Open Meetings laws."
The records show that Maistelman targeted Democratic board members Kasieta, Dwyer and Holborn with his e-mails and calls, and a visit to Kasieta's office, to advocate that the board find a way to punish Green's campaign.
Maistelman also suggested ways to do it.
"We need to accomplish the following," Maistelman e-mailed Holborn and Dwyer at 9:30 a.m. on the day before the Elections Board vote. In the same e-mail, Maistelman suggested possible anti-Green decisions the board could make.
In another e-mail the same day, Maistelman told the three Democrats that Holburn had suggested to him that the Elections Board "give Green an opportunity to get the out-of-state PACs registered so the (board) looks reasonable."
Maistelman added that he had run that idea "by the powers that be," and they had approved it.
Asked whom his comment referred to, Maistelman said he "was dealing with Dan Schooff on a regular basis on this matter, and we discussed possible legal remedies from time to time."
"The powers that be" = Schooff
This attempt to shield Doyle from any knowledge of all this dirty dealing is so transparent. Are we to believe that Doyle is a victim here?
These bad people keep doing bad, bad things; but Doyle is supposed to be viewed as squeaky clean.
That doesn't fly.
The exposure of these e-mails is a disaster for Jim Doyle.
Read the e-mails.
These make all those campaign commercials charging Mark Green with corruption and breaking the law look ridiculous.
Not only is Doyle the sleaze meister, he has the audacity to make corruption a major issue in his campaign, charging Mark Green with being a crook pocketing "dirty money."
Jeff Wagner has posted some absolutely stunning passages of the e-mails exchanged between the Doyle lawyer and members of the Elections Board.
When you have an e-mail in your possession that proves wrongdoing or corruption or a violation of some sort, you have the smoking gun.
It's black and white.
How Doyle operates has been exposed in the clearest terms.
There's no spin that can get him out of this.
I'm wondering how many more straws it will take to break the proverbial camel's back.
I'm hoping Wisconsinites will not stand for Doyle's style of governance.
It's time to clean up Wisconsin government and boot Doyle out of office.
ELECT MARK GREEN
_________________________________
Green Campaign Statement
State Senator Michael G. Ellis calls for a criminal investigation.
No comments:
Post a Comment