Jim Doyle and "Individual B"

"Have the checks arrived from Individuals L, M, N, O, and P?"


The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been running a series profiling the Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates.

In "Doyle Profile, Part 4," Greg J. Borowski writes:

[Doyle]can play hardball.

And he can take a punch.

Most of them have centered on his ethics, raising questions about how he raised his massive war chest, about a state procurement official found guilty of steering a travel contract to Doyle campaign contributors.

For friends, the charges and allegations do not ring true.

Alan Zussman remembers when Doyle was part of a group that played basketball in the noon hour at "the shell," a cavernous gym on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

At one point, Zussman - a UW athletic department official - arranged for them to play at the Fieldhouse. Zussman said Doyle, just elected attorney general, wouldn't play until he ran it past the state Ethics Board.

"No one ever questioned his integrity," he said. "Never."

If that's true, then Doyle has had a personality transplant since becoming governor, or he's a Jekyll and Hyde-type.

One has to be completely uninformed in order to be free of legitimate doubts about Doyle's character.
Spivak and Bice have just added to the steaming pile of doubts that already exist regarding this supposed man of impeccable integrity.
U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, of Valerie Plame fame or infamy, introduces us to "Individual B." (Ooooh. Very mysterious.)
Fitzgerald indicted Antoin Rezko, a Dem fund-raiser for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Individual B is Christopher Kelly. Spivak and Bice identify him as "Blagojevich's top money man."

S & B ask, "And what's Kelly's connection to the Wisconsin governor?"

Enquiring minds want to know.

S & B write:

Kelly gave the maximum $10,000 donation to Doyle's campaign on June 24. Kelly was, according to news accounts, under investigation when he made the donation and remains under the federal microscope today.

Betcha Doyle isn't quite as grateful for that money today as he was when he received it from Kelly, a central figure in what Fitzgerald dubbed "a pay to play scheme on steroids."

With the election just weeks away, Anson Kaye, Doyle's hired mouthpiece, tried to brush off questions about the donation and the governor's relation with Kelly, a rich roofer and political insider from the Chicago suburbs, by tossing out a several campaign clichés.

No surprise there.

"This is exactly the kind of false connection that the Republicans are going to try to draw in the waning days of the campaign," Kaye said Thursday. He added that Doyle, a former prosecutor, has no intention of returning the 10 grand to Individual B.

As for the governor's relation with Kelly, Kaye implied that there was none, though he did not say it point-blank. He declined to say whether he even bothered to ask Doyle this key question, instead replying repeatedly, "They may have been in the same room together."

That's not Doyle's only tie to the players in the growing Illinois scandal, which is big even by flatlanders' corruption standards.

S & B then delineate more of Doyle's questionable Illinois connections.

Read the complete article here.

Individual B flies in the face of one of Doyle's campaign promises when he ran for governor in 2002. He promised to restore Wisconsin's reputation for clean government.

Before his inauguration in 2003, Doyle said:

"If Wisconsin used to stand for anything, it was open, clean, responsible government, with clear public accountability. As governor, I will make it a top priority to return our great state to its proud, progressive tradition of open and responsible government.

"To restore people's faith and trust in government, we need to open up the legislative and budget process, set high standards for our elected officials, work together with legislators from both parties, and hold elected officials accountable for their actions."

So where do Individual B and Patrick Fitzgerald fit into that picture of clean government?

They don't, not at all.

When you go to vote on November 7, keep Individual B in mind.

Do you want an open, responsible, clean government?

Vote for Mark Green.