I wish I could say that this last round of elections was a new low for negative campaigning. Unfortunately, it was sort of “more of the same” from the right and their media, and in many ways it was actually tamer than two and four years ago, except for one or two incidents.
There were a few odd incidents that do merit mentioning.
- The eerie similarities in the lit of Thuy Pham-Remmele and Duane Steinhauer was interesting. I’d love to know the story behind that.
- The full picture of how much money the Chamber of Commerce and Realtors dumped into the campaigns won’t be available until the July reports are in.
- The WSJ refusal to endorse Brian Solomon because he was a “fan” of mine was a little over the top since he won by such a landslide and was clearly the better candidate.
- The new WSJ “Vicky is the ringleader” of Progressive Dane rhetoric was also interesting, given that they used it more than once. What is sad is that they clearly knew that they were inferring some type of criminality on her which doesn’t exist and continued to use it.
- Larry’s lit that claimed about Vicky Selkowe that “she answers to Brenda Konkel and Austin King” and that “Selkowe is endorsed by Progressive Dane, which has aligned itself with groups like the Socialist Party who believe that the ONLY way to solve all our problems is to spend more money” was also a little over the top.
- And Wayne Bigelow the chair of the local Democratic Party, appearing on lit of candidates as the chair of the local party that the executive committee recommended but were rejected by the membership, well, as the leader of a local party, that just seems unthinkable. I guess some parties don’t hold their leaders accountable to their membership.
Of course, all of this pales in comparison to the new lows that some people chose to sink to. I’m still waiting to get the police report on one incident that arose out of an Alder allegedly stealing lit off of a person’s porch. And then, there is the Mike Quieto non-scandal.
In this day-before-the-election “scandal” Zach Brandon emailed the City Clerk’s office at 9:31 – after he was already screaming from the roof tops on AM radio about the “scandal” of Mike Quieto (connected to Progressive Dane) working in the clerk’s office. The email was signed by “the boys” including council members, Zach Brandon, Larry Palm, Noel Radomski and Paul Van Rooy, and candidates, Troy Thiel, Eli Judge, Michael Schumacher, Chris Schmidt, Joe Clausius and Mark Deadman according to the Cap Times. (My copy of the email has the names cut off.)
Anyways, here’s the text of the email:
Dear Maribeth,
It has come to our attention that the [sic] MR. MIKE QUIETO is currently employed as an LTE, with the election responsibilities, in the City of Madison Clerk’s office. While we understand and appreciate the need for additional staff resources during an election, we the undersigned, are unnerved by MR. QUIETO having access to election materials.
MR. QUIETO is an active participant, both professionally and personally, in mulitple local races currently underway. He is the chair of the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) Political Action Committee. TAA-PAC has made endorsements in this election cycle and has directly contributed money to candidates that have been endorsed by the local political party, Progressive Dane.
Last Thursday, MR. QUIETO was identified by the Isthmus as partaking, in “phone banking” for local candidates and MR. QUIETO has personally endorsed in at least 3 current local elections.
More disconcerting is the fact that, last summer, MR. QUIETO publicly admitted to coordinating and executing an [sic] potentially illegal political communication that engaged in express advocacy without identifying the source.
This type of “the ends justified the means” behaviour makes us leery of his ability to be trusted with election materials.
While we are not currently aware of any wrongdoing by MR. QUIETO in the Clerk’s Office we firmly believe that allowing the head of a Political Action Committee with a track record of questionable campaigning to have access to election materials is a grave situation.
We believe that it is imperative that election officials be uninvolved and neutral in order to ensure the integrity of our elections. Even the appearance of any conflicts of interest should be avoided in order to maintain public confidence in the process.
Therefore, we respectfully request the MR. QUITO be reassigned to non-electoral duties and that he be precluded from participating in any election capacity in the Clerk’s office until after the Spring Elections have been certified.
Well, on the radio and thedailypage, they tried to tie this to Progressive Dane. Only one problem, he’s not a member. And the phone banking he was doing was for the Democratic Party.
Oh, and then there’s the problem that he’s not actually the chair of the TAA-PAC.
And . . . there’s the little problem of the potential illegality of removing him from the position. Here’s part of the statement from the clerk’s office:
I have verified with City Attorney Michal May and Human Resources Director Roger Goodwin that the City of Madison cannot prohibit City Clerk staff from exercising their First Amendment political rights when they are off the clock.
The City Clerk’s Office has a strict policy forbidding the discussion of political views while employees are on duty, but, according to Madison General Ordinance 3.47(8)(b), there are very limited restrictions on employees when they are off duty. I cannot, for example, prohibit employees from engaging in all political activity.
When interviewing potential employees, I ask the about their qualifications, not, “Are you, or have you ever been, a member of a political party?” That would be inappropriate at best, and possibly illegal. It is worth noting that the employee in question has neither been accused of nor observed engaging in any wrongdoing whatsoever . . .
So, these last minute antics may have been a new low. Luckily, at least at the City level, we won’t have to deal with this for another two years. Unfortunately, these lousy campaigning tactics reflect on all of us and I sure hope that we can find a way to clean up these local elections and all the negative campaigning. I would have much preferred that candidates and some media had focused on the issues instead of shallow labels. Based on this spring’s election, what do you think the “big issues” will be for the next two years . . . can you think of anything except trolleys and water? I’ll let you think about that.
