* Yuri Rashkin in the 44th District.
In Wisconsin, we have to have people willing to step up and fight for progressive values. We found out in the last two years who actually will lead the fight against the craziness that has been the Wisconsin republican party. I would like to share one story that Joe Wineke’s opponent has where she stood at the forefront to fight the ALEC agenda, but I have none. Let’s elect fighters who are not scared of a fight and send Joe Wineke back to the Assembly!
* Dianne Hesselbein in the 79th!
Two quick points on why I strongly endorse Dianne Hesselbein. In the last year, Dianne hesselbein added a public referendum declaring Dane Counties support for collective bargaining. In the last year, her compeitition Ellen Lindgren, has continued to waste taxpayer money to get rid of a teacher whose job was saved via arbitration.
While one candidate has put workers rights on the forefront, the other spends her free time trying to end worker’s rights*! The choice is clear.
* I am not endorsing what the teacher in question did, nor that he should or should not be fired. However workers need to have rights, and they tried to fire him once and did it wrong so its time to move on. If said teacher is not a good teacher, document all problems, follow the legal procedure to terminate and then terminate when you do it correctly and the time is right!
* Laura Hauser-Menting in the 71st!
* Mandela Barnes in the 11th!
* Tonya Lohr in the 20th Senate District!
* Scott McDonnell for Dane County Clerk!
The back and forth silliness of who did what who endorsed who, who gave money to who when has been really boring to me. So much so I tune the story out whenever it comes up. I want money out of politics as much as anyone but until its gets out for both parties, I am not going to criticize any democrat over taking money from anyone. What I will be watching is what that money buys! I also do not care who someone had their picture taken with, although the implied inference was amazing coming from someone who the week before had tried to take the high road! That all being said, the good work that has come out of the Dane County Board under McDonnell’s leadership is all of the resume/qualifications I need to see. Scott McDonnell has my vote!
Finally the 2nd Congressional district. I am leaning and will probably vote for Mark Pocan. However I think Kelda Roys is a great person, very good politician and would represent the 2nd congressional district very well. I do not hold the silly ads against her, as she made a really bad choice(in the negative campaign), and obviously listened to some bad consultants. However, if we held listening to bad consultants against democratic candidates, I would never be able to vote again!
Finally, in this election and the ones to follow, BE VERY CAREFUL OF ANY Democratic candidate who is working with American Federation for Children, led by convicted felon Scott “scooter” Jensen!
Joe Wineke’s record as Dem Party Chair and as a lobbyist for AT&T were hardly the epitome of Progressivism. Look up TV4US and his role in that mess. BTW, some of the “bad consultants” Kelda Roys hired and listened to were also part of the TV4US Astroturf operation.
On the 79th, both candidates are friends of mine, but I think you go off the deep end a bit. My understanding is that MCPSD has done exactly what you describe in relation to firing the teacher. Appealing a ruling is “following the legal procedure.” Ellen Lindgren is and has been a strong supporter of collective bargaining for teachers and other public employees and was very, very active in the protests and the recall. I’ve known Ellen a long time and to use this one incident to mischaracterize her positions and record is wrong. See more here: http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/blog/q-a-a-school-board-president-speaks-out-against-budget/article_797782e2-1499-11e1-9417-001cc4c03286.html
Yes Joe Wineke was hardly progressive when he was party chair i agree. I was helping Marge Krupp at the time and it drove me crazy when he kept doing interviews saying what a great person paul ryan is and how he is the best they have. For that I strongly opposed him in the County exec race.
Since then though I have been impressed with everything I hear and read about him. We need fighters and people who are aggressive and will stand at the forefront in the fight against the attacks on the middle class and I think Wineke will! I might be wrong but i do not think so.
SPR on the other hand never impressed me much when i was living in Mt. Horeb and she was my rep. She was one of the ones behind the coup to oust robson and put in decker( how did that work out??) She has been invisible in the last year and now wants to carpet bag a new district that she doesnt even live in(another pet peeve of mine)!
I stand behind WIneke as THE best choice in this race.
Secondly with Lindgren, No one should be looking at porn at school for sure. However lets not jump on our high horse, from all indications, no children saw it. it was done on a prep and someone sent it to him(those are the details as I remember them). They quickly fired him but did it wrong and an arbitrator re instated hm. I respect the arbitrators ruling as people need to have protected rights on the job. If they want to look at someone for cost control, they should look at the person who fired him to begin with.
I am sure she is a good progressive and i would agree with most of her positions, but she chose this teacher to make an example of and if i was in the district I would be very upset at them for wasting this much money. I can think of many different ways to spend$300,000…http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/article_9b9fbb66-84d2-11e0-8d19-001cc4c03286.html
You can disagree with the decision to appeal the arbitration for many reasons, but you went well beyond that. “While one candidate has put workers rights on the forefront, the other spends her free time trying to end worker’s rights.” C’mon. That’s just a misrepresentation of who Lindgren is and what she has done. As a nurse, she was president of her union. In her “spare time” she has been an important progressive voice in the state on education, especially on school funding, she worked close to full time on the recall…Jeff, what you wrote is false and a smear. Have you ever spoken with Ellen Lindgren?
I also want to say that at a time when national figures are exploiting the fear of teacher sex crimes to push an anti-union and privatization agenda, this has never been part of the MCPSD controversy, largely because as President of the Board Lindgren has made it clear that CBR is not the issue here.