Thursday: The board "went over everything and made sure that all the numbers jibed up, and they did. I'm the Democratic vice chair of Waukesha County, so I'm not going to stand here and tell you something that's not true."
Monday: "I am 80 years old and I don't understand anything about computers. I don't know where the numbers Kathy was showing me ultimately came from, but they seemed to add up. I am still very, very confused."
Tomorrow? "Please help me. I am old and I think I might be a Democrat."
The Squire of the Stately Manor had the microphone to myself on Joy Cardin's AM interview program on Wisconsin Public Radio this morning. As a result, the Badger State is a little smarter today.
You're welcome.
I followed Scot Ross of the liberal attack group, One Wisconsin Now. The topic: the state supreme court election aftermath. As I drove to Vilas Hall on the UW campus, imagine my shock to hear Mr. Ross call for "open, transparent elections."
Do we have a convert to voter I.D. and ending same-day registration?
Sadly, no. Ross was busy spinning intricate webs of partisan conspiracy between Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus -- she's a computer expert, don't you know -- and Justice David Prosser, former Republican speaker of the Assembly.
Hate to break the news, but county clerks are partisan offices in Wisconsin. As are district attorneys, sheriffs, and -- for that matter -- registers of deeds.
The do-over vote gets done in
So yes, I told Joy this morning, I understand that our progressive-liberal acquaintances (for they ARE our acquaintances) feel like they got the rug pulled out from under them. (Thereby using up my limited store of empathy.) The Left had turned the supreme court race into a referendum on Gov. Walker's collective bargaining bill and thought they had a do-over of the November election. Dancing like little sugar plums were visions of litigating every scrap of paper that came out of "FitzWalkerstan" -- all to be undone by a narrowly won 4-3 liberal majority on the court.
"Kloppenburg wins more than an election," Comrade Nichols pronounced the day after the election when a 204-vote margin -- 0.019% of the total vote -- was enough for the liberal lawyer to declare victory. "Wisconsin voters have spoken," she said.
But Prosser, a brass-knuckles pol, is unlikely to accept the gratitude and exit gracefully. He can be counted on to demand a recount. [TCT: Kloppenburg wins more than an election]
Oops! Turns out that the brass-knuckles Democrats and their unionistas are the ones who refuse to exit gracefully. Turns out they can be counted on to demand a recount. Oh, well.
Who is using "brass knuckles?"
Besieging the Capitol night and day
Threatening death to Republican lawmakers
Stealing away across the border to bring the legislative process to a halt
Litigating a bill in the courts before it even becomes law (unprecedented in Wisconsin history)
Closing down schools
Boycotting businesses that backed the wrong candidate or wouldn't post union signs in their windows
Telling targets that the police can't protect them
Defacing the Capitol and the City-County building with political signs
Committing acts of petty vandalism.
Yes, "this is what democracy looks like" to our prog-lib acquaintances (for they ARE ...)
And so Kloppenburg's backers tried to tar a sitting supreme court justice as the pederast's best friend, refusing to back down even when the victim of the abuse called the ads misleading and asked that they be taken off the air.
Those brass knuckles?
Now she's 80 years old!
So now we have the vice chairman of the Waukesha County party doing a 180-degree senior somersault. On Thursday night, Ramona Kitzinger, the Democrat(ic) member of the county board of canvass, said the board "went over everything and made sure that all the numbers jibed up and they did."
Four days later she is saying she is 80 years old and confused. "I am 80 years old and I don't understand anything about computers." (Where's her clapper?)
I know they're hard up for Democrats in Waukesha County but still ...
Who wants to bet that Ramona Kitzinger was kept busy fielding calls from prominent Democrats over the weekend. ("Are you certain, Ramona? Now, remember, a lot depends on your answer. You may have to take the witness stand.") With the Democrats, lawyers are always standing by.
Kitzinger's statement was posted -- where else? -- on the county Democrats' party website.
"I am still very, very confused."
The poor lady's sudden volte face "validates skepticism about 'found' ballots," says The Capital Times, desperate for straws no matter how thin. I direct the gentle reader to the flagrant mendacity of that headline. No ballots were "found" -- unlike in Minnesota's U.S. Senate election in 2008.
In fact, [Kitzinger] is saying the canvass she observed "proceeded as normal, with no glaring irregularities or mention of a possible 15,000 vote error in Brookfield city."
BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ERROR! The votes were never missing! The Brookfield vote remained what it was on election night as reported by the city clerk. No change.
Brookfield's 14,315 votes were counted on election day. Posted on the city clerk's office door. Reported on the on-line Brookfield Patch website by the next morning.
She's just not that 'savvy'
Kathy Nickolaus screwed up by not reporting those results election night to a news gathering agency. And screw up she did. The premier election result wonk at the New York Times, Nate Silver, ran scatter charts and spreadsheets every which way but Waukesha. Silver concludes:
"If this was conspiracy, it was executed with an extraordinarily high degree of cunning and competence. I'm more inclined to think Ms. Nickolaus, who has drawn complaints for her sloppy management practices in the past, is no savvier than she seems."
Every Associated Press election account uses one of those words that we see so often it becomes invisible. The word is "unofficial."
But that is not what this is about. It's a long-running progressive-liberal campaign to delegitimize conservatives and their electoral victories. It is about sowing distrust and suspicion wherever possible. About constructing conspiracy theories involving "Talk Radio" and the Koch Brothers. About delegitimizing a spontaneous grass roots phenomenon, the tea parties, as "astroturf" or "racist."
So they call the voters "stupid" and demand that the First Amendment be abridged so as to restrict speech with which they disagree. (See Charlie Sykes' "Rules for WI Radicals.)
The never-ending campaign of vilification
Our ideological adversaries have become 9/11 Truthers, denying the obvious rightward tilt of the state and the nation. Their mission is to discredit, harass, and demonize conservatives.
It is what motivates John Nichols to call an elected governor "unaccountable."
For the price of a press release, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin calls on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to come to Waukesha County and -- what? Seize things? Impound stuff? Make arrests? In a non-federal election?
On her program this morning, the wondrous Joy Cardin asked if the Squire of the Stately Manor had any predictions left in his top hat. I offered this: expect the liberals to go to court over this at some point in the process. It's what liberals do. It's what Al Gore did when he lost. It's what Al Franken did when he lost. It's what Peter Barca did when he lost.
Sure, do a recount in Brookfield; do it in Waukesha County. Deploy the G-men through the mean streets of Brookfield. Bring in the United Nations observers if you must. Not as if that would quell the permanent campaign of suspicion-mongering.
But please, no Jimmy Carter! There's enough premature senility in Waukesha County already.
Election reformer John Fund highlights Saturday's Tea Party
Here's the line-up for the Tea Party this Saturday, April 16, from noon to 2 p.m. at the state Capitol in Madison.
James T. Harris - talk show host
Chuck Day - vocalist
Nancy Mistele - The Founders' Compass
Matt Seaholm - Americans for Prosperity Wisconsin State Director
Vicki McKenna - WIBA/WISN rock star of radio
Meg Ellefson - Wausau Tea Party
Kim Simac - talk show host, Northwoods Patriots
Tiger & Shannon Heberling - Stood up to union threats
Nancy Milholland - Racine Tea Party
Ross Brown - We the People Madison chapter
John Fund - of The Wall Street Journal and author of the 2008 book "Stealing Elections."
