As long as I live, I will never understand why the Journal Sentinel has given a pass to Mark Green on the $460,000 that the Elections Board ordered returned – an order validated by a judge and, soon, by its expected refusal to take his frivolous "appeal" of his voluntary dismissal, the State Supreme Court.
As the self-appointed guardians of Good Government, you would think that Green’s refusal to return the money he took from federal lobbyists for federal interests – many of whom have been well rewarded for the efforts – to use in his state campaign would put the J-S on its lofty High Horse. You would be wrong. Much to the contrary, the Journal Sentinel wants you to feel Green’s pain.
What else explains the sympathetic platform the paper gave to Green this Sunday morning to whine about not getting to use the dirty money. After once claiming to have already spent it all, the J-S finds it news that poor Mark Green now "plans to campaign without disputed funds" for the last week of the campaign. "Ten days out, and we don't have it. We've got to plan as if we won't have it," Green is quoted as saying. All together, now: Awwwww...
The fact is that Green campaign has known from the beginning that the $460,000 was gone. They have been playing for time for months: 1) pretending that it was somehow arguable that he should be able to use the money, 2) claiming that Doyle "rigged" the Elections Board vote, 3) lost the request of a restraining order from a Dane County judge (who certainly would have granted it if the Board was "rigged"), 4) voluntarily dismissed their own case, and 5) appealed their own voluntary dismissal to the Supreme Court. About the "appeal", Green tells the Journal Sentinel "I have no idea what's going on..."
All this time, the Journal Sentinel has been played like a monkey on a string. Yes, quite serious, these legal issues... Nonsense. Green tried to drag illegal money into his campaign to buy more lying, negative ads and the Elections Board did its job. Where is the outrage for Green’s continued intransigence? Where is the Medal of Honor for the Elections Board?
No, for one more week, let us all feel the pain of Poor Mark Green, courtesy of Your Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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I just returned from a long, lovely weekend in Door County. Although I was otherwise engaged and almost completely disinterested, I did see some elements of the important District 8 contest between John Gard and Steve Kagen play out on yard signs and TV ads.
Kagen seemed to more than hold his own on the roads, with his bright white signs standing out in the bright sunshine. They sparkled in contrast to the smaller, darker Gard signs, clustered as they were with Green signs and other scary Halloween decorations.
On TV, "Dr. Kagen" plays the adult to Gard’s childish looks and antics. I thought I was funny at first that Kagen would show up in his ads, at least for a couple of seconds, in a medical coat. But, after watching Gard images (when Kagen wants Gard to look creepy, he just plays Gard’s own ad footage), Kagen uses his personal gravitas to play up Gard’s youthful sneer.
An RNC ad for Gard made huge squawking noises about something Kagen said about not locking up non-violent offenders, which, according to the RNC, included internet child predators. Certainly, he meant no such thing, but, my god, save the children! It’s the same sort of desperation Republicans are experiencing around the country as the chickens come home to roost.
All told, I felt good, as an innocent bystander, about how the Kagen campaign is doing Up North.
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