| By Cory @ One Wisconsin Now - Nov 7th, 2008 at 5:53 pm EST |
| Also listed in: Corporate Watch |
Categories: Corporate Accountability , WMC Watch, One Wisconsin Now - The "tOWN Hall", R3W
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported that Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) has been awfully quiet both just before the November 4 election and immediately after it. Although they had named keeping the state Assembly in Republican hands as being a priority and tried to raise $1 million by Labor Day, they apparently ended up doing very little.
One can reasonably look at the election and consider it a clear repudiation of WMC and their legislative agenda. After all, they did run television ads promoting three Assembly challengers (in the 49th, 88th, and 91st districts) and all three went down to defeat. Of the 5 candidates they supported with radio ads, only one (in the 47th district) won, and that one is headed for a recount. Two of the incumbents who were defeated at the polls, Hines and Moulton, were attacked in part for their 100% adherence to the WMC agenda and they both lost. Also, in both districts 57 and 92 voters elected candidates to replace faithful WMC rubber stamps.
There are only a few answers for WMC’s complete failure in this election cycle and none of them are very flattering. Either they were not able to actually raise the amount of money that they needed, or they raised it but funneled it through other groups as to avoid culpability for producing more negative ads, or they simply spent their money and their message was soundly rejected by voters. Whatever the exact explanation, don’t look for WMC to tell us about it. Who could blame them? No one would want to discuss the last several months which have been a complete WMC train wreck.
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It is also good to know that there are voters that are listening to the candidates and choosing candidates by their positions and not on the negative political ads. We don't enjoy those voters in Waukesha.
While Barack Obama performed much better than Kerry getting 36% of the vote compared to 31%, none of that translated in extra votes for the state candidates. Percentages remained virtually the same as 2004. So, at least for Waukesha, there seems to be a clear distinction of federal candidates as opposed to state candidates in the minds of voters.