Walker Piles Hypocrisy Upon Hypocrisy

The news of the day regarding the Wisconsin gubernatorial race revolved around the fact that Tom Barrett's campaign called out Scott Walker for his dishonesty.

Walker, the establishment candidate, who after years of campaigning, finally won the blessing of the State GOP as well as Republican groups around the nation. One of these groups, the Republican Governors Association ran a misleading attack ad on Barrett, claiming that Barrett would cost jobs in Wisconsin if he were to be elected.

From the JSOnline blog covering this issue:

Barrett then went up with an ad saying Scott Walker, the Milwaukee County executive, was blaming Barrett for problems such higher unemployment, which the Barrett ad said was "ridiculous."

But the Walker campaign says the ad wasn’t their work, but the RGA’s.

Walker’s campaign manager Keith Gilkes is now calling the Barrett ad a “big fat lie.” Walker’s Washington, D.C.-based attorney has asked TV stations across the state to refrain from broadcasting it.

“The Barrett campaign not only misattributed an advertisement to the Walker campaign, but it also built an entire advertisement of its own around it in order to call Walker a liar,” attorney Glenn M. Willard told station managers in an e-mail.

And this is where the hypocrisy from Walker and his campaign comes in so fast and heavy, and from so many directions, that it gets layered upon itself. There are three incidents of hypocrisy, which I will present in reverse order of importance.

Least importantly, the gentle reader can note that Walker's attorney is from Washington, D.C. Add this to the fact that the company that designed his web site is from Ohio and his racially insensitive spokeswoman is from Tennessee, and I think everyone can agree that Walker can drop the charade of his "Believe in Wisconsin" meme.

Secondly, Walker's camp is not exactly being straight forward with their cries of innocence. While it is true that the RGA paid for the anti-Barrett ad, Walker cannot say that he is not supporting the lies told in that ad.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Walker had this up on his official campaign blog:

Unfortunately the Barrett Campaign and their "heavy on pages, light on substance" jobs plan fail to acknowledge the thrust of the "Be Bold" report: Wisconsin's high taxes and anti-business government leaders are killing jobs like crazy.

Tom Barrett glazes over this time and again because he has no plan to address it. He will be a third term of Jim Doyle and that means high taxes, high spending, and if we're lucky every once in a while he will try to "save or create" a job or two by throwing millions of your tax dollars at a company to make our miserable business climate a bit more tolerable.

This kind of attack has been going on for months, as indicated by Walker's press release on May 20:

“Unlike Tom Barrett, Scott doesn’t need to ‘consult a tax expert’ to know that a $22.5 million tax hike kills jobs and drives away business,” said Gilkes in reference to Harley Davidson’s losses this year as a result of combined reporting, a tax Barrett supports. “Tom Barrett has raised taxes in Madison, in Washington, and in Milwaukee, and the recent Doyle-Barrett water rate hikes are now threatening to drive away the 1,500 jobs at MillerCoors. Barrett is lock step with Jim Doyle in supporting the same type of big government thinking that got us into this mess to begin with – a love for a boondoggle $810 million taxpayer funded train from Milwaukee to Madison, and going gaga for a global warming bill that threatens to cost Wisconsin 43,000 jobs.”

For Walker to play innocent of the misleading statements in the anti-Barrett ad is hypocrisy number two.

The most egregious example of Walker's hypocrisy, just from this one story, is about the whole issue of jobs itself. As the ad that Walker doesn't want people to see points out, Barrett has an established record of bringing companies and hundreds of jobs to Milwaukee:



Walker on the other hand, is personally responsible for the loss of tens of thousands of jobs, through his own decisions to continuously slash bus routes, lay off county workers, and generally lower the quality of life in Milwaukee County. Walker really should worry more about undoing the damage he has been doing than trying to tear down other people.

Afterthought: Another bonus level of hypocrisy from Walker is just the fact that he is complaining about anyone else's ad being negative and/or misleading. I am still waiting for the first thing to come from Walkers campaign that isn't either negative and/or misleading.