GOP allies hatching sleazy dirty tricks in Wisconsin recall wars By Greg Sargent
It looks like allies of Wisconsin Republicans are growing so desperate that they’re resorting to sleazy dirty tricks in their last-ditch bid to help the GOP hang on to the state senate.
Wisconsin GOP state officials have hatched a scheme to run fake Democrats in Dem primary elections against the Democratic recall candidates, in order to delay the general recall election between Dems and the GOP state senators they’re targeting. As the labor-backed We Are Wisconsin warned recently, this could have major ramifications: Because Wisconsin law allows cross-party voting, Republican voters can vote in Dem primaries and vote for the fake Dem candidate in order to keep the real Dem out of the general election. Now there's been a new twist to this tale.
Allies of one of the top GOP targets in the recalls, state senator Randy Hopper, are circulating flyers in his district trying to get out the vote for the fake Dem in the Democratic primary against his Dem opponent.
The flyer is the work of a group that calls itself “Patriot Advisors,” which is registered as an opponent of the real Dem, Jessica King, and an ally of the fake Dem candidate, John Buckstaff, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board tells me.
And here’s the real rub — the flyer is geared towards getting Republican voters to go out and vote in the Dem primary. It does this by claiming that real Dem Jessica King is a union stooge and that Buckstaff will “roll up his sleeves and work with Governor Walker to eliminate special privileges for government unions.” This, in a Dem primary!
For Wisconsin GOP allies, this takes tampering in Dem primaries to a whole new level.
