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The Big Pro-Walker Rally

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on March 7, 2011.

03-07-2011 by L. S. Carbonell

"Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher

On Sunday, the Americans for Prosperity bus tour in support of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker finally reached Madison. The “rally” took place inside the Alliant Energy Center and the turnout was around 600 people. The principal speaker was Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the infamous Joe the Plumber of the McCain/Palin campaign. Journalist Joe Tarr of The Daily Page braved the “crowds” to interview some of the pro-Walker “demonstrators.” It was a very frustrating afternoon for Tarr, who was rebuffed by just about everyone he tried to talk with.

Walker has criticized the union demonstrators for allowing “outsiders” at their rallies and sit-ins, yet here was his rally, arriving in town on a bus paid for by Walker supporters David and Charles Koch’s PAC, featuring an Ohioan whose entire life seems to consist of trying to get the right wing to find a job for him. The rally, furthermore, was held in a convention center named for an energy company. One of the provisions of the Budget Relief Bill would allow the Walker administration to sell Wisconsin’s aging power plants to energy companies without bids. It hardly came across as a grassroots support for Walker, who continues to lose points in the polls.

On Monday, Walker held yet another press conference to denigrate the 14 Democratic State Senators who have fled to Illinois. Senator Mark Miller sent a letter to Walker asking for a meeting. Walker claimed in his press conference that he has been in negotiations with the senators, but that is not what Miller asked for. Walker was pulling a fast one with his insistence that the letter was ridiculous and meetings had been held. Miller wants a sit down, inside Illinois, with Walker and Assembly Majority Leader Fitzgerald. Walker has stated that he will never give up the portion of his Budget Relief Bill that ends the right of collective bargaining for all state, county and municipal workers in Wisconsin, even though the state employees have conceded all the fiscal measures that Walker wants, and no negotiations have been held with any of the other unions.