With State Assembly Dems lining up against 3 different GOP recall candidates, the tea party activists and county board supervisors that have so far announced they will run against recall-eligible Dems should have a much harder time turning seats (which is not to say it will be easy for Dems).
One candidate who jumps out as especially bad in these races is Northwoods Patriots tea-party group leader Kim Simac. Simac is a children's book author and mother of nine who helped to organize the recall efforts against Senator Jim Holperin. Her husband Butch owns Great Northern Water, a company that provides plumbing and water services and takes in between $500,000 and $1m a year, according to tax documents. While she may have the money, she doesn't appear to have the campaign experience - she's still got no website, 5 days after announcing, and she's never run for office in the past.
The real worry for her should be message - while there are many in Wisconsin who are angry that the 14 Democratic Senators left the state for a prolonged period, railing against this action is not likely to win the election for an extremist like Simac with no elected experience. These recall elections will be a referendum on Scott Walker and his action against public employees and collective bargaining, not a debate on whether or not the senators should have fled to Illinois. In that environment, I don't see any possible message Simac might try to convey really breaking through to an electorate.
Below, see some examples of Kimac in the public spotlight in recent years.
Discussing home-schooling and the separation of church and state:
Featured on Glenn Beck:
Speaking in Madison on the day of the tea-party rally:
Edit: Illusory Tenant has a post on Simac up at his (her?) informative blog.
illusory tenant is a he, for what it's worth.
ReplyDeleteGreat post by the way....it'll be interesting to see how badly these conservatives get beat once these recall elections are finished.
Technically speaking, Simac does have a website -- only its the site of her tea party group, which can't be used as a campaign site by law, and which Simac is still posting on. In fact, it seems like she's been spending a lot of time blogging in the days since she's announced her candidacy.
ReplyDeleteTechnically speaking, Simac does have a website -- only its the site of her tea party group, which can't be used as a campaign site by law...
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, and considering the current Supreme Court's extremely lax stance on campaign finance laws, it would not surprise me in the least if the line between campaign and non-campaign publishing continues to be stretched until the Court is forced to make a ruling.
As to the substance of the post itself (and I join with my colleague Zach in complimenting your content), whenever I hear people like this trying to enshrine their faith into government, I am filled with the desire to point to one of my favorite passages in the Constitution, Article VI paragraph 3:
"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
I've actually seen a placeholder campaign website that I suspect got put up today. She's also active on twitter.
ReplyDeleteSomebody tell me, are tea party people pretty active on twitter? I haven't ever seen a presence from them on there and I don't get the impression they're the most tech savvy crowd, but I wouldn't be that surprised if there's a lot of them out there.