Democrats, please understand, that's all this is: nicely done PR, in the interest of staving off the recall of Governor Walker.
Update: This piece proves my point.
Lawmakers are back to business as Gov. Scott Walker’s special session on jobs is officially under way."Gov. Scott Walker's special session." Uh huh.
And:
Walker and legislative leaders said the session will run simultaneously with regular session floor periods scheduled over the last two weeks of October and the first week of November.So, in other words, there is no special session at all. Just Walker attaching his name to the already-planned legislative session and pretending to be all "in charge" and stuff. And it's working, at least from the PR perspective, and it'll keep working until the Dems point it out.
Walker doing good PR is remarkable, because Walker's press shop has been really bad. I mean, really bad. Just terrible. Epic fail after epic fail after epic fail.
So I'm guessing this "special session" maneuver -- and make no mistake, that's all it is, a PR maneuver-- came from some clever staffer in the legislature.
How do I know it's a PR move? Um, guys, it's September. The day after tomorrow it's October. That's the time of year for regular session. Special sessions get called in August and January.
Remember when the Dems were (rightly) jumping up and down about the legislature only meeting one day in September? They knew they were supposed to be working, debating, voting. And even at that time, Republican leaders said they weren't in session then because they were "focused on advancing major legislation later this fall on venture capital and mining in an effort to help create jobs," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Emphasis mine, and it'll be important in a minute.
Yet they did not schedule any more session days. It's almost like the Republican legislative leaders wanted to be seen as not doing anything.
So now Walker comes riding in on his white horse, calling the legislature into "special session" and chiding legislators to focus "with a laser beam" on job creation. His "bipartisan" proposals include bills dealing with venture capital and mining.
So, the Republican governor calls a special session to do the things the Republican legislature knew they'd be doing in regular session.
Do you think they coordinated that? Maybe?
Question is, why? Why would the Fitzgerald brothers allow themselves to look like do-nothings? Why would they let Walker publicly tell them to do something they were planning to do anyway?
To me, it's easy -- Walker is scared to death of recall. Or at least of his current polling numbers. So since the legislative Republicans survived their recalls (barely), he somehow convinced them to stop doing their job so he could be seen doing it for them. Or, at least, he could be seen telling them to do their jobs.
The result is that Walker get a few days of headlines (including the State Journal's moderately idiotic use of the word "bipartisan" in a headline .. guess what, WSJ, it can't be bipartisan until members of both parties sponsor it). Walker is seen as large and in charge, even if he isn't. He's seen as the one working on jobs, even if he's just taking credit for what the legislature was going to do anyway.
And that, my friends, is good PR.
So all I'll say to the Dems is: understand what this is. Be ready. Some of the bills might be truly bipartisan, and might do some genuine good.
But also understand: this is them circling the wagons. They're defending against recall. Don't think it's anything else. And maybe think about calling them out on it.
Rep. Barca .... perhaps just pose the questions ... "Why is the governor proposing your bills? Why are we in special session in October? Do you think we're stupid?"
The answer to that last one is no, they don't think we're stupid. But they do think they're smarter than we are. Please, prove them wrong.
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