Who is Endorsing Whom in Wisconsin Gubernatorial Race?

Scott Walker and Mary Burke

I have reached out to the Burke campaign for a full list of Mary Burke’s endorsements in the tight Wisconsin race against Republican Scott Walker, and meantime I have done some quick digging to figure out who supports whom.

For many it will be enough that Mary Burke has been endorsed by:

• Progressives United (PAC founded by former Sen. Russ Feingold)
• EMILY’s List
• Planned Parenthood

But she has also received endorsements from:

• Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters
• Democracy for America (PAC founded by former Gov. Howard Dean)
• Sierra Club
• Wisconsin Professional Police Association (WPPA)
• United Wisconsin PAC
• Cosmopolitan
• NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin

Unions also back Burke:

• The Wisconsin AFL-CIO
• Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) (statewide teachers union)
• Madison Teachers Inc. (MTI)

The Wisconsin Republican Party makes much of past union criticism of Mary Burke, but the fact is that the unions do endorse Mary Burke. If this is less support of Burke and more a rejection of Walker, it is still significant.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel supported Walker during the 2012 recall campaign, saying his recall was not justified. Unsurprisingly, given Walker’s stance on abortion, Wisconsin Right to Life and Pro-Life Wisconsin both stood by him in 2012, just as they had supported his election in 2010.

However, it turns out that as the progressive Capitol Times reported last week, though Walker’s website is claiming endorsement of Pro-Life Wisconsin, he does not actually have their endorsement in 2014 because he did not complete their “2014 candidate survey.”

Walker’s endorsements include a paradoxical match-up of:

• Wisconsin Right Life
• National Rifle Association (NRA)

The latter certainly puts paid to the former, but then Republicans only insist people be born; they’re more than happy to end them later.

It is certainly interesting that WRTL PAC chair Bonnie Pfaff would say in 2010 that “Scott Walker …[has] a deep and abiding respect for the value of human life,” given that the NRA actually seems to enjoy seeing people shot, which is hardly a respectful position.

For the NRA what matters is that Walker “rejects expanded licensing and registration schemes” that might tell us who actually owns which firearm. We can’t have that.

The “Save the Unborn, Screw the Post-born” campaign run by Republicans is consistently inconsistent in its support for actually being alive. Pro-life is certainly a debatable stance.

Walker has other endorsements as well:

• Wisconsin Builders Association (WBA)
• The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) – a Koch-backed group
• The Wisconsin Troopers Association
• Milwaukee Police Association
• Volunteers for Agriculture (VFA)

If you judge these candidates by their endorsements, you can see pretty readily that as a liberal, you don’t want Scott Walker to stick around to stick it to Wisconsinites for four more years.

Photo from The Capital Times

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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