LETTER: Recall election sends a message

To the Editor:

I must say that I am glad we are finally past the whole protest and recall effort in our state. It has been a very long 17 months and I don’t care to see anything like this happen in Wisconsin again.

I was watching TV on election night to see who was winning in the governor and lt. governor races. Though I was not surprised by the direction of votes in Wisconsin, I must say I was bothered by comments I heard on CNN. A frustrated voter was being interviewed and he claimed democracy was dead because their campaign was beat, $34 million to $4 million in spending.

I have a few major issues with this. According to an article in the Wisconsin State Journal, campaign funding was very close to equal for both candidates. They stated the information came right from public records at the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.

Democracy is not dead at all. It is obviously alive and well enough to bite over one million voters right in the behind. I personally believe the recall effort to be nothing but a direct attack on democracy. I have personally asked hundreds of people if they could give me one reason that would warrant a recall of our Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. I am amazed at how few even knew her name but none of them could give me a single reason for the recall.

Though I believe in standing up for our rights and not letting anyone push us around, a lot of the actions in Wisconsin were very childish to say the least. Blowing horns, ringing cowbells, banging wooden spoons on empty buckets, and chanting the word “shame” while our governor was trying to speak, was very childish. The actions of protesters at our State Capitol could only be viewed as tantrums at best. The group of “zombie” protesters that interrupted the Special Olympics ceremony with our governor was probably the lowest class move that I have ever heard of.

I was shocked to see the amount of misinformation spread. When some were saying contributing 5.8 percent of the cost for their pension and 12.6 percent of the cost for their health insurance was going to cost them $8,000 per year, I just knew something was very wrong.  I believe they added 5.8 percent to 12.6 percent and subtracted the total of 18.4 percent from their salaries to come up with this figure, but this is not how it is calculated. This was just the beginning and I can’t help but wonder how many people even know what happened in Wisconsin and what Act 10 was designed to do.

I must admit I was proud to see how the passing of Act 10 had released the strangle hold WEA Trust had on the taxpayers. A lesson to be learned by the voters is you should never put a past or present employee or retiree on a board, committee, or council that determines the budget and funding of counties, cities, towns or schools. A conflict of interest is a very dangerous thing.

We as voters have demanded our elected officials get their fiscal house in order. We have pushed them to make the tough decisions and not kick the can down the road for our children to pay for. Sometimes this includes putting their careers on the line for us constituents and the great ones do not have a problem with this. For those of you that have never met State Sen. Sheila Harsdorf or Gov. Scott Walker in person, I strongly suggest that you do. They are some of the real heroes in Wisconsin and, if you can put aside the bad feelings, I’m quite sure that you can learn a lot from them.

As a word of advice for candidates, it is pathetic to run a whole campaign against their opponent’s policies and to not have any of their own. Tom Barrett ran on two things. He promised to restore collective bargaining and that he was not Scott Walker. He did not have a plan in place to help create jobs or to help our economy in our state. I will also add that running another teacher against Sen. Harsdorf is going to be disastrous for her opposition, but an easy victory is always appreciated.   

Christopher Parent

New Richmond

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion