WHAT New Jobs???

Well, it’s been nearly three weeks since the election – where are the new jobs that we were promised by both Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker in the run-up to the June 5^th vote?  You remember – the new jobs that would be announced right after the election.

The “main-stream media” won’t hold you accountable for your promises, but I will.

There was a time, not too long ago, that if Tommy Thompson got up on a stage (as he did in Oshkosh in May) and said he’d talked with a number of employers in the past few days, and they’d told him that they’re not hiring now, but if Scott Walker survived the recall, they would begin hiring immediately – that some reporter would follow up with Tommy’s people and say “what companies, which employers was Tommy talking to that said they’d hire if Walker survived the recall?”

Because certainly our former Governor-turned-Tea-Party-darling would not make up such a thing, just to make a little political hay.  Would he?

Governor Walker made similar, but more elliptical pronouncements on the campaign trail as well, implying that as soon as he survived the recall, and employers could be sure that he’d stay in control, they’d begin hiring for positions they were holding open until after the political picture was made more clear.

This kind of follow-up by reporters just doesn’t happen any more.  Now, they tweet a few phrases at the news event; file a paragraph or two for their station or paper’s website; maybe post a quick video bite; then they write the story for their station or paper, which is aired on the next newscast or printed the next day, and it’s off to the next story.  There’s apparently not a level of content management any more that keeps track of this stuff and makes a note to a calendar file saying “follow up on new jobs Thompson promised in Oshkosh”.

Such content management would require the kind of staffing and experienced news personnel that no longer exists in the news media.

So, since they aren’t going to follow up, I will:  Tommy – Scotty: name TWO companies or executives that you spoke to before the election, and said they’d start hiring if Governor Walker survived the recall.  Just two.  One’s too easy.  Name two.  And know that there will be follow-up questions with those companies or executives.

It’s called “reporting”, and there used to be a fair amount of it done here and in other places.

Recall Paranoia

So, it’s OK if someone who claims their name is Mickey Mouse signs a recall petition, as long as they have a valid Wisconsin address.  Or so we’re hearing on the news.  Along with the tidbit that some person claiming to be Adolph Hitler signed one of the senatorial recall petitions this summer, but it was tossed out because Adolph listed an address in Germany, not Wisconsin.

Mix that news in with the recent report on Faux News (from Reince Priebus) that election fraud is “rampant and widespread” in Wisconsin, and it’s enough to push the paranoids off the edge of the cliff.

There have been reports on the local media about people grabbing recall petitions from the hands of the volunteer signature-getters and destroying the petitions; widespread reports of threats to people volunteering to gather signatures; even one local report that some loser doofus freeze-framed a local TV news report, got the name and phone number of one of the signers from the TV image of the petition, and made a harassing phone call to that person.

When I signed the petition, I voluntarily put one of my (valid) e-mail addresses on the petition (in case there’s some question about the validity, is the reason the volunteer told me) instead of my phone number, because I just don’t trust that my phone number wouldn’t somehow end up on a political telemarketer’s call-sheet.  Because no, I don’t want to contribute to Joe (or Jane) Blow’s campaign fund to make sure that (peace/justice/the American way/inflation/election fraud/abortion/radical socialism/left-handedness/whatever, name your issue) doesn’t take root right here in (name of community).

Here’s the thing.

The recall petitions, assuming those who want Walker ousted gather the 540,208 signatures necessary, simply trigger another (expensive) election.  I think a lot of folks don’t understand that.  They apparently think if enough signatures are gathered and verified, Walker is outski-putski.  They apparently don’t understand that if enough valid signatures are gathered, it doesn’t mean Walker is out; it means there’s going to be another election.  I think those pro-Walker/anti-recall ads that run every 10 minutes on TV may be confusing some of the lesser intellectually-endowed among us.

I hope Walker is cast out into the exterior darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, and I hope that Clay Fish person who consorts with him is shown the door, as well.  She’s REALLY looney.  I’ll go out on a limb here on the 14^th day of December and say I think the signature-gatherers will garner far more than the 540-thousand plus they need; but when the election is held – well, that’s another kettle of (clay) fish.

But, as Rick Perry said to Mitt Romney the other night, I’m not in the betting business.   And I really can’t afford to gamble ten thousand dollars.  So we’ll just have to trust that all those new safeguards the Republicans put into place in the past few months to try and end the “rampant and widespread” election fraud in the Badger State will do the trick, so we can be confident in the result, no matter what it is.  (By the way, that last sentence was intended as sarcasm.  I'm told sarcasm doesn't come across well in print.)

The photo at the top of this post is copyright The Christian Science Monitor.