An effort to recall Gov. Jim Doyle from office undermines the normal electoral process and has little chance of succeeding, political analysts say.
Rolf Lindgren, media director for http://www.RecallDoyle.com, said the governor has lost the confidence of Wisconsin citizens through his connections to crooked politicians and his veto of a property tax freeze, and only a minority of state residents support his governance.
However, UW-Madison political science Professor Dennis Dresang said Doyle has done nothing to warrant a recall.
\The effort is clearly mischief-making. It is making a mockery out of the electoral process,"" Dresang said. ""Even if you don't like what Jim Doyle has done as governor, there isn't anything egregious that has happened to prompt the recall. It's just people who wish that a Republican had been elected instead.""
Charles Franklin, another UW-Madison political science professor, said the recall effort seems like an abuse of the electoral system. He said politicians should be given time to govern and the constant threat of recall is awful for normal public debate.
""Any governor is going to piss off a good chunk of the population at one time or another, and if you make it really easy to start a recall effort, then you sort of undermine the purpose of elections every four years,"" Franklin said.
Franklin said he would be surprised if recall supporters collected enough signatures to prompt a recall election.
Doyle's spokesperson Dan Leistikow said the governor has strong support in the state and is not at all worried about a recall effort.
Lindgren said he registered RecallDoyle.com as a domain name two weeks after the gubernatorial election and put the site up in August. He was not inspired by the California recall, but said the publicity around that election made people more aware of their right to remove politicians from office.
""There's only a limited amount of damage that these guys can do in four years anyway,"" Franklin said, ""so it's not as if it's going to really kill us if a governor that we disagree with stays in office for four years.\
