As Wisconsin Democratic groups prepare to launch a recall effort against Gov. Scott Walker, campus political organizations get ready to support a possible recall or defend Walker from it.
UW-Madison College Democrats will start planning their own actions in support of the recall as well on Thursday.
""We can't wait to do now what we've wanted to do for over a year,"" College Democrats Chair Jordan Weibel said.
But members of UW-Madison College Republicans said they would ""stand with Walker and defend him."" College Republican Chair Johnny Koremenos said the attempt to recall Walker ""shows the sad and desperate state of affairs within Wisconsin's left.""
""The fact that they are trying to recall a Governor whose reforms are undeniably working speaks to how radical Wisconsin liberals have become,"" Koremenos said in a statement.
DPW will collaborate with political action committee United Wisconsin, which has collected around 200,000 names of Wisconsinites in support of a Walker recall since their inception in March.
To force a recall election, organizers need to collect roughly 540,000 signatures, or one quarter of the votes in the 2010 gubernatorial election, and turn them in at the end of the 60-day period starting Nov. 15 and ending in mid-January.
DPW Communications Director Graeme Zielinski said organizers would need to collect 10 to 12 thousand signatures per day to reach their goal. Over the next few weeks until Nov. 15, they will plan leadership meetings, scout locations across the state and hold activist classes.
Zielinski said there is ""so much of an appetite to get rid of Scott Walker"" that ""people are jumping out of their seats"" to start the recall process.
UW-Madison Political Science Professor Charles Franklin said the information collected during the summer recalls of state senators gives groups a ""head start"" in organizing for the Walker recall.
""They must feel pretty confident they can get immediate signatures,"" Franklin said.
Franklin said to who would challenge Walker is the ""current big mystery,"" as Democrats still have some time to develop a candidate.
