We are lucky to live in Wisconsin right now. Why? In New Jersey, the voters are stuck with Gov. Chris Christie for another four years. Here, we have a chance to bring justice to Gov. Scott Walker by voting him out this fall. It really is a shame the George Washington Bridge scandal was brought to light two months after Christie’s election, because now the blindsided people of New Jersey have to accept that they were used as pawns by their governor all for the sake of the man’s presidential aspirations. After all, there is no way the voters would have given Christie a second term if they knew about his behind-the-scenes political operations. In that East Coast blue state, they believed they elected a bipartisan leader, when in reality, he turned out to be just as corrupt as the next Republican. #Nixon.
This issue has more to do with the ethics of statesmanship and our democracy, rather than a competition between political parties. When you’re chief executive of a state like New Jersey and your “innercircle” (aka your most critical staff members) coordinates a four-day traffic jam on one of the busiest bridges in America for political retribution, and then you lie to the press and say you never heard about it going on, then you need to go! You abused your privileges granted by your constituents and have defecated on the noble principles of leadership. I’ve been saying since the bridge scandal broke that Christie not only needs to resign, but he also needs to go to jail. If attempting to sell a United States Senate seat is bad, then the severity of this situation is crystal clear: This corruption directly affected the lives of ordinary civilians. One of the days of the traffic jam was on Sept. 11. I’m glad I wasn’t on that backed-up bridge on the 12th anniversary of America’s most horrifying terrorist attacks. If you want to talk about counter-terrorism, how about we lock up governors who think they can get away with this kind of civil damage? After all, nobody is above the law. At least, no one is supposed to be. It’s not like coordinating traffic jams is the only way a governor can be corrupt. Establishing a secret email system among your innercircle where campaign strategies and racist jokes are exchanged on taxpayers’ dollars, is just as serious. That’s right, I’m talking about our current governor, Scott Walker. As a public servant, when your salary comes from others’ taxes, it is absolutely unethical to work on any political campaigning. This is a very simple, yet extremely critical rule to follow when you are in office.
Recently, over 27,000 documents were released from an ongoing investigation into Walker and his staff’s activities during his time as Milwaukee county executive. It’s already been discovered Walker’s innercircle took amusement at belittling gays, orphans and people of color via this secret email system of his. Further, there is indication that he was much more involved in the behind-the-scenes political operations than we knew of before these documents were released. Walker, like Christie, claims he didn’t know about any of the unethical communication that was going on within his most senior staff members when he was Milwaukee County Executive. Walker, like Christie, has 2016 presidential aspirations. At best, both Christie and Walker really didn’t know what their staff members were doing, and therefore they are piss-poor leaders. At worse, they both lied and cheated for political gain. My guess, as a well-informed citizen and vocal defender of democracy, is the latter. Why does all of this matter? To start off, this totally changes the outlook on Wisconsin’s gubernatorial election this fall. Whether or not you agree with Walker’s policies, there is no debate that he failed to manage his staff’s ethical behaviors. Right now in Wisconsin, we can’t afford this type of ineffective leadership, especially by a “leader” who is more willing to promote the billionaire Koch brothers’ agenda rather than help ordinary families of hard workers and students.
The unemployment rate in Wisconsin is above the national average. Walker never used the words “minimum wage” in his State of the State address this year, and I still see no high-speed rail connecting Wisconsin’s two biggest cities, Madison and Milwaukee. I could go on and on about Walker’s failures, but that isn’t necessarily the point. The point is we now know our governor can’t play by the rules of democracy. Had these 27,000 documents been released before his recall, I suspect that he wouldn’t have survived it after all. Still, what’s in the past is in the past in terms of the recall outcome. The voters in 2012 didn’t know the full scope of this scandal, but we do now. This is why we are lucky in Wisconsin—because we still have the chance to kick out the corruption this fall. Our democracy is too important to disregard anyone’s corruption in office, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican.
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