Power

With Two Days Until Recall, Dead Baby Commercials And a Possible Indictment

The recall election is Tuesday, and the last minute attacks are flying.

Criminologist In Scott Walker Ad Says Governor 'Misrepresented' His Views. [img src]

With the Wisconsin recall election in a matter of days, the campaigning is fast and furious.  Previously, I had commented that one of the huge factors in the race would be “babies,” and it is.  But not quite the way I imagined.

Anti-choice activists have been working overtime to claim the fate of the “pre-born” rests on the results of this election. But the Walker campaign has moved past “pre-born” and is now accusing Barrett of callously disregarding the born, too. A new campaign commercial features a 2-year-old child who was the victim of a beating, and stated the former mayor of not recognizing his death as a “violent crime.”

Barrett, who said the incident was a result of mis-coding and was a “bureaucratic mistake” accused the campaign of “Willie Horton” style tactics, according to Politico.

“He’s running a commercial right now that shows a dead baby. He shows a picture of a dead baby. This is Willie Horton stuff,” an exasperated Barrett charged during the one-hour debate at Marquette University. “You should be ashamed of that commercial Scott Walker.”

“That baby died. The person who killed that baby was arrested by Milwaukee police, was prosecuted by Milwaukee … But you know what they did wrong. After the baby died, they didn’t change the code. It was a bureaucratic mistake,” Barrett explained in front of a live audience. “And you’re running a commercial attacking my integrity, claiming that I had something to do with this, and you know that’s false. I’ll tell you right now, I had nothing to do with that.”

Still, Barrett isn’t the only one with a “baby” problem. A last minute rumor of a Walker
“love child” has hit the internet, casting doubt on the governor’s squeaky clean image and his “pro-life at all costs” platform.  The Wisconsin Citizen’s Media Co-opt reports:

Midway through that spring semester, Bernadette alleges, Ruth found out she was pregnant. She informed her boyfriend, Scott, and initially he was supportive. That support changed to callous indifference for his girlfriend’s predicament after Scott informed his parents of the pregnancy.

Bernadette reports that at this point Scott began denying that he was the father of the baby, and when Ruth said she was considering an abortion, he claimed he didn’t care, as he wasn’t the father anyway.

Bernadette remembers being present when Ruth was dealing with the wrath of Scott’s mother, who allegedly admonished Ruth for trying to “ruin [her son’s] reputation.”

“I supported her [Ruth] as he [Scott] went from encouraging her to get an abortion, to telling me it was in my best interest to keep my mouth shut, to denying that he was the father and having his own mother call her and tell her to stop erroneously accusing her son of paternity,” Bernadette recounts.

Could there really be a Walker baby running around out there? Well, he was endorsed by a group who doesn’t believe in birth control, so maybe it fits.

It’s the type of back and forth mud-slinging that tends to happen in the waning days of a heated race. Yet some critics wonder if the story could have been planted by Walker’s campaign themselves, in an attempt to draw attention away from the bigger last-minute pre-recall bombshell: even if Walker manages to win the vote again, there’s no certainty he’ll keep the governor’s office for the rest of the term. 

An inquiry that had been circling Walker and many of his compatriots about possible illegal campaigning may be coming to a head. David Shuster of Take Action News and a former reporter for Fox News alleges that Walker is in fact the target of a federal investigation regarding the incidents in question.

“I stand by my reporting 100 percent,” Shuster said in the conference call. “It’s clear to me that he is, in fact, a target in a federal investigation.”

Despite copious reporting, especially in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, about the Milwaukee County district attorney’s probe of alleged violations when Walker was county executive — including a secret email network maintained by his staff for the purpose of conducting illegal campaign activity on county time, the theft of funds intended for the widows and orphans of Iraq War veterans, and possible favorable treatment of campaign donors seeking public contracts, not much has been written about the FBI probe.

“The Wisconsin press has only reported about the John Doe — the state component,” said Zielinski. “They have not reported on the federal component of this.”

“I’ve been reporting on federal grand juries for twenty years” — including Justice Department probes of former Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, Monica Lewinsky, Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, and Jack Abramoff — said David Shuster, a former reporter for Fox News and anchor for MSNBC, who now works with Take Action News and as a host on Current TV.

In his reporting on FBI involvement in the current probe of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Shuster said he consulted with Justice Department attorneys in the public integrity section and “I got independent confirmation that he’s a target.”

Walker could in fact win the recall, and then be ousted under indictment shortly afterwards? No wonder he’d prefer to be accused of fathering an illegitimate baby.