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Western
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April 16, 2008 In a word, our journey which started in September, 2007 was a success . By April 1, 2008: • at least two board members left WMC, At the end of this report there is a list of most of the contacts made since January 1, 2008. They include labor organizations, professional organizations, and business leaders (in and out of WMC), speaking at meetings- mostly organized labor, academic leaders, journalists from print and electronic mediums, and organizations that share our concern about the undue influence of WMC. Our strategy is sound. We worked from the premise that: With full public discussion of important state policy matters, a majority of the public will side with us.
Here are the results and the importance, of our efforts. Foley and Lardner withdrew from the board, and as far as we can tell, left the organization immediately after I met with them. This places pressure on Quarles and Brady as well as Michael Best, & Friedrich, the other large law firms with a significant WMC presence, who must decide if they want to be involved with an organization that sheds disgrace on the legal profession. WMC reversed its position on the ‘hospital tax.' Starting in November, I used the ‘hospital tax' as a discussion point with WMC board members to demonstrate that they were getting inaccurate information from their staff. By mid winter, WMC switched from ‘against' to ‘neutral.' Then in February, I followed up with M&I Bank on our accusation that the board was misled and they should talk to one of their own, Larry Rambo, CEO of Humana about this heath care issue. Abruptly on March 7, 2008 WMC announced it was supporting the ‘hospital tax:' • Most significantly, this reinforced our contention that WMC members could not rely on the WMC staff for accurate and honest assessments on matters of public policy. We created a credibility gap. There were over a dozen meetings with business reporters, editors, and other journalists beginning in the fall, long before the Supreme Court race was on anyone's radar. These early and continuous contacts paid off with our getting an opinion piece very favorably placed in the Sunday Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , and overall, great press coverage most of the year: • Less than a month after our meeting, the La Crosse Tribune published a strong editorial supporting funding of public education The three weeks of picketing WMC lecture sites on the topic “Wisconsin Supreme Court Unbound” in Eau Claire , La Crosse , Wausau , Madison , Milwaukee and Green Bay was most productive. The base building, the press contacts, and the picketing all paid off. • Faced with our pickets, Gundersen Lutheran Clinic cancelled the WMC meeting scheduled for its campus. Observing what happened in Milwaukee and the previous sites, Gundersen did not want pickets in front of its Onalaska campus. Given the dynamic of our picketing, our writing more and more about WMC companies, the resignation was, in part, a result of our activity. We provided links to the WMC website listing the companies and names. Soon on a daily basis, others, newspapers, bloggers, political commentators, were writing about WMC and identifying its executive board members. The Louis Butler race was difficult in many ways . We had to tolerate the smears and attacks on a decent man. The Justice Butler was defeated by less than 1% of the vote. Yet, despite the right-wing spin, an examination of the vote indicates we made significant inroads into weakening the forces of WMC and its allies. Justice Butler had virtually no advantage as the incumbent. Early polling indicate that his name recognition was no greater than Michael Gableman's
We built links to the larger business and academic communities of Wisconsin . Last winter I spent time with University of Wisconsin Chancellor John Wiley briefing him about our project. Since WMC created problems for the University of Wisconsin by its opposition to adequate educational funding, I thought Chancellor Wiley should know about our efforts. As a result of the meeting with the Chancellor, I learn that there were a significant number of moderate business leaders, mostly Republicans, who were deeply concerned about the future of the UW System. This was consistent with the results of my meetings with WMC's board members. As a result, discussions are now under way with former UW regents and business leaders about creating a Partnership for Wisconsin which would be the definitive business, labor and academic voice supporting greater funding for all levels of education in the state as well as workforce development. WMC can no longer get free unpaid media . One of our first successes was to get the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other newspapers to seek opposing opinions if they decided to print WMC press release that attacked Wisconsin as a high tax state. One area where we made in-roads was educating the public about the nature of WMC. In the month leading up to the April elections, daily, one newspaper or another wrote articles about the involvement of WMC in the Supreme Court race. Yet more needs to be done. On the Monday following the election I spoke to a UW-Milwaukee history class. We can assume that these students pay more attention to current affairs than the average young person. While a third of the two hundred students recalled the vicious ads against Louis Butler, when I asked the class to identify WMC, not a single student responded. We need to return to one of the oldest organizing techniques - meeting people on their terms. If these students were informed of the role of WMC in cutting funding for higher education, or its role in opposing subsidized student loans, they would immediately recognize the organization. That is why in future program I recommend a component that specifically focuses on young Wisconsinites. By working on changing the playing field every day of the year, not just at election time we have brought profound and lasting affect to Wisconsin . WMC is struggling with internal problems, the members are rebelling. The organization is far weaker today than it was a year ago in influencing public policy in Wisconsin . List of contacts: • Dave Zweifel, The Capital Times We received newspaper, radio and television coverage of our picketing or our criticisms of WMC from over twenty media outlets in the following cities: Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, La Crosse, Wausau, Eau Claire, Oshkosh In addition while we were not necessarily mentioned, articles appeared in newspapers in the following cites regarding WMC and its issue ads: Tomah, Kenosha, Superior,Jackson County |
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