The voters speak, Sheila Harsdorf returns to Madison as state senator
August 10, 2011 at 3:58 am in Hudson Star-Observer
Incumbent state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf said her resounding win in the Tuesday, Aug. 9, recall election was not her victory, but a victory for the many thousands of people who refused to be influenced by outside special interest groups that she claimed financed her opponent Shelly Moore. Continue Reading
We’re with you Sheila! Just because the dems were louder didn’t mean they had the numbers. The silent majority once again speaks with their votes. Keep up the good work.
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http://www.hudsonstarobserver.com/event/article/id/44071
Another positive from what the Dem’s call the “evil empire”
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So without Walker’s plan, the insurance would have been a million dollars higher. And the premium paid by teachers would have been higher. And taxes paid by eveyone INCLUDING TEACHERS would have been higher. Who was benefitting by the union’s refusal to accept bids in the past? Not the teachers, not the tax payers and not the state of Wisconsin. The union leaders ARE NOT looking out for the rank and file’s best interests, they are lining their pockets and their friends pockets. The unions are taking money away from everyone.
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The dems have been foaming at the mouth for the last 6 months, protesting and hurling insults at voters and legislators while the electorate quietly sat back and watched. The silent majority spoke loudly and clearly yesterday. Using the words of Jeremiah Wright, the unions’ ‘chickens have come home to roost.’ $31 million spent and after the two democratic recall races next week, they may have gained one or zero seats in the state senate.
After such a shellacking, I feel compelled to give the libs some insight into their tactical mistakes:
1) Starting the recall because of collective bargaining, then not even mentioning it during the race made your efforts look disingenuous at best. You don’t recall a legislator because you don’t like a particular vote they make. You work to unseat them at the next election cycle. Really, you couldn’t have waited just one year?
2) Busing in AFL-CIO, SEIU and AFSCME union goons from MInnesota and across the country to protest last winter and then watching them wander aimlessly through our neighborhoods this summer in their union t-shirts, frayed jean shorts and bandanas didn’t play well. When they showed up 3 and 4 times to the same door, it looked desperate and bordered on stalking. Next time, at least consider offering cigarettes like the dems did down in MIlwaukee.
3) Choosing a candidate with such a well-documented history with the NEA and WEAC, well, looked good on paper…deep pockets, instant teacher approval, drama skills, etc.. You didn’t stop to think about how she would be perceived by non-union, non-government employees. She was radical and voters figured that out very quickly. Never underestimate the good judgement of the electorate.
4) Staffing your HQ with out of state folks and highly payed consultants from DC was, well, a costly mistake in moore (yes, I mean moore) ways than one.
5) Destroying and stealing Harsdorf signs from the moment they went up, a gross miscalculation which hacked off the Harsdorf supporters and many others who learned of the thuggish tactics. Not the way to win friends and influence voters.
6) Demonizing a governor and legislature who balanced the first budget without a structural deficit in 10 years, and created half as many jobs as have been created in the nation in the last six months…. an ill-conceived strategy.
7) Protesting at just about every republican event in the last 7 months in St. Croix county ….well, made you look unhinged. Obviously, your time would have been better spent connecting with voters instead of hurling insults at people with a different view.
We could have saved you a lot of money and heartache if you would have listened to us earlier.
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Here is a challenge for you Caroline…do you think you can come up with one positive thing to say about the Budget Repair Bill and one positive thing to say about State Senator Sheila Harsdorf.
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Caroline,
why do you think it is possible there could be a future negative on education due to CB reform? What is your worst scenario?
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Caroline….
Thank goodness for Citizen’s United! Without them taking issue ads to the State Supreme Court the only “special interests” that would have been able to run ads would have been the unions! Sheila would have had to be in the fight alone against the millions poured into our District working to unseat her! If you want to remove all business money from campaigns, then that MUST include the union’s money.
Are you willing to agree to that?
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From the point of view of one who is tired of all the political ads, I would have to say it would be nice if the only ads that could be run would be those paid for by the candidates themselves (no outside interests – big business, unions, etc.), but I’m sure that will never happen.
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Alice
Since when do facts become insulting. Are really willing to say that none of what John Smith is saying is true. And he doesn’t seem to be insulting just seems to be saying it how it is!
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Apparently 47 people like what John Smith is saying. I believe it got titled Well Loved. Seems you are in the minority again Alice. Better luck next time.
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Alice, don’t count your chickens or senators before they hatch. I was just reading one of the races next week is close….it is possible 35 million bucks could have been spent for only one additional seat.
Don’t you just wish you had some of that union dues money back so you could buy yourself/family something you need?
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I’ll give a positive suggestion to the union teachers – try taking a humility class.
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Caroline – you and I are never going to agree on this position. You may say that you sincerely congratulated Sheila, but I will always doubt your words. This entire “Walker bill bashing / recalling Senators / praise the union teacher / loath anyone who dare speak ill of a public worker / scream of attacking the middle class / breathe union / this means war!” crowd has done nothing but showed the world how uneducated, uncivil, disrespectful and just plain uncaring the public union members have become. What disgusts me even more is the public union teacher who is given the privilege to teach other people’s children who only end up staining and training those young minds to be dependent on government and unions to take care of them for the rest of their lives. You believe after all this that I’m now suppose to give some sort of POSITIVE comment about the other side – BS! They’ve wasted my time, my money and refused to honor my vote all because they didn’t like the actions of an elected body that was sent to Madison to fix the screw ups put in place by the Dole Administration. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not – you don’t know how close this crowd came to starting a civil war unlike anything this state has seen and all it would have taken is for one idiot to fire the first shot.
I stand by my humility suggestion and hope that all public union members eat their full dose of humble pie, with the teachers being the ones who are required to eat a second round. If they think their job is so tough, try coming out here in the private sector and competing for a position that gives the type of benefits and pay they are demanding we pay taxes for. Humility will then set in real fast. They’ll soon learn how far apart their expectations are from reality.
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Caroline my children are public school educated and both my kids have awesome teachers and I am quite excited for them. When at all possible I will always write positive end of the year records to be placed in their files. I hope some day they can go to use with a merit pay system. My frustration with public school and unions is there is a fear in parents that if they have had a bad teacher that they can not speak up. They worry that their children will then be for lack of a better word, “blackballed” by other teachers. I know some people will argue what I just said but it is truly from the bottom of my heart how I feel.
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Thanks for stepping up with a positive comment about your kids’ teachers, RUNVS. I’m glad your kids have such awesome teachers – hopefully that’s the experience for the majority.
As a mom, I understand your concern about speaking up about a bad teacher, but you may be doing that teacher a favor in the long run – your concerns may just help them improve.
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Having put 4 kids into public education in Wisconsin, I can tell you we have the absolute best educators, bar none, in the country. However, I cringe every time I read something about how this will “hurt the kids” I get concerned that these great people/teachers are going to take out and increase in benefit costs (which still are no where near what my wife and I encounter every year) on my kids just for the “told you so” factor.
Listen, much like my family schools have to learn to do more with less…not always pleasant, but at this point its a reality. Lets live in the reality and make good with what we have now.
The fact is, the budget repair bill is showing its effect already. All those union heads scaring teachers that they will NEVER get insurance cheaper than they get from WEAC are proving to be flat out lies. What I have not heard from one single educator or union member is the outrage at how their own union was raking them over the coals. Seems to me, WEAC, is no more than one of those “big business” people that most union members hate…huge profits kept for themselves.
WALKER = WINNING
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One guy…the answer to your first question (1) why the WEA insurance costs are what they are) is quite simple; MONOPOLY. By contract, you had ZERO choice to select a cheaper option. I have spoke to a couple former school administrators and in their districts, they did indeed “comparison shop”, however, by contract, you have no choice (though going on the competitive market is always going to be less expesive). This part of the Walker plan is GOOD for school districts and will indeed save them money (as it already has in the Hudson disctrict amongst others).
I worked for a company where we changed carriers 3 times in 3 years due to the fact that there is always another provider looking to get your business. Its a numbers game for them…they know they are going to get a large claim somewhere down the line, so the more people the have under plan, they more and large claim is offset; thus holding premiums down as a whole.
I don’t know this for fact, but I am guessing what the schools are finding out, the WEAC plan was NOT competitive due to the fact they had no competition. They have higher up front premiums, a captive audience that they assumed was never going away and any large claim was always offset by the captive audience.
Competition in business is good. Unfortunately, the unions operate with an us vs them mentality that is not realistic in todays business world.
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I’ll have to take notes from the Wisconsin Democrat politicians. If you don’t like the results of a legitimate election first you go and hide in a neighboring state to avoid a vote being taken in the legislature. Then you hold a bunch of recall elections to try to overturn the results of the election that was held just a few months prior. Got any more good tricks to try to thwart the will of the majority?
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Any lingering thought that the wrong candidate won? Watch the video of Shelly Moore’s concession speech. Classless and indefensible.
http://americasmrsright.blogspot.com/
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It’s funny that you mention the ‘na na na na’ song, because it was Shelly Moore’s parade team who sang that to the Harsdorf team at the last parade of the season, just before the election. Their childish maneuvers throughout this race came back to bite them. I guess you weren’t out to witness some of their antics.
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John I would not say she was a witness. I would guess she was an active participant. That is all a little too familiar to me. Yes Kari I found myself singing that song 4 times on Tuesday night. I like to call it sweet justice. The abuse the Harsdorf supporters took at their own events was not necessary. Your behavior proves that you are not capable of handling defeat.
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Guess again. It might surprise you to know that I did not sign a recall petition, and I didn’t believe having a recall election was necessary. I also didn’t believe Shelly Moore was the appropriate candidate, but then, neither is Sheila Harsdorf. It would have been interesting to see what would happen if Shelly would have won, but this is hardly defeat for me. You speak of childish maneuvers, assuming that I’m at the forefront of every rally and protest in the county, yet you rush to criticize the defeated candidate’s exit speech to her supporters. I was simply pointing out the lack of grace shown here. Shelly Moore lost the election, and will go back to being a drama teacher. Why do you still care what she says? Only so you can find one more negative thing to say about every teacher/union member/democrat, because they obviously all believe the exact same thing.
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I actually assumed you were not part of the Moore activities, Kari, because you would have seen more of what went on had you been. When you suggested that republicans were going to sing the ‘na na na na, hey, hey, hey goodbye’ song, it was necessary to set the record straight. No lack of grace on my part pointing out that surprisingly, Shelly’s team sang that very song (that you accused republicans of getting ready to use) to Sheila’s parade group before the election was even held!! It was a display of childishness and rudeness. It was also a bit presumptuous. No gloating on my part, just setting the record straight, I don’t care what Shelly said in her exit speech, just grateful she is exiting.
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thanks for posting that Ron…freakin sickening…
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WOW! Thank you for posting that link Ron! Moore really used her “drama teacher skills” during that rant!
She’s teaching children with that much hatred towards the majority? Ellsworth School Board should be reviewing this video.
But after all, that display is typical of those types of people. They are so hateful when they don’t get their way! And those that don’t openly display their hate, just leave the state!
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Did any of the commentators in the debates ask shelly moore the most important question of all?
“If elected, would you, shelly moore, leave the state of Wisconsin to avoid legislation being passed that you, and your outstate union supporters, did not agree with?”
We know Sheila’s answer. No. Why do we know that? Because she never has in the past…
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Hey popeye12: So, how do you know that I’m not GLBT?
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” Its my money and I’m not sharing!!!! no matter how helpless you are.”
Well, my experience is the conservatives I know give more of their time and more to charity than most liberals I know. The lefties in my neighborhood are some of the most unfriendly, frustrated people I know. They whine about rights while those they disparage are actually doing something. Liberals want everyone else to fork their money over to the government because they know no of no other way to relieve a guilty conscience. Put it this way, liberals are selfish.
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I knew I had heard about a study that addresses this very issue:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/12/generosity_inde.html
It is a bit dated but it shows that 27 of the 30 most generous states are red states. Coincidence ? I doubt it.
Anecdotally, I also find republicans to be a happier group of people in general…that comes from many years of making personal observations in various political circles across the country. I have said it before out here, they tend to be more grateful and happy with where they are in life, regardless of income. Democrats often seem angry, bitter and put upon, often envious of others who have more. As Alice would say, just sayin’! Heck, just look at all the angry protests from last winter all the way up to the tea party last Friday. Any group that will yell ‘bullsh-t’ in unison is not a happy bunch. I am quoting from the HSO article by Randy Hanson.
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When government has been gutted, red states naturally would show higher donations. Geez, think.
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When it comes to stupid posts it seems most of them come from Moore supporters (i.e. liberals), but I digress.
http://www.countynewsonline.org/blogs/2011/jan/happy-conservatives.html
It doesn’t take a genuis to see that liberals are generally a whiny and ill-tempered sort compared to conservatives – my anectdotes and personal experiences aside.
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your right…shes out running for president…
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Caroline, the fact is liberals are no more charitable unless that is you deem their support of coerced donations to the government as charity. They love to think that government sponsored programs represent personal virtue or a sense of caring more. As for friendly and charitable in a general sense – if your experience is it’s represented more in liberals then you live in a different world than I do.
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Re-read his post…HIS EXPERIENCE…no need for him to share a validation article at all. However, there are many sources available on the internet to validate that in many cases, conservatives are more charitable…here’s just one: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html
Personally, I am probably going to give more if the government isn’t telling me when, where and how much I am to give…much like the unions have been doing to their memberships for years. So antiquated its become a mockery of its own existence.
WALKER = WINNING
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What I got a kick out of was one of the tea party koch speakers calling protesters trailer trash and then seeing trailers with harsdork signs. By the way, that 70s haircut just doesn’t work.
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