Recall race shaping up
Kathleen Falk’s seemingly unimpeded march toward the Democratic nomination in the May 8 primary and then face Gov. Scott Walker in the June 5 recall election slipped off the path last week.
Though unions tried to convince him not to run, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett on Friday announced he would seek the Democratic nomination in hopes of facing Walker in what would be a rematch of the November 2010 election that Walker won.
That same day, the state Government Accountability Board made certain the recall, ordering it with a 5-0 vote. It will be only the third gubernatorial recall election in U.S. history.
On Saturday, Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca of Kenosha announced he wouldn’t run. Another Democrat, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach of Waunakee, on Monday also backed away from running and instead endorsed Barrett.
Some suggest Barrett could be a “game-changer” in the Democratic race. Do you agree? After all, until Friday, it seemed apparent that Falk, already endorsed by unions, would wind up facing Walker in a choice of polar opposites. Either voters would support Walker’s changes and his law that all but ended collective bargaining rights for most public employees or they’d vote for a Democrat handpicked by unions with a goal toward restoring bargaining rights.
Barrett could be considered more centrist than Falk and the best candidate to oust Walker. A poll released by the Milwaukee Law School last week, even before he announced he would run, showed Barrett narrowly leading Falk in a Democratic primary matchup.
We’ll share our perspectives in our editorial Wednesday.
Greg Peck can be reached at (608) 755-8278 or gpeck@gazettextra.com. Or follow him on Twitter or Facebook


Apr 4, 2012 at 11:49 p.m.
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Who pays for this?
Apr 4, 2012 at 4:47 p.m.
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Which candidate will the Union support? Which candidate will give the Union everything it asks for?
Apr 4, 2012 at 4:10 p.m.
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"Gee you and your anti walker pals outta practice what you preach." -feduptaxpayer
Outta?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar...
Apr 4, 2012 at 4:05 p.m.
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"Gee you and your anti walker pals outta practice what you preach. You all love to pounce on posts now don't ya?" from fedupalldayblogposter
Well fedup, You of course are sore because I point out yours and others constant misuse of words, misspellings, ignorance of facts. You are sore because yesterday you posted just 3 sentences in a post and you had 5 badly misspelled words in it. I think it makes a person look stupid to consistently do these things and then they profess to know what is good for the State and the citizens thereof. Some people don't care if they show their stupidity. I will continue to make fun of illiterate posters.
Apr 4, 2012 at 2:55 p.m.
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Greg (username Greg), perhaps gpeck entered the June 4th date to test if anyone was actually reading his blog. It's obvious a majority of posts in the blogs with political topics are made by people who notice the subject line, and scroll right to the Post Comment box and copy & paste their 2nd-100th iteration of their opinion.txt file without actually reading, much less thinking about, the content of the blog or any previous comments about it. Perhaps Greg Peck just wanted to see if ANYONE was reading his message before re-pasting their pro/anti-Walker diatribe yet again.
Apr 4, 2012 at 1:39 p.m.
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Greg (username Greg), any member of a team would appropriately refer to their team as his/her team. If you want to start creating org charts for the Gazette staff, be my guest, but I doubt many people would be interested.
Apr 4, 2012 at 1:31 p.m.
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Jeepers, no need to have a conniption over an error in a blog. This isn't The Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Apr 4, 2012 at 1:06 p.m.
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Greg (username Greg), nobody should be relying on a blog entitled Opinion Matters as their sole source of facts. My understanding of the Opinion Matters blog is that it's a place where Greg Peck has a chance to provide his opinions and pose questions, which may or may not be based on fact.
You need to give Greg Peck and his staff a break here. He noted the error you found, corrected it and very graciously thanked you - despite you having called him and his team a childish name. It's not like it was a front page error that went into print and I'm sure nobody is going to go to the polls on the wrong day in this HIGHLY VISIBLE recall election because an opinion piece had the recall election date wrong for a few hours.
Apr 4, 2012 at 11:41 a.m.
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Greg: Sorry for the error, and thanks. The recall is June 5, as you say, after a May 8 primary. I've fixed it in my blog, and the date is correct in today's Gazette editorial.
Dopes? You've never made an error, right?
Greg Peck
Apr 4, 2012 at 11:40 a.m.
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I hope it becomes a "smear campaign" against one another in the primary, so we can see what they REALLY think of each other. Air that dirty laundry!
Apr 4, 2012 at 11:39 a.m.
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This man is so full of lies. He does not care about anything but the rich. For all he has already gotten caught at. He is just like the rest of them, republicans, give to the rich, take from the poor. Walker should be ashamed of himself, but he has no mind to feel guilty.
Apr 4, 2012 at 10:52 a.m.
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mespl,
I totally agree that we need to keep Walker in office to protect workers. If it were not for Act 10, just think how many public workers would have lost their jobs. It would have been tragic. It would be great if we could get more people like Walker in government, then this country could start to move forward again.
Apr 4, 2012 at 9:33 a.m.
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Yes Barrett could be a game changer but not because he is the right man for the job simply because he has more name recognition. Barrett is simply Walker lite, why are so many people against putting someone in a position of power who is willing to protect workers? If we had more politicians in Washington who were fighting for workers perhaps fewer companies would ship jobs overseas! The more unemployed workers we have the lower the tax base is and the worse the cities get, we need someone in office who will protect workers both private sector and public sector!
Apr 4, 2012 at 7:58 a.m.
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I'd like to suggest a state constitutional amendment that would limit all campaigning and advertising in Wisconsin for ANY political office to just 30 days before the election.
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