The Democrats and their union comrades are pulling out all the stops in the Wisconsin in their attempt to seize control of the State Senate.  An unholy alliance of public sector unions and their Democrat enablers have joined together under the banner of an innocuous sounding organization called We Are Wisconsin.  The plan is a tried and true staple of leftist politics, get involved in the Republican primary elections and manipulate the process in order to ensure victory in the general election.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that in an email Kelly Steele, communications director for We Are Wisconsin said "it would be in the interest of Democrats to run candidates in the Republican primaries," adding that "it would be in the interest of flipping the Wisconsin Senate that interested Democrats contact the Democratic Party of Wisconsin."

Steele claims that his strategy has been developed to counteract a similar primary strategy that he says the Republican Party is trying to implement.  Kelly Steele came to Wisconsin along with numerous other Democrat operatives and union thugs during the ugly public sector union protests earlier this year.  The Democrats' hired gun is no stranger to the gutter warfare of the left as he has been credited by many in the party for his role in saving Harry Reid's senate seat last year.

Talking Points Memo reveals:

...talk to Democratic consultants and aides in Washington and Nevada and they point to Steele's arrival on the majority leader's campaign in March as a pivotal move that helped turn Reid's fortunes around -- by merciless and withering criticism of Sue Lowden, the Republican once expected to be Reid's general election rival.

Three months later, Lowden's campaign has been swept into the dustbin and team Reid is breathing a sigh of relief that the general election opponent is the much more beatable Sharron Angle.

"In my opinion, Lowden would be the nominee if Kelly Steele and Matt Fuehrmeyer weren't so relentless and she'd still be leading in the polls," one Democratic strategist tells TPM. "[They knew] they were going to have to absolutely wreck whoever was running against them."

And that's where Steele factors in--to help Reid, as his team puts it, "vaporize" his opponent. He came aboard earlier this year, along with Reid's long-time spokesman Jon Summers, who now splits time between the federal office and the campaign in Nevada.

"We brought Kelly on...at a time when we were ratcheting up our communications from the campaign," says Reid campaign director Brandon Hall.

Steele has worked on numerous Democratic campaigns--for Senate candidate Bill Bradbury in 2002, for John Kerry in 2004, and for the team that helped Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) thump Mike McGavick in 2006. In Washington state, Steele developed a reputation as a bulldog, and a game changer.

Now that Wisconsin is the key battleground for the Democrats and their union bosses, it should come as no surprise that Kelly Steele has been dispatched to lend his expertise in gutter warfare to the cause.  Stephan Thompson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party is aware of the tactics being used by We Are Wisconsin and isn't at all surprised saying "they've done this before."

Who is We Are Wisconsin?  To all appearances it is a group DNC operatives, union thugs and outside interest groups who have come to Wisconsin to steal power (pun intended) at the expense of the honest hard-working taxpayers of the state.  To our friends at We Are Wisconsin, We Are Watching!

June 11, 2011

paboehmke@yahoo.com