Kim Simac is a tea bagger Republican running for state Senate in District 12 against Democratic incumbent Jim Holperin. Simac ran the recall petition drive against Holperin and then, Dick Cheney style, chose herself as his opponent.
Simac founded a rather self-important-sounding action group called Northwoods Patriots. Simac, a former radio host who is a Republican Party activist, has ads up in northern TV markets saying she won't "run away" like Senate Democrats did. She criticizes Holperin for choosing to align himself with "thug" unions and "a small minority of union supporters." Like, who? The 100,000 and more Walker protesters who marched around the Capitol for weeks? THAT "small minority"?
Anyway, being on vacation in the North Woods, I thought I'd update myself on this race and on Simac in particular. She just put out a new campaign mailer that didn't carry a required disclaimer, prompting state Democrats on Thursday to file an ethics complaint against Simac with the Government Accountability Board. I was visiting my mom, so I logged in on her PC, Googled Simac's campaign web site, and launched the URL. Mom's Webroot securityware promptly blocked the Simac site and promptly took me to its own warning page, instead. The warning page read as follows:
Webroot has blocked access to a potentially threatening site
http://www.kimsimacforsenate.com/?gclid=CLDXmsLQ4akCFcbBKgodqwmDbAThis Web site has exhibited suspicious behavior or is similar to Web sites that are known sources of malware, viruses and spam. Visiting this site may put you at risk or compromise your identity or privacy.
Maybe the site itself is "potentially threatening," but there's no doubt Simac herself is a threat to effective, just, and transparent government in Wisconsin.
After taking some precautions, I tried again and this time afely entered the site, which is rather flat and unremarkable for a campaign page, What you can learn: Simac is for term limits (but doesn't say she'd actually herself abide by them). She's pro-life. She's against legislators who don't show up for work -- no mention if that includes those not-infrequent Republicans who miss a vote or five, especially in order to campaign or meet campaign donors at fancy parties.
She believes its every citizen's "responsbility" to exercise his or her constitutional rights (gee, I thought those rights actually included the right not to exercise our rights, as many disgusted citizens unfortunately have already chosen). Simac says she is "for" the environment, but belongs to a party that in a few recent weeks has done much to damage Wisconsin natural resources. She says she will oppose increased government spending-- but perhaps that doesn't include the kind of net increases that Scott Walker and fellow Republicans just approved -- $66,000,000,000 worth of state spending, in fact, even after whacking pay for public workers, cutting health care, and wrecking environmental laws.
Also, and this is important for all tea baggers, Simac is all in for family values, with marriage between a man and a woman a major component of that. Never mind those anews reports she has since confirmed informing us that Simac's ex-husband married her current husband's ex-wife. The fun foursome is entirely heterosexual, apparently, so it's nothing for anyone to get worked up about. Now, on the other hand, if any of them were gay...!
Also, Simac helpfully provides a sample letter to the editor on her web site for any supporter too lazy or inarticulate to craft an original. Simac suggests you write the Lakeland Times or another area paper and tell editors that you "have known Kim Simac for over 10 years" and that "she is an extremely caring individual with strong conservative values." Gee, I didn't even know I knew that.
The good news is that Jim Holperin is running at least two well-made TV ads of his own. The better of the two does a great job questioning Simac's credentials and especially her interest in current Republican efforts to kill or scale back Medicare. Holperin's other ad is just as well made: