[img_assist|nid=51968|title=All GOP now|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]With tongue firmly in cheek, I can't help but imagine that the Scott Walker recall petition drive might be so hugely successful that it turns out to be doomed. How so? Well, read along for my little flight of fancy (although it may not seem as fanciful by the time you finish):
The Government Accountability Board's Kevin Kennedy drafted a memo the other day on how the GAB will review the recall petitions. The memo says the GAB will need to hire temporary workers to handle the massive review of hundreds of thousands of collected signatures within a tight timetable. In order to ensure nonpartisanship, wrote Kennedy, the temporary staffers wiill go through criminal background checks and their histories will be examined for signs of possible political bias, including camapign donations.
So, if no political partisans can review the signatures, and no one who's ever made a donation can do it, and no one with any criminal background can, and none of the many hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin residents who either signed or collected petitions can do it, either -- WHO REMAINS?
Hey, the GAB might just have to go hire people from another state. Or maybe it could get Newt Gingrich to force a bunch of disadvantaged school kids to work on the project. It's just a good thing United Wisconsin isn't planning to turn in millions of signatures, because that would kill the entire review process for sure, aborting the recall!
Not really. The GAB only needs to hire a few extra dozen temporary workers. But I do predict that somwhere down the line, Republicans will in fact complain about the GAB's execution of the petition review. It will be just another stalling tactic, just as Florida Republicans stalled the 2000 vote recount into abortion by insisting on 100 percent clarity of every single punch hole in every single paper ballot. Why, assuring accuracy of the petition papers could take months! Years, even!
And by the way, along similar lines of reasoning, the conservative community has already contradicted itself on at least one key recall petition issue:
Republicans and their handlers claim it's too easy for people to fake a name or signature on a recall petition. Yet, they also complain that being forced to list your name, address and phone number on such a petition is a threat to personal privacy. Well, which is it? Should the petitions contain sufficient information to gauge the legitimacy of a signer, or shouldn't they? These vessels of inconsistency can't have it both ways.
ADDENDUM: The GOP doesn't disappoint. Following on the heels of my prediction, Walker’s campaign and the Wisconsin Republican Party filed a lawsuit claiming the GAB's process for reviewing recall petitions is unconstitutional. Never mind that that it was Republicans who were instrumental in creating the GAB.
We already had the spectacle of the state GOP suing in opposition to the implementation requirements of its own redistricting law, so it can force the recall elections to occur in its newly gerrymanded, Republican-friendly districts. Now the party is suing to prevent the GAB from doing the work that the GOP, in large measure, previously authorized. And doing it in the friendly confines of Waukesha County, thanks to a third Republican power-grabbing law.
We maybe ought to start calling this outfit the That Was Then, This is Now Party.