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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
WI-Gov: GOP Campaign Manager on Abramoff Gravy Train
Posted by DavidNYCGo read Josh Marshall for the complete take on this one. But here's the capsule summary:
Rep. Mark Green (R-WI, and not to be confused with the long-time New York politician of the same name) is running for governor in Wisconsin. It turns out that Green's campaign manager, one Mark Graul, has long been on Jack Abramoff's sleazy gravy train, repeatedly begging like a little kid for basketball tickets. (To see the Wizards? Man, this guy must have had no life.) To compound his sin, Graul has attempted a non-denial denial of his connections to Abramoff.
The upshot: The details of this relationship are publicly known because of Team Abramoff e-mails. If Eliot Spitzer has taught us anything, it's that e-mail will screw you every time. Good luck there, buddy.
So, two observations:
1) The obvious one: A schmendrick like Graul only gets luxury box tickets from a Republican bag man like Abramoff because he's perceived to have influence with his boss, Green. The odds that Green himself is not similarly tainted are, in my opinion, as low as Crazy Eddie's insane prices. Either way, incumbent Dem Governor Jim Doyle needs to make an issue out of this, big-time.
2) Speaking of which: The Republican culture of corruption is so deep, so wide, and so entrenched that almost every Democrat running for any office in any part of the country can and should - nay, must - push this issue and push it hard. People hate getting ripped off by the government, and that's exactly what the GOP's been up to for the past five years. We need to be totally unafraid in making this our national platform. If a few corrupt Democrats go down because of this, so be it - far, far more Republicans will pay the price.
Posted at 12:52 AM in 2006 Elections - State, Culture of Corruption, Wisconsin | Technorati
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