Walker Already Spinning Tall Tales About Taylor

Lena Taylor's campaign wasn't even officially off the ground when the Scott Walker campaign volleyed over its first tall tale.

Monday brought the second "Walker Weekly" in a row to my Inbox that claimed Taylor, as a member of the JFC, "voted against a compromise put together by Mayor Tom Barrett to protect Milwaukee taxpayers."

It continues: "Several media accounts contend that she voted against the Milwaukee position because of pressure from Finance Committee Chairman Russ Decker. In the end, her vote will cost local taxpayers nearly $28 million."

The Walker newsletter is referring to a plan to fix the funding flaw that exists as part of the school voucher program and results in Milwaukee residents paying more for a student to go to a voucher school than a MPS school.

The only trouble is, Walker's telling of the events is wrong on more than one count.

For starters, there was no JFC vote on Barrett's plan. The motion to consider it was never made.

That leads to the second error in Walker's claims, which is that media accounts identified Rep. Pedro Colon as the legislator who was pressured by Decker to avoid making the motion to consider Barrett's plan. Lena Taylor isn't mentioned once, at least by the JS (and I couldn't find another major outlet that covered it).

The third problem with Walker's claims is that a funding fix for the voucher program was passed by the JFC with Taylor's support. It wasn't the fix that Barrett asked for this past summer -- which would've applied to all voucher students, not just new ones -- but it would save Milwaukee taxpayers millions if it made it into the final budget.

And considering every GOP legislator on the JFC voted against the fix that passed, perhaps Walker should aim his apparent disgust at them.

Bottom line, Taylor has been focused on fixing the funding issue to protect Milwaukee taxpayers since the voucher cap was increased back in February 2006.

Has Walker ever taken the same position publicly?

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Side-Note: It's worth mentioning that the Senate's version of the budget did away with the JFC fix in exchange for a new appropriation that would provide increased aid for high poverty districts like MPS. Specifically written into the legislation is a provision (pages 18-19) that allows MPS to use this appropriation, outside of revenue limits, to offset the reduction in aid that results from the voucher program.

The Assembly budget just axed the fix with no other provisions to compensate the loss.

And neither the funding fix nor the new appropriation for high poverty districts were included in the piecemeal bill passed by the Assembly a couple of weeks ago, which supposedly gave the Dems "everything they wanted" on K-12 education.

Looks Like Lena Taylor Is In

I'm not aware of an official announcement, but word on the street is that state senator Lena Taylor will be running against Scott Walker for Milwaukee County executive this coming spring.

Conventional thinking is that to defeat Walker, the Dems need a candidate who can reach into the suburbs to take a chunk out of his base.

But while the suburbs might be Walker's base in terms of percentage of support and campaign donations, it's arguable that the city is what won him the election in 2004; and this makes Taylor a solid choice to upend him in 2008.

In the 2004 spring election in which Walker defeated David Riemer, the total vote was 251,158 with 88,132 coming from the suburbs and 163,026 coming from the city. And while Walker won most overwhelmingly in the suburbs -- 57,373 to 29,342 -- he also won the city by a margin of 78,726 to 71,647.

What makes this even more important is turnout. Although some may believe the suburbs would be more likely to get out to vote for a spring election, it was actually the city that had the best turnout.

In comparison to November 2004 when the presidential race was on the ballot, the suburban totals from April 2004 were only 42 percent of the suburban totals from November 2004, while the city totals from the spring were a full 59 percent of the city's fall turnout.

And in comparison to the turnout this past fall, the suburban totals in April 2004 were 59 percent of the suburban totals from November 2006, and the city totals in April 2004 were 97 percent of the city totals in November 2006.

In other words, it was really the city that showed up to elect the county executive in 2004, while the suburbs, which are often credited with being the part of the county that's kept Walker on top, largely stayed home.

So this means that Walker's opponent really needs to focus on changing, as opposed to getting out, the city vote (see UPDATE below). And Taylor is a great candidate for this task considering the wide swath of Milwaukee that she represents as state senator, including 33 wards that Walker won in 2004.

By focusing on a couple of key points, such as transit and the parks, Taylor should be able to capitalize on the media coverage of proposed cuts to these areas by Walker and, as a result, clearly differentiate herself from Walker when it comes to issues that are of high concern for much of the city.

And Taylor will have the added bonus of being recognized as a known Democratic politician, unlike Riemer in 2004, which will highlight the fact that Walker is the Republican in the technically nonpartisan race (voters don't get the handy "D" and "R" listed on the ballot for them).

Doyle won 72 percent of the city vote last November. If Taylor matches that, or even a little less, along with the suburban totals netted by Riemer in 2004 -- which shouldn't be difficult considering the bluing of the 'burbs in recent years -- then she should win the race handily.

And, if not, she goes back to her position as state senator. But, if Walker loses, he won't have such a comfy fall -- it'd be a long two years out of office before the next governor's race in 2010.

UPDATE: Xoff makes a good point in the comments that the hotly contested mayoral race for Milwaukee in spring 2004 was a big reason for the strong city turnout in that election, which suggests Taylor will need to do some getting out the vote work since there doesn't appear to be a heated race for mayor on tap, though it could get hot if David Clarke enters the fray again (this potentially creates a bit of a quandry for Clarke, who is known to be tight with Walker).

But there is still the significant issue of city voters pulling the lever for Walker once they were out to vote in April 2004, which something Taylor has the strong potential to remedy.

And even if you split the difference in the city turnout for the county exec special election in 2002 with the turnout in 2004 -- which would drop the number to around 125,000 -- garnering around 70 percent of the city vote like Doyle did last November still seems to be a pretty solid benchmark for Taylor, and that's not even considering potential gains she could make in the bluing 'burbs.