Scott Walker Recall: Democrats Release First Ad, Compare Governor To Richard Nixon

WASHINGTON -- The Wisconsin Democratic Party is out with its first ad in the campaign to recall Gov. Scott Walker (R), comparing the governor to former President Richard Nixon.

The ad centers on the John Doe investigation -- dubbed "Walkergate" by Democrats -- that has already resulted in charges against six of Walker's top aides. The probe by the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office is reportedly focusing on whether staffers who worked for Walker did political work with taxpayer money. Walker previously served as Milwaukee County executive.

The ad compares Walkergate to Watergate, putting images of Walker next to footage of Nixon and the infamous corruption scandal of the 1970s.

The spot ends with former Sen. Howard Baker saying, "What did the president know and when did he first know it?" and MSNBC host Ed Schultz also saying, "What did the Scott Walker know and when did he know it?"

(Watch the ad above.)

In an email to supporters announcing the new ad, which is expected to start airing Monday night, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Mike Tate writes, "The ad is called 'Walkergate' because it highlights the eery parallels between Nixon's Watergate scandal and the criminal investigation into Scott Walker's current and former top-level aides."

"Much of the illegal activity took place less than ten yards from Scott Walker's desk, but instead of coming clean about what he knew and when he knew it, Walker has been meeting with big shot Chicago attorneys while David Koch 'helps him' by flooding Wisconsin with propaganda ads that divert attention away from the growing scandal," he adds.

During a conference call Monday morning with reporters, Tate was asked why the ad focuses on the John Doe probe rather than the issue of collective bargaining, which first sparked labor and progressive anger at Walker last year.

"The reason we're running this ad is because we believe people -- particularly in northeastern Wisconsin and central and western Wisconsin -- don't know as much about the John Doe probe as do voters in the rest of the state," he said.

A recent poll by Marquette University Law School found that Walker's support has dropped in the past month, and the John Doe investigation may be a key factor. Walker has a 46 percent favorable rating, compared to 50 percent last month, according to the poll. Fifty-two percent of respondents aware of the probe said it was "really something serious," while 40 percent said it was "just more politics."

Tim Russell, who once served as Walker's campaign aide, deputy chief of staff and county housing director, is "accused of embezzling more than $20,000 in money meant for veterans and using it for personal expenses," according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Other charges in the investigation "allege a pattern of illegal fundraising and what appears to be a systemic avoidance of campaign laws by Walker's inner circle."

Walker has said he is "voluntarily" cooperating with the Milwaukee investigation. On MSNBC Monday morning, he called the recall effort a "distraction."

“It's $9 million of taxpayer money just to run this," he said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "Think about the number of kids, think of the number of seniors we could help in our state with $9 million we didn't have to waste on this frivolous recall election."

Last month, Democrats turned in more than one million petition signatures in the effort to trigger a recall election of Walker -- far more than the number required. The signatures are still being verified and challenged by Republicans, but both sides are already preparing for a possible recall election.

UPDATE: 2:00 p.m. -- Tom Evenson, press secretary for the Friends of Scott Walker Campaign, emailed the following statement in response to the ad.

The Democrat Party and the big-government union bosses funding them are using lies and distortions in their negative attack ad to discredit Governor Walker in an attempt to take Wisconsin back to the failed days of billion-dollar budget deficits, double-digit tax increases, and record job loss. The truth is, Governor Walker immediately addressed any issues of misconduct when brought to his attention. The character assassination being conducted by Madison Democrats and big-government union bosses in this ad, shows they are grasping at straws to deflect from the fact that Governor Walker’s reforms have laid the foundation for a more successful Wisconsin.

Comments

[Wsprsweetly]

01:52 PM on 03/15/2012

How terrible! The Republicans would NEVER do a thing like that!! Never! LOL Republicans are always so positive, never a negitive ad, especially not to their own party members...etc. etc. etc.
:):) Don'cha just love it??

[clarebro]

03:46 PM on 03/05/2012

Buh-Bye Scotty......It won't be long until you are recalled : )

[Ystorm]

10:09 PM on 02/28/2012

Wow..this guy is not a crook, he wants to straighten out a state. I don't like how the unions are trying to ram this guy off the political road. I think they lie. I think they are awful.

[schlinky]

09:07 AM on 02/29/2012

Wow me thinks you needs new glasses.

[MKEkid]

05:58 PM on 02/28/2012

At least Nixon doesn't look like he's on some kind of dope. I guess that's Walker's usual expression: droopy, dopey eyes and mouth. Ever notice his excessively loud mouth breathing during his unedited speeches?

[Karen Hermansen]

12:15 PM on 02/28/2012

They could have done a better ad. This one was not effective.

[maruski]

04:27 PM on 03/05/2012

100% with you--- our ads are always so weak.

[Rene Chang]

10:17 AM on 02/28/2012

The impact of Nixon's visit to China 40 years ago has been enormous and mainly beneficial.
It may be the time to re-examine what actually happened at Watergate and re-evaluate Nixon’s contributions.
Nixon was a favorite son of Yorba Linda and the Thirty-seventh President of the US.
He was re-elected with 60.7 per cent of the vote beating Senator McGovern by 18 million votes. He was the first president to have won all the southern states at a single election. Yet he had to resign two years later.
Was Watergate any worse or out of character with the actions of Presidents before and after?

Why were the culprits arrested only at the THIRD attempt?
Why did the $100 dollar bills have consecutive serial numbers?
Why was Howard Hunt's details in the address books of TWO of the four arrested Cubans?
There was a coup attempt in China to prevent the rapprochement. Could the same have happened in the US?
Why were the leaks of Deep Throat' regarded as the gospel truth?
What has Richard Dawkin’s memes got to do with Watergate?
Read about all these in 'Watergate - The Political Assassination, ISBN 9780956911940.
The book is available at http://www.smashwords.com in many ebook formats.

When Nixon took the dollar from the gold standard in 1971, did he lay the foundation of today's financial crisis? He did bring about untold wealth to US citizens for several decades.

[bookreader451]

07:54 AM on 02/28/2012

The one thing I want to know is how many of the under the bridge dwellers commenting here are on the payroll.

[maruski]

04:29 PM on 03/05/2012

many-- you know it

[Terry OLaughlin]

07:36 AM on 02/28/2012

WI Dems are wasting their money. This sort of ad backfired trying to oust State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser. They should have run a negative ad about Wisconsin 's dismal performance on jobs asking, "Why is Gov. Walker running away from Wisconsin's economic problems to raise money from out of state millionaires? Because he needs the campaign funds to cover up his poor record. It's time to call his bluff..."

[bookreader451]

07:59 AM on 02/28/2012

The only reason Prosser won because of shady election practices.

As for negatives.........there are so very many. His job record and stealing the mortgage settlement.....not to mention his infamous phone call are all undefendable. His being a puppet leader, his damage to the economy and his division of citizens will all be touched on.

If the budget was balanced by destroying Union rights why does he need the settlement money?

[Robert Fanney]

09:16 PM on 02/27/2012

I'd say this is besmirching the integrity of Richard Nixon.

[Phil-EA]

08:01 PM on 02/27/2012

I actually find this kind of humorous. Just like in the state senate recall elections despite we’re seeing these politicians trying to avoid actually talking about public sector unions (http://bit.ly/mUwM33), despite the fact that the debate was dominated by union spending (http://bit.ly/rdchdL). In this election we’ve even gone so far as to have unions demand a pledge out of potential candidates to reinstate collective bargaining (http://post.cr/zQr0CI). If these potential candidates want to disingenuously move the debate away from talking about public sector compensation, that’s their prerogative, but it won’t change the truth.

This recall election is about the fight for control over the way governments create fair compensation. Obviously there will be trepidation amongst candidates given that the legislation, where given the opportunity is fixing state and local deficits (http://bit.ly/zyYo44), but at some point they’re going to have to address what they see as ways to actually control public sector compensation while giving free reign over how it’s negotiated to unions.

[l78lancer]

07:04 PM on 02/27/2012

Walker is attempting to employ the spin machine. It may be a little late for that.

[Ariel Finn]

06:22 PM on 02/27/2012

Too funny, Is the best all this out of state union money can do? It sounds like advertising from the GOP candidates. Pathetic.

[Jeannine Goren]

12:00 AM on 02/28/2012

Wait, what? You do know that it's Walker's campaign that received millions from out-of-state donors, don't you? Did you miss this?

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/with-half-the-money-coming-from-out-of-state-walker/article_72b7126c-2770-11e1-8ffb-001871e3ce6c.html

[amva55]

05:23 PM on 02/27/2012

Walker is dirty and his days as Governor are numbered.

[mce22]

05:21 PM on 02/27/2012

Are there ever any "little government union bosses or "local neighborhood union bosses"? Who are these scary unions bosse? I've lived in Wi almost my entire life and have yet to meet a union boss. Heck-what is a big government union boss/-just a phrase that sounds powerful and scary? Is it like Bigfoot-something a few think exists and claim sitings for but are searching for evidence????

[billbb]

09:00 PM on 02/27/2012

Union "bosses" are elected. Just like Walker, save that it is far easier to remove them if they do not do what the union membership demands.

[MsMoonpieJD]

04:27 PM on 02/27/2012

"The Democrat (sic) Party and the big-government union bosses funding them are using lies and distortions in their negative attack ad to discredit Governor Walker in an attempt to take Wisconsin back to the failed days of billion-dollar budget deficits, double-digit tax increases, and record job loss."

1. The sentence is way too long, has too many ideas packed into a single string of interminable words. Scottie's speech writers must have been attending Wisconsin Public Schools after the massacre.

2. How many times will Walker and his cronies repeat the same tired rhetoric? Big-'Government Union Bosses?" Who might they be? If he knows names, he should name them. But he won't, They exist only in the demented brain of Scottie'sWorld.

I'm not a Big-Government Union Boss. I'm a 61 year old woman who hates to see average people shatupon by rich Republican power-grabbers. This man needs to stop lying and influence peddling. Unfortunately, the only way to keep him from completely destroying Wisconsin is to throw the bum out.

[billbb]

09:03 PM on 02/27/2012

We are the same age, and I have voted for Republicans in the past.

No more. They ran off of the cliff. So we take this extraordinary step of removing the governor and as many of the state senators as we can. Even my Republicans friends are tired of this Republiclown, and want him gone.

Some of them voted for him, but now hold that to have been a mistake.

[WisDem2008]

12:10 AM on 02/28/2012

The "Big-Government Union Bosses" are battling the "Job Creators" for the Ring of Power at Mount Doom.