Voucher Crisis = Campaign Issue

I've said it before and I will say it again: There are Republicans who are loving the fact that Wisconsin's voucher students' futures are up in the air. It is great press for them, a way for their supporters to make Jim Doyle look bad even when the Governor is actively trying to engage them on a solution to the crisis.

This morning, for example, one of the Republican candidates to replace Doyle, Mark Green, will be swinging through Milwaukee to exploit the media attention it's gotten. John-David Morgan at Watchdog Milwaukee has the details, but lays blame more on Tosa Assemblywoman Leah Vukmir, a co-sponsor of the poor GOP counterproposal to Doyle's on raising the cap. Morgan notes that "while [Assembly Speaker John] Gard, Gov. Doyle and legislators such as Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) went to work in Madison, Vukmir decided the best place for her to be was with Green stumping to lift the cap." Indeed.

But Carrie Lynch at What's Left links instead to the press release from Green's campaign touting the appearance. Green has no plan on the table to promote, and, as a U.S. Congressman, Green doesn't even have the ability to change one word in the statutes and regulations that have precipitated the crisis. He's just hoping to score some points in the Milwaukee media market and with voucher parents.

Speaking of the voucher parents, I really hope that one of those parents points out a grave irony in all of this: Vukmir and Green are appearing at the Holy Redeemer Christian Academy this morning, no doubt bashing Doyle as the roadblock to raising the caps. Yet it was at that very school three months ago that Doyle proposed his plan to lift the caps. With any luck, when the Doyle-bashing gears up from the candidates milking the crisis, one of the parents will remark how Gov. Doyle stood in that very spot telling a different story than what the anti-Doyle forces would have you believe.

I hope. But I doubt it will happen.