Dem Senate in WI by summer?

Sen. John Erpenbach and Assemblywoman Jennifer Willis, both Democrats, speak to Teamsters from Local 695 and others at a recall office in LaCrosse.

Wisconsin's Democratic party thinks the Senate will be theirs by July. They'll control the Senate by 17-16 if they recall just three of the eight Republican senators who voted to destroy government workers' collective bargaining rights.

Then, in 281 days, they can recall Koch whore Gov. Scott Walker.

Teamsters are busy helping with the signature collecting. Brother Steve Nelson from Local 200 in Milwaukee tells us:

Even though the protest marches have slowed down we are picking up the recall petitions for the Republican Senators. Every craft meeting I have, those petitions are out for signatures. 

It isn't easy to collect enough signatures to trigger a recall, but organizers say they already have enough to force a new election for Sen. Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac. You'll recall that signature-gatherers knocked on Hopper's door and asked his maid (he has a maid?) to sign a recall petition. Not only did the maid say 'yes,' but Hopper's wife did too. Turns out Hopper is living outside of the district with his 26-year-old mistress. And the mistress was given a state job for 35 percent more than her predecessor. (This was never about the budget anyway, right?)

Another vulnerable Republican is Dan Kapanke of LaCrosse. He's known as "Hanky-Kapanke" because he's sleazy. Last year he admitted he funneled money from a nonprofit foundation to pay personal bills. Kapanke was identified in a recent poll as the most vulnerable Democrat, with 55 percent of respondents saying they disapprove of his performance.

Polls also show Republican Sen. Alberta Darling of  River Hills vulnerable. Recall organizers won't say how many signatures they collected, but they do say they're close to enough. Organizers say they've put more than a thousand volunteers to work, with as many as 200 collecting signatures yesterday alone.

Earlier this year, Republican Sen. Glenn Grothmann earned particular scorn for calling protesters "slobs." Anti-Grothmann signature gatherers stood in the cold yesterday in West Bend holding signs saying "We're not slobs, we're Wisconsin." Grothmann's response is to raise money, no doubt from the same bad corporate actors who support Walker.

Republicans are fighting back, mounting recall campaigns against eight Democratic senators, including our Teamster brother Dave Hansen in Green Bay.  MinnPost reports much of those efforts are supported

...by a Salt Lake City organization called the American Patriot Recall Coalition, which is affiliated with a right-wing group called Americans Against Immigration Amnesty.

Charming.

For information about the Wisconsin recall efforts, check out the Teamsters recall page.