Kleefisch called Walker 'a true hero of the conservative movement.' Lt. Gov: Unions 'weaponized' recall

Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is charging that unions have “weaponized” the recall election in Wisconsin, but she says she’s determined to win her battle and protect Gov. Scott Walker from dealing with an organized labor “boss” who will undermine him at every turn over the next two years.

Kleefisch, 36, hasn’t been in politics for long — her first attempt was her successful campaign just two years ago — but she’s already making history as the first lieutenant governor to ever face a recall. And if she loses in the separate June 5 lieutenant governor’s recall election to her expected challenger Mahlon Mitchell, the president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, Kleefisch warned that “big union bosses” will use the post as a “bully pulpit” to dominate the state’s government.


“I understand that the biggest priority here is to save Scott Walker, but it is essential that Scott Walker have his best partner in the lieutenant governor’s office,” Kleefisch told POLITICO in an interview. “If he instead has a union boss in the lieutenant governor’s office – our governor who wants nothing more than to see our state prosper and have the future of our children looked after – our governor will face non-stop harassment and our media will elevate this to a two-year gubernatorial debate on the nightly news.”

And the result of her election will do much more than simply define whether it will be “big union bosses” or “we, the people” who run Wisconsin, the tea party favorite said. The historic race, along with the governor’s recall, offers a “game changer, a momentum determiner” for the 2012 presidential election, Kleefisch said.

“Wisconsin is a purple state — this is going to be a focus of the presidential candidates so we need to make sure that momentum is on the side of our Republican nominee,” she said. “The best, most effective way to build momentum is to win this recall on June 5.”

But in Kleefisch’s race to hold onto her seat, there’s a critical quirk in Wisconsin’s constitution: since 1967 governors and lieutenant governors have been elected together as a slate, but there’s no dual ticket for a recall. And that means although Kleefisch was elected with Walker in 2010, she’s facing a separate recall this year.

“No one at that point in American history had weaponized the recall function,” she said. “And that’s what we’re looking at in Wisconsin now — non-stop recalls.”

While Kleefisch and Walker will campaign together, she’s very much a separate question on people’s ballots — and on their donation checks. And with many people still under the assumption that a vote or a dollar for Walker is the same as one for her, it’s a major concern for Kleefisch’s self-described “little campaign.”

“This isn’t a situation where the Governor can just take care of me,” Kleefisch said. “The Governor is a terrific guy, but he can’t just give me a million dollars.”

Kleefisch added that money really matters in this recall — and national unions will be dominating not just the candidates, but the fundraising efforts in Wisconsin over the next few months.

“What we have seen are these big union bosses who do exactly that – they boss people around. And they are orchestrating this largely from out-of-state,” she said.

The blame for Wisconsin’s slew of recall elections, she said, falls entirely with these powerful unions.

“These directives are not even coming from within our borders,” Kleefisch said. “This is a movement about continuing to have a big, special interest base in Wisconsin government. Now that’s what we’re up against again. And we’re expecting tens of millions of dollars to be dumped on this race directly from the coffers of the unions.”

It’s not the only national element dominating this race — the so-called “war on women” has also hit Wisconsin’s soil as the recall campaigns ramp up. Kleefisch caused a stir with an op-ed last month criticizing former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk, one of Walker’s possible Democratic opponents, for “setting women back 50 years” and using unions as a “sugar daddy” to support her campaign for governor.

“It is not the easiest thing in the world to be a woman in politics,” Kleefisch said. “You must be strong, dig deep to your reserve of grit and hold tight to your values. And when someone of my gender makes a move like that — publicly promises to give something, her veto, in exchange for money and endorsements, I think it undermines the effort of women in politics everywhere.”

Across the aisle in the governor’s race, Falk and current Democratic favorite Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are also hammering home the “war on women,” hitting Walker with new ads targeting his policies on women. Still, Kleefisch said even though it’s getting a lot of attention both nationwide and across Wisconsin, she won’t “play the war on women.”

“I don’t play the war on women,” Kleefisch said. “I am a woman and the war I’m fighting is the one on unemployment. If we didn’t have the great alliteration and the three-word branding, and if it didn’t fit so well on graphics and headlines, it wouldn’t have the legs that it does.”

What really matters come June 5, Kleefisch said, is to make sure that Walker — “a true hero of the conservative movement” — is able to serve out his term with her as his partner in governing Wisconsin.

“For him to have a lieutenant governor who will daily undermine all that progress will not be effective government for the taxpayers of Wisconsin and would set a very scary example for the rest of the country,” she said. “That divisiveness, having a lieutenant governor undermine a governor every day, having a lieutenant governor opposing every initiative, every policy, every sound bite and disputing a governor every day does not lend itself to being a good partner to the governor.”

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