Truesilver, thanks for the reply.
Please allow me to address your points.
With regard to Governor Doyle, let's compare his level of power to that of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, whose veto of KS's CCW bill was just overridden.
She just got hit with some fairly serious ethics charges; my guess is that members of the Democrat Party in KS knew these charges were coming, and decided to keep their distance, not to mention their promises.
Doyle's campaign staff is embroiled in campaign finance investigations by a federal grand jury, but nothing has touched Doyle...yet. And he is a very vicious fighter. I must give him credit for that. He's extremely good at keeping his troops in line, no matter how despicable his tactics.
As for trying to get the public on our side through persuasive arguments: it's a waste of time. The media won't give us the proper outlet to explain the issue. Even on those rare ocassions when they do, the papers slant the columns with line art of AK-47's, cute but anti-gun column titles, or rebuttals from the folks at the Brady Bunch. And they let the Brady Bunch lie, but edit out any facts our side presents.
As for the gun-friendly outlying districts, we already have their support. And we have the support of legislators from those districts.
And, as for the issue of money, I'm sorry to be so cynical, but you don't know the system yet. Stick around; you'll learn.
Five years ago, nobody at the Capitol knew who the WCCA was.
I've been told many, many times that--if it were not for the efforts of all of the WCCA volunteers at the gun shows, at the Capitol, at committee hearings and elsewhere--CCW would not be as big an issue as it is now. Or it might still be a dead issue.
I certainly hope that every WCCA volunteer reading this post takes pride in that. You've all earned it. But please don't quit, especially now, when our stakes are at their highest ever.
But another reason that the WCCA has gotten the attention of lawmakers is that our political action committee--the WCCM--has been contributing thousands of dollars to candidates. Roughly $14,000 in 2004, and IIRC somewhere in that ballpark in 2002.
This year? I just wrote a check for $10,000 to Mark Green's campaign for governor yesterday, and there's more coming. Much more. Much more for his campaign, as well as the campaigns for AG, senate and assembly.
Now the WCCA isn't regarded as a bunch of unknown rabble-rousers. The senators, representatives and challengers are calling us.
Why?
Because we're raising money for campaigns. No other gun group in the state is doing that.
And that's how campaigns are won or lost. That is reality. Don't like it? Then get accustomed to losing.
I'm going to keep badgering every last person who's emailed to say they want concealed carry in Wisconsin to do just one thing: help raise money.
That $10,000 to Green's campaign is just the beginning. We have another $33,128 to raise for him. Plus tens of thousands of dollars for all of the other campaigns.
WCCA volunteers, AACFI instructors, Massad Ayoob's LFI instructors, and many other folks are working to reach that goal.
Somewhere around July 20th or so, the newspapers will run stories about which candidate campaigns got how much money, and from where. The WCCA won't be noted in those stories, because our fund-raisers have only begun.
But...after the September primaries, there's going to be more stories about where the contributions came from. And those anti-gun, liberal reporters are going to express shock that supporters of concealed carry raised so much money to contribute to campaigns. I promise you that will happen.
There's a Democrat legislator who's always--always--been on our side, through both of Doyle's vetoes. And Doyle has recruited an anti-CCW Democrat candidate to run against this legislator in the September primaries. And Doyle is going to try to defeat our friend.
That is Jim Doyle. He'll eat his own.
But I've been working on getting contributions to our Democrat friend. And, when the other pro-gun Democrats in Madison see that pro-CCW supporters are willing to help friends of either party, some of them are going to think twice about standing beside Doyle.
At this point in the election cycle, money isn't everything. It's the only thing.
Here are the possible outcomes for CCW after the November elections:
1. Mark Green becomes governor, Republicans maintain at least a 17:16 majority in the Senate, and a 50:49 majority in the Assembly. Outcome: we get concealed carry. In fact, I've been promised that the bill will be passed and signed by March or so of next year, or maybe even earlier.
2. Jim Doyle wins re-election, Republicans maintain majorities in the Senate and Assembly. Outcome: we do not get concealed carry.
3. Mark Green becomes governor, Democrats win a simple majority in either chamber. Outcome: we do not get concealed carry.
If Doyle raises more money than Green, Doyle will likely win. If our opponents raise more money than our friends in legislative campaigns, our friends will lose.
This isn't a fight over ideas. It's a fight over who gets the most TV commercials, who gets the most mailings out, and who gets the most name recognition. It's a fight to win the votes of that very small number of voters who don't pay a minute's attention to the issues.
IOW, it's a fight for money.
