newjerseynewsroom.com

BY PAT SUMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Here’s the score for this week’s contest between the prankster and the governor: 1-0.

For Wisconsin’s Republican Governor, Scott Walker — already embroiled in a state budget fight and a massive protest (still underway) by those whose collective bargaining strength he seeks to take away — the phone call did no good.

However, it was a surprising success for Ian Murphy, telephone prankster and editor of the liberal Buffalo, NY website, The Beast.

Without much trouble at all last Wednesday, Murphy managed to convince a number of people in Walker’s circle that he was David Koch, the billionaire conservative benefactor who had supported Walker’s run for governor — among other philosophically aligned causes. He was put through directly to Walker.

During their 20-minute conversation, Walker let slip elements of his strategy for tricking AWOL Democratic state senators into returning to the state and getting the vote he needs, and didn’t object when “Koch” called Democrats names.

Reactions to the phone conversation, which was posted by the Beast and quickly “went viral,” ranged from Rush Limbaugh’s assertion that Walker hadn’t said anything new so there was “no gotcha” involved, to Greg Sargent, who wrote in Washington Post.com that the incident will reinforce perceptions that Walker’s in way over his head, and to the Beast’s headline characterization of Walker as “Koch Whore.”

Walker’s phone comments confirmed the worst fears of union leaders in his state and dampened any trust its Democratic state senators may have felt. Madison’s mayor and police chief were reported to have ethics questions for the governor about the idea of adding “troublemakers” to the crowd of protesters. That, said city officials, could endanger on-duty police.

Internally, the main question was why it had been so easy for an imposter to reach the governor by phone. For now, that seems to be the least of the questions.

Meanwhile, the protest continued, approaching the two-week mark, with hundreds of participants spending the night in sleeping bags on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda. Their cause, now that money concessions they agreed to have not sufficed, is the governor’s apparent goal of union-busting.

Crushing or at least starving the unions in his state, Walker’s plan would take away the ability of state and local public employees to collectively bargain for working conditions, benefits or any benefits other than their base salaries, said an NPR report. Unions could not collect mandatory dues and would face a vote of the members every year to stay in existence.

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