Kathleen Falk announces gubernatorial bid

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Written by Louis Weisberg, Staff writer
Jan 27, 2012

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Falk (center) with former Gov. Jim Doyle (left) and President Barack Obama (right). – Photo: Facebook

It's not surprising that Kathleen Falk attended Fair Wisconsin's leadership awards gala in Milwaukee just days before announcing her gubernatorial bid, in effect giving the LGBT community a personal heads-up about her intentions. The former Dane County executive is a staunch equality supporter who takes pride in her record of achievement for LGBT civil rights.

"I was not in office long when I made sure that domestic partner insurance benefits were available to all county employees," she told WiG. "And I made it happen in the year 2000. That's how important that was to me. I followed that a year later by changing the county's anti-discrimination ordinance to (include) gender identify. That also was very unusual for a government body to do (at the time)."

In 2006, Falk extended the federal Family Leave Act to the domestic partners of Dane County employees. She also campaigned vigorously that year against the constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage in Wisconsin.

Fair Wisconsin recognized Falk with a leadership award in 2009.

"Kathleen's record of advancing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Wisconsinites is incredibly strong," said FW executive director Katie Belanger. "We welcome her to the race and look forward to working with all of the gubernatorial candidates in our endorsement process in the weeks ahead."

Falk's bid, of course, is contingent on whether United Wisconsin, the group that organized the petition effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker, submitted enough signatures to call for an election. But although it will take months for the state's election board to sift through the more than one million signatures submitted to validate at least 540,000 of them, even Walker has acknowledged the inevitability of facing a recall election. In fact, the governor has begun a vigorous out-of-state fundraising campaign tapping his large corporate supporters.

Walker was in New York attending a fundraiser hosted by ousted AIG chairman Maurice Greenberg on the day that the recall petitions were filed. AIG – which is short for American International Group – became a household name for its leading role in the international financial meltdown. A scandal erupted over the company's use of a $185 billion government bailout to give its officers
huge bonuses and pay for them to go on a $440,000 spa retreat.

After the recall is certified, Falk will face what could be a crowded and potentially bruising Democratic primary. So far, the only other Democrat who's announced for governor is Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville. But a number of prospective candidates are waiting in the wings, including Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who ran against Walker in 2010.

Barrett was running well ahead of other prospective candidates in a recent PPP poll, leading Falk 46 percent to 27 percent among likely Democratic primary voters. Dave Obey, a former congressman from Wausau, was ahead of Falk in the poll with 43 percent to her 28 percent.

The poll found that core Democrats prefer Barrett over Falk, Barrett over Obey and Obey over Falk.

Falk said the polling numbers reflect Barrett's current name-recognition advantage and not her electability potential. "He just spent around 10 million dollars a year ago running a state-wide campaign," she said.

But Falk has also run statewide campaigns. She lost the Democratic primary for governor to Jim Doyle in 2002. In 2006, she lost a bid to become Wisconsin attorney general to Republican J.B. Van Hollen.

Falk, however, pointed out that she received 50,000 more votes in 2006 than Barrett did in his gubernatorial race. And, although she didn't say it, Falk appears to have the edge among union voters, who are disenchanted with Barrett for using Walker's union reforms to balance Milwaukee's budget. In fact, some union leaders have reportedly asked Barrett not to run.

Progressive leaders are frustrated that Democrats have not succeeded at avoiding a primary struggle by coalescing behind a single candidate in the way they did behind Tammy Baldwin's U.S. Senate candidacy.

"The strongest candidate in the primary may not be the strongest candidate in the general," Evan Zeppos, a longtime Democratic strategist, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in a recent interview. He described the prospect of a primary battle as "a tragedy."

Many observers believe the race is the Democrats' to lose, given Walker's poor record of job creation and political missteps. 

Although some Demo-cratic officials have said publicly that a primary race is the most principled way to select a candidate, most say privately that they're worried about raising sufficient money to fund so many elections this year. Walker, on the other hand, has access to unlimited cash from the mega-corporations he's provided preferential treatment to since taking office.

Democrats are also concerned about voter fatigue. In addition to local, state and federal elections in 2012, Wisconsin faces a number of recall races and related primaries. 

Besides overcoming her current poll numbers, Falk has to surmount any negative perceptions stemming from her mid-term resignation as Dane County executive last April. She'll tell voters that after 14 years in the position, she's "the second-longest serving executive in the state's history" and that she only left because "I completed my promises," she said.

And Falk said she believes that the historic dimension of her candidacy – if elected, she would become the state's first woman governor – will play to her advantage as well. She said this is particularly true in a year when Baldwin stands to make history as the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin and the first out gay person to ever to be elected to that chamber.

Falk said she's working hard to improve her name recognition and ensure that she'll beat Walker.

How? "By being everywhere across the state," she said. "I announced on Wednesday and by Friday I was in Hurley, which is as far north in the state as you can get. That's the demonstration of how hard I will work and what it takes to win."

Falk appears to have her stump speech ready to go.

"I'm running because I, like one million other Wisconsinites, want to restore our state to the values that we so love, and Scott Walker has turned our state upside down and is not fighting for us," she said. "He did the biggest cut in education in our state's history and then gave huge tax breaks to the wealthiest corporations. And here we are a year later with a sixth straight month of job losses. So the Walker way hasn't worked. The Walker way is wrong.

"He told us last spring if we took the medicine, the state would get better.  A year later we see that we took the medicine and it did not get better. … His my-way-or-no-way style is not what people want in a leader. They want leaders who can bring us together in these challenging times. He is moving forward the agenda of the extreme right on a national level instead of working for Wisconsin citizens."

Other records

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has evolved into a strong equality supporter in recent years and was endorsed by LGBT leaders throughout the state in his 2010 bid against Scott Walker. He's currently part of the national Mayors for the Freedom to Marry Coalition (see story, page 8).

Former U.S. Rep. Dave Obey, who ranked second in a recent gubernatorial poll of likely Democratic primary voters, received a 70 percent approval rating from the Human Rights Campaign for his votes on LGBT civil rights issues in the 110th Congress. He received a 63 percent rating from the group for the 109th Congress, 44 percent for the 108th and 60 percent for the 107th.

The equality record of State Sen. Tim Cullen, who has announced his intention to run for governor, is not well known. He was the only state senate candidate who declined to return Fair Wisconsin's election questionnaire about his positions on equality issues in 2010, said the group's executive director Katie Belanger.