….is just another piece of fodder for the media.
Once again, as mswsm points out over at DKos, the numbers for the supporters which Walker had on this tour just don’t add up. That is, if you do not count the wildlife which makes up more of Northern Wisconsin than people do.
The conservative television channel in Milwaukee announced the fabulous "Stand with Walker" bus tour -- disclaimer and all:
The conservative group Americans for Prosperity will take a pro-Scott Walker blitz on the road beginning Thursday. . . ."They can't necessarily come to Madison and protest," said Matt Seaholm. "We're hitting everywhere. with the purpose of letting people know that there are people in Wisconsin that are supporting Scott Walker and what the Republicans in the legislature are doing. . . .
Americans for Prosperity is funded by outside donors like the billionaire Koch brothers, who also contributed heavily to Scott Walker's run for governor.
Now, let us move forward to 2 days after this tour started.
Day 2
This morning in Green Bay area:
The group stopped in Ashwaubenon Friday morning, but they were met with some opposition.A handful of Walker supporters with Americans for Prosperity are taking their efforts behind the wheel and traveling around the state.
The group's leadership includes David Koch. The businessman contributed to Walker's campaign and is the executive vice president of Koch Industries. He's the chairman of the AFP's foundation board. . . .
Coordinators say so far since the tour began, they've had around a thousand people sign a "Stand for Walker" petition. And they expect that number to at least double by the time they reach Madison on Sunday.
By the end of this tour, organizers were claiming some 150,000 signatures on a petition which shows support for Governor Walker, but the numbers do not calculate correctly.
So hours after leaving the Green Bay Area with 1,000 signature in support of Walker and hoping for 2,000 by Sunday's arrival in Madison they stopped in Wausau to see 200 supporters. Please note that in 2000 Wausau had a population of 38,426. Then hours later they landed in Rhinelander with 115,000 signatures.
Seaholm says the group has a petition with over 115,000 signatures supporting the Governor.He says Governor Walker has tremendous support throughout the state.
Now Rhinelander is a lovely town and one of the "major" locals north of Green Bay, but it only had 7,574 in July 2009. So where did the 114,000 signitures come from?
Let me rub our collective lying eyes!!!!!
Updated by mswsm at Sat Mar 5, 2011
UPDATE: Rudy VA said in the comments that "Online petition at stand with walker.com which is where they claim the 100k+ number. Link includes what appears to be a letter from AFP-W with the details. The petition itself allows for sign ins from any state, but no way to tell if the 100k number is pared down from the world-wide number, or if it IS the world-wide number.