Ira Robbins: Candidate With No Special Interests

Ira Robbins, a retired police officer, is running for Lt. Governor of Wisconsin in the recall election against Rebecca Kleefisch. However, unlike the other candidates for Lt. Governor, Robbins doesn't take money from any special interests. In fact, he doesn't accept money from anyone. He's one of a few candidates with no special interests, a true people's candidate.

Robbins is a big supporter of teachers and collective bargaining rights. In fact, he's running on a platform of returning to quality education while getting special interest money out of politics.

Since Robbins doesn't take money from any special interests, he'll have no reason to listen to them if he's elected. No Koch brothers, no ALEC, and no unions. Only people. This doesn't mean that Robbins doesn't align with the interests of members of any organizations, he just won't give them special treatment like nearly every other politician - Democrat and Republican. See, he's for collective bargaining rights, but not for succumbing to every whim of unions.

I encourage you to take a look at his website at voteira.com and find out more about Ira Robbins. If you think he would be a good Lt. Gov., he really needs your help getting the word out, because everyone else is getting lots of help from big special interests. Voting for people like Ira Robbins is the only way we'll get special interest money out of politics and return Wisconsin back to the people.

Wanna See Scott Walker's Special Interests?

If you wanna see who Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's special interests are, now you can thanks to the superb interactive page put together by the Journal Sentinel. The page lets you visually compare how much money many of the recall candidates have received, from whom and from where.  It's as plain as day to see that nearly half (47%) of Walker's $12 million comes from out-of-state special interests, far more than any other candidate.

One of the other things you'll first notice is that Walker's top 5 donors are all rich individuals except one named "Unitemized."

I have no idea who's money is "Unitemized," but it's clear by the donors lists and the secretly-funded billboards popping up all over Wisconsin, that there's a few loud rich people who support Walker and are doing everything they can to make their voices louder than everyone else. It's time we take Wisconsin back for the people - not just the few rich and powerful!

We can't take Wisconsin back for the people until we get special interest money out of politics. In order to do that, we must support candidates who refuse money from special interests - any nonhuman entity, particularly those from out of state. On the No Special Interests website, you can quickly see which recall candidates take money from special interests and which do not.  From there you can decide which candidates to support or to help persuade your favorite candidate to stop taking money from special interests.

By the way, is Scott Walker breaking the law right now?


Join the grassroots movement to finally rid our politics of special interest money!

Report From a Doug La Follette Nomination Circulator

I spent part of this weekend talking to people who vote for Democrats and some who vote for Republicans about Doug La Follette's campaign for Wisconsin Governor as I collected signatures for his nomination, and I've gotten a very good reception from everyone. After my introduction, I always went to "Doug La Follette doesn't take money from any special interests." I told them that fact is one of the primary reasons I'm supporting him for governor, and then I asked if they would be willing to support his name on the ballot. No one has turned me down yet. No more questions.

Everyone likes to hear that a candidate doesn't receive support from special interests, especially these days, and everyone I talked to was excited to help such a candidate get on the ballot.

This is positive news for Doug La Follette's campaign. All of the Democratic candidates are in a statistical dead-heat with Walker. So we're going to need a strong candidate with a stark contrast from Scott Walker, and Doug La Follette's confidence to stand for the people of Wisconsin without special interest support is the starkest contrast among the Democrats.

My experience this weekend also convinced me to create the No Special Interests.com website to help us get special interest money out of our politics. It became quite clear to me that people in Wisconsin are yearning for candidates who reject special interests. With this and all the political energy on both sides right now, I believe Wisconsin can start blazing another political trail - the defeat of special interests in politics.

Help us make that happen by spreading the word and supporting candidates who refuse money from special interests.

No Special Interests: A Grassroots Viral Movement to Rid Politics of Special Interest Money

That may be a bit grandiose, but that's the goal of No Special Interests.com, the website that I created over the weekend. One of the biggest problems in politics today is the influence of various special interests from corporations to unions and everything in between. It's only gotten worse with the Citizens United ruling, and both sides of the aisle agree. Yet, nearly every politician says that they don't cater to special interests. So, the only way we can rid our politics of special interest influence is to find and elect candidates who truly aren't supported by special interests. No Special Interests.com was created to assist Wisconsinites with that effort and to hopefully start a nonpartisan grassroots movement to rid politics of special interest money.

Candidates who refuse money from special interests really need the support of Wisconsinites to win, and they need to win for us to take Wisconsin back for the people. They're already at a disadvantage by refusing support from special interests. They get less press and less advertising. Yet, they're the type of candidates we should support with the confidence to stand on their own for the people of Wisconsin. We must make an effort to support them if we want to have any chance at success. That means spreading the word about these candidates and why they're better for the people of Wisconsin.

The first step is getting people to realize the significance of special interest money in our politics and the candidates who accept it. Then, we need to encourage support for candidates who refuse support from special interests and put pressure on candidates who accept support from special interests. If we're loud enough, they will listen or stand the chance of losing, and the movement will grow exponentially stronger with each candidate who refuses special interest support.

The lack of support from special interests can be the one differentiating factor in the upcoming elections for candidates on both sides of the aisle. With enough volume, we can make it impossible for candidates to accept money from special interests. We attain success by using our voices and support to elect candidates who are people-funded.

With the historic recall elections approaching and political energy on both sides, we can make significant progress towards our goal quickly. Especially, if we elect a governor who refused special interest support. Everyone agrees this is the time we can really bring about change, and this is the only way we can do it.

On No Special Interests.com you'll find more information on why we need to get special interest money out of politics, how a little effort from each of us can make this happen, and why this movement can work here in Wisconsin right now.

Most importantly, you'll find information on where Wisconsin candidates stand on special interest support. So, you can see who is running a people-funded campaign and who is running a campaign on special interest money. Over the next few days I'll be adding all of the candidates for the races in the upcoming recall elections and the November election. I welcome all constructive feedback and greatly appreciate it!

However, the website is nothing without you. All it takes is a tweet, an email, or just talking to friends. We need to do this all ourselves, and we can do this all ourselves. Lets get this movement started.

We can take Wisconsin back for the people!

I'll soon be tweeting about No Special Interests.com and this effort with the hash tag #NoSpecialInterests and #tincup for short. You can also join the movement on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NoSpecialInterests.

I hope you'll join us!