GOP Picks Third Most Unpopular Republican For Fund Raising

USA Today Excerpt:
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, considered a rising Republican star, has been tapped to lead a high-profile party fundraising group tasked with raising money for the GOP's 2012 ground game.

Hot Air Excerpt: (June, 2011)
The poll also found Ryan is now the nation’s third most disliked Republican, with net unfavorable ratings that trail only former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Obviously the GOP has no chance or use to campaign for piddly $20 donations from working class wage earners, so it's only logical to choose a connected Wall Street crony capitalist.

But these appear to be more signs that the Republican Party is preparing for a major war to defend the wayward class war congressman's House seat in 2012. They know we know Ryan has absolutely nothing to show for in 14 years, so they redrew his district boundaries by throwing in chunks of GOP-infested Walkersha County and now the party gives him a confidence boosting empty title to what amounts to a publicity stunt befitting an empty suit.

They are pulling out all the stops.

Ryan's secret redistricting plan was about self-interest

The Hill reports that Paul Ryan is among the 10 incumbent House members most helped by redistricting -- especially noteworthy since Ryan is the one who drew the secret plan to redraw Wisconsin's Congressional districts, with no participation from Democrats.  The Lord helps those who help themselves, they say. 

Ryan's self-help program makes it less likely he will be targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, The Hill says.

Sean Duffy is also in the top ten, thanks to Ryan's dirty work.

More here.

Ryan looks for cover on his secret redistricting plan

Paul Ryan, having written a Congressional redistricting plan in secret that protects Republlican incumbents, including himself, went looking recently for a little bipartisan cover. But it didn't work out so well.

Buried in a Politico story about the Paul Ryan-Rob Zerban race:

Ryan recently called Democratic Rep. Ron Kind to his office and floated the idea of both congressmen throwing their support to a redistricting proposal that would strengthen their districts while also providing support to the northern Wisconsin district held by vulnerable freshman GOP Rep. Sean Duffy, according to two Democratic sources familiar with the exchange.

Kind returned with a counteroffer, according to one of the sources, proposing a map that would leave both congressmen safer but that wouldn’t shore up Duffy.

Ryan’s response: thanks, but no thanks.

Read more here.

Who ya gonna believe on redistricting plan: Paul Ryan or your own lyin' eyes?

"You have a plan that looks to be politically motivated," said [Michael] McDonald, a [redistricting scholar] political scientist at George Mason University in northern Virginia.

Democrat Dave Obey calls it "highly manipulative" and "crassly political."

Republican Paul Ryan calls it a "status-quo map" with "clean lines."

What they're talking about is a proposed redistricting plan for Wisconsin's Congressional seats, drawn in secret by Ryan and discussed behind closed doors by GOP members of the Wisconsin delegation.

Oh, that "status quo" map with the "clean lines" Ryan described? See for yourself, with special attention to the 3rd CD, which usesd to follow the Mississippi but now wanders halfway across the state.


It's main purpose, according to the Journal Sentinel's Craig Gilbert, is to boost freshman Republican Sean Duffy's prospects of holding the seat he won last November when Obey retired.

That's the district that changes the most, and it took some creative line-drawing to make it more winnable for Duffy. Gilbert explains:

Duffy's seat needs to grow by a little more than 20,000 people to meet the legal requirement that all eight House seats have the same population. On paper, that could be done by simply expanding Duffy's district a bit southward into Democrat Ron Kind's 3rd District, which needs to lose almost the same number of people.

Instead, the GOP plan shifts about 150,000 of Duffy's current constituents out of the 7th, and replaces them with about 170,000 people who now live in neighboring districts.

These big population swaps affect 13 different counties, and involve one notable example of creative line drawing. The plan carves out of Duffy's district a sizable Democratic chunk of central Wisconsin (Portage County and eastern Wood County) and splices it to Kind's western Wisconsin seat, using Adams County as a connecting corridor.

Redistricting is done by the legislature, not incumbent members of Congress, in theory, and the Ryan plan has not been introduced in the legislature yet. But look for it to be done and rubber-stamped sometime soon, before the recall elections in August which may well cost the GOP their State Senate majority and give Dems a voice in the proceedings.

Ryan drafts secret Republican redistricting plan for Wisconsin

There's a secret Congressional redistricting plan for Wisconsin being discussed behind closed doors by Wisconsin's GOP House members -- perhaps in preparation for jamming it through during an "extraordinary session" of the state legislature before Republicans lose control of the State Senate in recalls later this summer.

Who's the author? According to Craig Gilbert of the Journal Sentinel:

GOP House member Paul Ryan took the lead in crafting it, according to sources.

The plan is designed to protect incumbent freshman Republican Sean Duffy, Gilbert says. [UPDATE: The new map would take heavily Dem Portage County out of the 7th CD, helping Duffy.  It also would take part of Chippewa County, possibly moving former State Sen. Pat Krietlow, a Dem who's already launched a campaign against Duffy, out of the district. It's not clear which side of the line he lives on.]

Democrats, assuming the worst, are outraged. State Party Chair Mike Tate:

"Wisconsin's redistricting process has never gone forward under such a dark ethical cloud. Conceived in darkness and obscured from the voters, this heinous redistricting plot now is foisted on Wisconsin as a fait accompli.

Never before in Wisconsin's modern history has the process taken place without local participation and the creation of wards. Never before have the people of this state had so substantial a decision made in such an absence of democratic principle.

Paul Ryan and Scott Walker and his lapdog Legislature have normalized the outrageous. In saner times, any of the many activities undertaken by Ryan, Walker and the Fitzgerald Brothers would be cause for alarm and righteous anger. Now, it's merely Monday."

Stay tuned.