Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans Prepare to Run Fake Candidates

It is well known that the politics of the Republican-Democrat two-party state and duopoly system of government are nothing more than a farce.  In Wisconsin, the ruling parties have finally embraced this simple fact and dropped their pretenses.  From the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, last week:

In letters obtained by No Quarter, local Republican Party officials are encouraging their GOP colleagues to collect enough signatures to get a fake Democratic candidate on the ballot in each of two upcoming recall elections.

The spoiler Democrats, who are identified by name in the letters, would run in the Democratic primaries for the seats now held by Republican Sens. Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac and Luther Olsen of Ripon.

Both of the fake Democrats have a history of giving almost exclusively to major Republicans. "We need to make sure Democrat challengers face primaries to allow our Republicans time to mount a campaign," Dan Feyen, chairman of the 6th Congressional District Republican Party, wrote in the letter to "fellow conservatives" on Friday.

"A Democratic primary," Feyen continued, "will push the general election back by one month, so that Senator Hopper can have more time to organize a campaign against his liberal challenger." That's verbatim what is in the other two-page letter encouraging support for the second fake Democratic candidate . . .  

Naturally, Democrats denounced the move as a dirty trick, the height of hypocrisy and so on. But now it appears they are coming around to a different view on the matter.  From the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, yesterday:

A coalition of union groups active in state Senate recalls now advocates that Democrats field fake Republican candidates to run in primary elections against GOP state senators - just as Republicans are fielding fake Democrats to run against those who challenging GOP incumbents.

Friday evening, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued a statement that neither endorsed nor ruled out the idea, saying the party will "review the options available." The proposal from We Are Wisconsin, described in an email from Kelly Steele, communications director, was sent earlier Friday. The email argued that it was necessary to keep Republicans from hijacking the election process, and called on interested Democrats to contact the state Democratic Party and volunteer to run as Republicans in the districts of six GOP senators subject to recall elections. Steele says he hadn't coordinated the We Are Wisconsin statement with the Democratic Party.

For those of us who recognize that the Democratic and Republican parties only ever run fake candidates, it may be rather difficult to distinguish a fake Democrat-Republican from a fake Republican-Democrat.