Sunday, April 15, 2012

John Nichols: ‘A Lincoln La Follette Republican’


John Nichols: ‘A Lincoln La Follette Republican’

Now and again the media get something wrong, and that was certainly the case with the Associated Press report that identified gubernatorial candidate Arthur Kohl-Riggs as a “fake Republican.”

In fact, Kohl-Riggs is a real Republican, a true champion of the party of Abraham Lincoln and Robert M. La Follette.

An early and determined protester against Gov. Scott Walker’s assaults on labor rights, public education, public services and the right to vote, the 23-year-old Kohl-Riggs had never been involved with either political party before he joined the hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites who have built a movement to recall Walker.

“People who talk to me know I am not a Democrat. That comes through right away. And they know I’m not a Scott Walker Republican,” says Kohl-Riggs. “But as I’ve studied the history of the two parties, and of Wisconsin, I’ve come to realize that Scott Walker is not a real Republican. He’s part of the crowd that took over the Republican Party and made it into something Abraham Lincoln would not recognize.”