Conservative recall effort fails, but does so with integrity

Local committee against Mark Miller won't merge with Utah group

You won't hear me complimenting many conservatives often on this site. As a progressive liberal, there aren't many things I find terribly humbling about the conservative movement or its propositions for our state's and country's futures.

But organizers for the Committee to Recall Mark Miller, though against one of the state senators I personally support, acted in a very classy way this week.

As reported in the Wisconsin State Journal, Jeff Horn, lead organizer heading up Miller's recall efforts, was shy of getting the necessary signatures for Miller by about 260 names. Even if he had attained that amount, it's likely that Horn's petitions would have been challenged.

So Horn had two options: admit defeat and hope for Miller's electoral loss next year when he's up for re-election, or merge his recall petitions with another group going after Miller, the American Recall Coalition. That group is run by an outsider, Dan Baltes, who is from Utah and leading recall efforts across our state.

Baltes is a controversial figure who has recently been accused by a Tea Party group in Tuscon, Arizona, for promising to bring Glenn Beck to their area, selling them all tickets, and then failing to deliver the FOX News commentator to them.

Many are also critical of Baltes for trying to recall state legislators in a state that's in an entirely different region than his own. What business does Baltes have in trying to recall Wisconsin state senators? The answer: none at all.

Horn had the opportunity to add his signatures with Baltes's. Doing so would have given both the necessary number of signatures needed to create a recall election for Miller.

But that didn't seem right to Horn. Aware of Baltes's troubled past (he's been involved in a plethora of other controversies), the State Journal reported that Horn told them that the "ends wouldn't justify the means."

That judgment cal deserves a salute from everyone, liberal, conservative, or otherwise. It takes a lot of courage to stick up for your principles, especially when disregarding them would help you in your larger goals. At a time when so many other conservatives in our country are willing to compromise their principles, to act in a hypocritical way that goes against what they once stood for, it's humbling to see someone like Jeff Horn act in this positive manner. Had he made the opposite decision, had he enjoined his petitions with Baltes's, no one would have blamed him. Instead, Horn stuck up for what he felt was right.

An accomplishment like that deserves recognition. Jeff Horn, though politically unaligned with my personal beliefs, is a class act.