Minnesota Republican congressional candidate Stuart Mills has ties to Wisconsin Republican corruption

Stuart Mills, the Republican candidate in the 8th Congressional District of Minnesota who is running against Democratic incumbent Rick Nolan, recently hired Keith Gilkes, who has been implicated in two criminal investigations into violations of campaign laws by Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, as a consultant:

GOP 8th District congressional candidate Stewart Mills has tapped into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s political organization for his race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan. 

A story on Minnesota’s 8th District race from the Rothenberg Political Report (behind a paywall) reported Mills has hired Keith Gilkes to serve as a general consultant for his campaign. A campaign spokeswoman said Gilkes is working with another group to “provide media and general consulting services to the campaign.”

Gilkes has a long track record of being associated with Walker and his long track record of corruption and cronyism. When Walker was the county executive of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Gilkes was one of several people (which also included Walker) who were implicated in Walker's corruption and cronyism, and, although neither Gilkes nor Walker were charged with any crimes from that investigation, six people connected to Walker were either convicted of, or plead guilty to, various criminal charges as a result of the probe. An ongoing, but officially stalled, investigation into Walker's corruption while Governor of Wisconsin has found that Walker, Gilkes, and two other people connected to Walker illegally coordinated with Republican/conservative outside groups, although neither Walker nor Gilkes have been charged with any crimes at this time.

Furthermore, Gilkes, then Walker's chief of staff, was one of two people, the other person being Walker, that fell for a prank caller who pretended to be David Koch, one of the Koch Brothers who have bankrolled Republican and conservative causes (including Walker's gubernatorial campaigns in Wisconsin), but was actually Ian Murphy, the editor of the online alternative newspaper The Beast. Gilkes, not realizing that the person on the other end of the line was a prank caller, forwarded Murphy's prank call to Walker, and Walker, also not realizing that the person on the other end of the line was a prank caller, admitted to using and planning to use vindictive, Nixonian tactics against Democratic members of the Wisconsin State Senate and also admitted to planning to illegally coordinate with Republican front groups:

Mills's ties to Wisconsin Republican corruption don't stop there. Earlier this year, Mike Ellis, the Republican Wisconsin State Senate President, admitted to planning to start his own SuperPAC in order to run attack ads against Penny Bernard Schaber, the Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin State Senate seat currently held by Ellis, and Ellis named Mills as one of the big-money donors who would have funded Ellis's planned illegal SuperPAC:

Ellis ended his re-election campaign not long after his plot to violate campaign finance laws became public knowledge.

Stuart Mills, who is a Republican candidate for Congress in Northeastern Minnesota, has extensive ties to flagrant political corruption that is rampant in the Republican Party of Wisconsin. The fact that he's hiring campaign operatives who once worked for Scott Walker, one of the most corrupt, vindictive politicians to have ever held public office in this country's history, is more than enough for me to say that a Mills victory would be an absolute disaster for Northeastern Minnesota.

Former Obama campaign operatives are asking people to pay $5,000 to volunteer for a high-profile Democratic campaign

Mitch Bird and Jeremy Stewart must be crazy.

Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird, two former political operatives for President Barack Obama's campaign who now run the consulting firm 270 Strategies, are running what appears to me to be a scam in which they are asking people to pay $5,000 for a six-week program consisting of one week of political training and five weeks of volunteer work on an unnamed "important Democratic campaign":

Two top veterans of President Obama’s campaigns are asking political campaigners to pay $5,000 per person for the chance to learn their secrets and then work for five weeks in an unpaid campaign job somewhere in America. 

Democratic operatives and progressive activists are questioning this training program launched by Obama campaign architects Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird. The $5,000 program promises access to the wizardry of Obama’s presidential bids — and a five-week, unpaid gig on an “important Democratic campaign.” 

Run by Bird and Stewart’s consulting company, 270 Strategies, the new program’s emphasis on placing paying customers in essentially volunteer roles on Democratic campaigns is atypical in the campaign training industry, and some Democrats say it sets a dangerous precedent. The firm’s first-ever “270/360 Training Intensive” program is scheduled to begin in September.

In case you're wondering, the one-week training program is a staggering $3,500, and it will cost you an additional $1,500 for the five-week volunteer work program on an "important Democratic campaign". 270 Strategies has not named which campaign or campaigns are participating in the program, although I'm guessing the campaign(s) in question are one or more Democratic gubernatorial and/or U.S. Senate campaigns that are considered by most political pundits to be competitive to some degree.

There are several reasons why this is a terrible idea. First off, this reminds me of those expensive golf instruction videos that do virtually nothing to improve a recreational golf player's game. Even worse, there's already a ton of barriers to political participation in our country (no guaranteed paid leave to run for public office, Election Day is not a national holiday, wealthy candidates and big-money interests discourage people from running for public office, etc.), and having people pay thousands of dollars just to volunteer on a political campaign sets up yet another barrier to political participation in this country.

Progressives like me are not the only ones criticizing Mitch Bird and Jeremy Stewart's scheme. Even many Democratic operatives are criticizing Bird and Stewart for asking people to pay thousands of dollars to volunteer on a high-profile Democratic campaign.

If someone were to ask me whether or not I'd be interested in paying $5,000 to volunteer on a campaign, the answer is HELL NO! First off, I don't have that kind of money, and, more importantly, we have far too many barriers to political participation in this country the way it is, and Mitch Bird and Jeremy Stewart are only making that problem even worse.