Gudex first GOPper to fall...but why?

The first casualty of the 2016 election season hit yesterday as one-term State Sen. Rick Gudex (R- Fond du Lac) announced yesterday that he would not run again next year. He was promptly replaced by the Chair of the Fond du Lac County GOP, indicating that this was in the works for a while, and it likely gives a nice boost to Dem candidate Mark Harris (a personal favorite here at the Funhouse) to pick up that seat in the Oshkosh-Fond du Lac area.

The bigger question is why, and Andy at the Wisconsin Soapbox (a Fondy native) gives a good write-up on that situation, explaining that Gudex apparently has a much higher paying job lined up, and wasn't aware that this State Senator job took, you know, WORK.

But you have to wonder if other reasons exist for Gudex's sudden departure. The fact that Gudex is the GOP's Senate representative on the WEDC Slush Fund Board sure doesn't do a lot to dissuade me from thinking that's a scandal that's ready to blow, and that the GOP powers-that-be don't want any of their 2016 candidates associated with it. It also must be noted that the most recent Marquette University Law Poll had the following question, which shows that Wisconsinites have had it with the GOP's act at the Capitol.

Approve/disapprove of Republicans in the State Legislature?
Approve 31%
Disapprove 60%

Democrats aren't great in that same poll, at 39-49, but they're not the ones in charge, and they're not the ones that will be voted out by Wisconsin voters next November as a result of the wreck that the state is in. It's possible the GOP kingmakers realized that having a GOP incumbent in any vulnerable seat is a bad situation for 2016, and pushed Gudex out the door in favor of trying some new person who could lie and claim they're some kind of "different" Republican that might be independent of the ALEC crew that's destroying the state (hint: they won't be).

And look what's in the news this morning, another departure from Scott Walker's inner circle, who also appears to be going through the revolving door to cash in on his connections.

Former Walker spokesman and current Department of Administration communications director Cullen Werwie said Monday he is leaving his post in January. Werwie says he plans to find a job in the private sector.

Werwie worked on Walker's 2010 campaign, served on his transition team and was his spokesman until April 2013 when he took his current job in DOA.

Werwie received immunity for his testimony in a John Doe investigation into Walker's former aides and associates in Milwaukee County. That probe led to charges against six people.

Sure feels like there's something afoot down at the Capitol, doesn't there? And I don't think Rick Gudex or Cullen Werwie will prove to be the last WisGOPs to parachute out in the next few months. The question is "What's making them do it?"