Messaging, public relations • July 17th, 2008

Fischer fried

by Chris Lato

That didn’t take long.

State Commerce Secretary Jack Fischer’s resignation comes a mere 10 days after a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece took Fischer to task for questionable spending of taxpayer dollars. Some who traveled on trade missions with Fischer also criticized him for substandard performance.

It was a good piece of digging-up-dirt reporting, aided by the fact that the defense offered by the Fischer and the Doyle administration was virtually nonexistent. The administration realized it had to cut bait or risk a continuing string of really bad PR. The longer this lingered, the worse it would be for the administration. Better to throw Fischer under the bus now than to risk this becoming an even bigger problem.

Could Fischer have survived the bad press? You never know - perhaps if he had agreed to talk on the record and attempt to explain himself. Fischer’s steadfast refusal to comment looks bad. It allows others to paint the picture – and not in a flattering way. He never got out in front of the story in any way – and, fairly or not, it suggests the guy was guilty of something.

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