MADISON (WKOW) -
MADISON (WKOW) -- On November 15, United Wisconsin will begin its official recall petition drive against Governor Scott Walker.
To get ready, the Wisconsin Democratic Party is training volunteers who want to help with the effort.
But, those training sessions aren't exactly open to the public.
State Democrats conducted dozens of training sessions across the state on Tuesday, and they will hold dozens more before the recall petitions are released.
But, 27 News only got video of a session after Democratic Party officials told us several times that the training is not open to the media.
Party officials gave us a number of reasons; saying it was a privacy issue; that they're trainers weren't used to dealing with the media; and that their staff in the field needed to focus on the job at hand.
They finally agreed to let us shoot video, as long as we didn't interview anyone or record useable audio of the training.
"Well, political parties don't have any obligation to let the general public into their meetings," Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign pointed out.
But, McCabe said in this case, it definitely sends the wrong message.
"I think your average citizen can't imagine what there is to hide, or what there is to keep secret about the basic process of training people to go out and gather petition signatures for a recall election," said McCabe.
Ultimately, Democratic Party Spokesperson Graeme Zielinski told us they weren't trying to hide anything, but decided to limit press access so that right-wing media groups couldn't get any information to use against them.
"I think your average citizen thinks the secrecy is all ado about nothing, but that's not how political people think," said McCabe. "That's not how the insiders think, they see politics as war. They see spies coming out of the woodwork everywhere."
Along with Madison there were also training sessions in Beloit, Richland Center and Platteville Tuesday.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin told 27 News they would try to accommodate our request to record audio of a training session later this week.
