Democrats are cheering the results of yesterday's Democratic primary in the Wisconsin recall elections. (In the wake of  Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union bill, a coalition of labor and lefty groups forced recall elections on six Republicans who supported the bill.)

The good news for Democrats yesterday was this: The Republicans tried to muck up the recall by entering a batch of fake decoy "Democrats." However, all six real Democrats won and are now set to face the targeted Republicans in an August 9 special election.

(The Republicans are running recall campaigns of their own—going after three of the Democrats who abandoned the state capitol earlier this year to stall a vote on the Walker legislation. Those primaries haven't happened yet.)

Here's the local angle. The communications director for the recall campaign—an independent expenditure campaign that's morphed from the traditional IE TV and mailer effort into a full field campaign with staff and a budget that dwarfs the local Democratic party—is Kelly Steele.

If that name sounds familiar, here's why. Steele was the attack guy for Washington State's Democrats in US Sen. Maria Cantwell's wipe out victory over Mike McGavick in 2006 and Chris Gregoire's convincing win over Dino Rossi in 2008.

Steele went on to do communications work for US Sen. Harry Reid, taking out Reid's mainstream challenger Sue Lowden in the primary to set up a run against (and bash) fringe candidate Sharron Angle.

In fact, Steele has drawn attention from local conservatives in Wisconsin. The IE is called "We are Wisconsin" and Steele is Exhibit A in the Republicans' claim that the opposite is true.

In a post titled "The We're Not Wisconsin PAC," a conservative talk radio blog in Wisconsin editorializes:

So where is all this grassroots money coming from? Wisconsin?

No, the We Are Wisconsin PAC is a clearinghouse for national union dollars. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the PAC received over $3 million from the national AFL-CIO, as well as six-figure donations from AFSCME, United Food and Commercial Workers, and WEAC.

Look no further than the spokesman for the organization, Kelly Steele, to learn that We Are Wisconsin is no “grassroots campaign” but a well-funded union operation with support from the Democratic Party. Kelly Steele, a native Michigander, is a veteran of numerous Democratic campaigns in Oregon and Washington, gaining notoriety as the tenacious spokesman who liked to “push the envelope” for the Washington Democratic Party. Most recently, Steele worked on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s re-election campaign, where many credit his “cutthroat” style, “relentless” attacks, and “merciless and withering criticism,” with righting the ship for Reid and defining his opponents in a way they could not overcome.

Steele's not the only Washington State Democrat in Wisconsin right now. The former communications guy for Gov. Gov. Gregoire, Viet Shelton, is doing communications work for one of the six Democratic challengers. Shelton, called a "Non-Wisconsin Element" (I'm reminded of the scene in The Graduate when a landlord accuses Dustin Hoffman of being "one of them outside agitators"), was outed in the Wisconsin press.

The group named “We are Wisconsin” has a decidedly non-Wisconsin infrastructure, with more than $1 million in PAC donations transferred to it earlier this week from national union sources and many of its key operatives coming from out of state.

Patrick Devney and Viet Shelton are two of We Are Wisconsin’s communications directors working on the recall elections.  Neither man appears to be from Wisconsin.

Shelton is working to recall Senator Hopper.  He comes to Wisconsin from the State of Washington where he was labeled a rising star in Democratic politics.  Shelton was the campaign director for Transportation for Washington, Washington Governor Chris Gregoire’s deputy communications director, and worked for the Democratic National Committee.  He describes himself as a “campaign addict”  and “for the summer, in Wisconsin” on his twitter profile.

The Republicans should probably drop the carpetbagger accusations against Shelton, though. There's someone else from Washington in Wisconsin: US Rep. Dave Reichert's recent campaign spokesman, Jeff Harvey. Harvey, whose also worked as a spokesman for NJ Republican all-star Gov. Chris Christie, is the campaign manager for Shelton's recall target, Republican Sen. Randy Hopper.