Predictions. But Don't Hold Me to Them.

I've learned my lesson, so I'm going to throw in predictions for easy races. Grade inflation, you know. I'll start national and then go state:

• The Democrats will take the House, picking up 20-23 seats. That's lower than most estimates, but I'd rather be pessimistic and surprised by the results.
  
  
• Democrats will not take the Senate, though they will win four or five seats. No Dem incumbents will lose, except Joe Lieberman.
  
  
• Jim Doyle will be re-elected. Owen expects a Green victory, based on the "Incumbent Rule." I say, let's ask President Kerry what he thinks of the incumbent rule. And the margin won't be that close--something in 52-48 range. Eismann just won't be a factor.
  
  
• The Falk-Van Hollen race is too close to call, almost. (That's my hedge.) That said, I think Falk will win a squeaker--this may well be the last state-wide race to get called.
  
  
• Both statewide ballot measures will probably pass. I don't put it out of the realm of possibility that the amendment will fail--Fair Wisconsin has run an airtight campaign--but momentum in the "no" direction isn't enough. I wanted to see at least one poll with the thing going down before now.
  
  
• Republicans will keep the state Assembly. I know, I know, out on a limb there. But I feel confident.
  
  
• Democrats will take the state Senate. Reynolds and Zien definitely lose. Baby-daddy McReynolds is the most likely next loser.
  
  
• Herb Kohl will . . . wait for it . . . win. By at least 20%.
  
  
• The House races:
  1. Paul Ryan
     
  2. Tammy Baldwin
     
  3. Ron Kind
     
  4. Gwen Moore
     
  5. Jim Sensenbrenner (though with a much smaller margin than in 2004)
     
  6. Tom Petri
     
  7. Dave Obey
     
  8. Steve Kagen (by five or six points)
  
  
• Despite my ringing endorsement for Don Holt, David Clarke will be re-elected.
  
  
• John Chisholm will win the Milwaukee County DA's race.
  
  
• All the various Iraq war bring-'em-home referrenda will pass.

No matter what really happens--big Dem wins or big Dem losses--I agree with Scott:

I further predict that whatever happens, the right half of the blogosphere will instantly proclaim it a victory for their side. Yes. Because someone you never heard of said on CNN three months ago that Democrats could take the senate, the fact that it didn’t happen will be touted as proof-positive that the American people have rejected the left’s flawed agenda, while giving a mandate to the Republican party to move further to the right. [Ed. See Ann Coulter, laying that groundwork.] It will also be said that we played dirty. So dirty, in fact, that the only explanation for why we didn’t win every election by a landslide is that voters utterly spurned our bankrupt ideology in favor of GOP ideals.

Add to it claims of vote fraud (crack-heads making up names for ACORN is not a winning vote-fraud strategy, by the way) and perhaps even a lawsuit by Mark Green to challenge the legality of his loss. It will get uglier before it gets better. That is a prediction you can take to the bank.

Milwaukee County Sheriff, the folkbum endorsement: Don Holt

I had an opportunity to meet and talk with Don Holt at, believe it or not, a Drinking Liberally a few weeks ago. He is everything current Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is not.

• David Clarke is a Republican but won't admit to it. Don Holt is proud of his party affiliation.
  
• David Clarke has a checkered career (to put it mildly) in law enforcement. Don Holt has a stellar record.
  
• David Clarke sees the office of Sheriff as some kind of stepping stone to bigger and better things. Don Holt is coming out of retirement because he sees what a mess Clarke and his ambition have made.
  
• David Clarke has mismanaged everything from booking at the county jail to patrols on county roads and highways. Don Holt earned repeated praise for his management of the Highway Patrol District 2.
  
• David Clarke talks tough but hasn't delivered a safer Milwaukee County. Don Holt walks quietly but has a record of accomplishment.
  
• David Clarke irritates other law enforcement agencies in the county. Don Holt has a long record of cooperation and accord with other agencies.
  
• David Clarke serves beer in uniform and uses County resources as he campaigns (and even the Republicans among us know that's wrong. Don Holt got into the race partly because those abuses appall him.
  
• David Clarke was cited for contempt of court for over 16,000 violations. Don Holt wasn't.

You get the idea. It's hard to do this, you know, endorse a Republican. But, as with the guys over at Watchdog Milwaukee, I can't in good conscience vote for Clarke. It's not just that I feel if I'm going to vote for a Republican, I may as well vote for an honest one--though I do feel that way.

It's that David Clarke, and his legions of supporters in this race, online and on the radio, are exactly what's wrong with the Republican Party. Clarke talks a big game, struts around in his uniform and poses for the cameras, and gets that steely look of resolve in his eye. That just melts the hearts of many people on the right, including most especially Charlie Sykes. It's the same thing that Bush does that makes the right act like the front row of a New Kids on the Block concert. But when it comes to follow through, we find that Clarke's words have been hollow, as have Bush's. Clark has had five years of swaggering and no years of results.

This blind fanboyishness (fangirlishness, even) of the right led them to do things like make up stuff about Clarke's primary opponent Vince Bobot, saying Bobot was a wuss or soft on crime. That was a convenient re-writing of history, given Bobot's long history as a decorated veteran officer, tough-on-crime judge, and city attorney. But, remember, we're in the midst of an election season that requires some on the right to just make stuff up in order to shield themselves from reality--in this case, the reality that the booted swaggering man they love is just an empty uniform.

It's time to repudiate them, and time to return results to the office of Milwaukee County Sheriff. Please remember that, and vote for Don Holt on November 7.

(And thus concludes this installment of the occasional series known as my endorsements. This series will return in time for the school board elections in the spring.)

For Dan Kenitz

And McIlheran and Dad29 and Lance Burri:

The extension of the franchise to black citizens was strongly resisted. Among others, the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and other terrorist organizations attempted to prevent the 15th Amendment from being enforced by violence and intimidation. Two decisions in 1876 by the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of enforcement under the Enforcement Act and the Force Act, and, together with the end of Reconstruction marked by the removal of federal troops after the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877, resulted in a climate in which violence could be used to depress black voter turnout and fraud could be used to undo the effect of lawfully cast votes.

Once whites regained control of the state legislatures using these tactics, a process known as "Redemption," they used gerrymandering of election districts to further reduce black voting strength and minimize the number of black elected officials. In the 1890s, these states began to amend their constitutions and to enact a series of laws intended to re-establish and entrench white political supremacy.

Such disfranchising laws included poll taxes, literacy tests, vouchers of "good character," and disqualification for "crimes of moral turpitude." These laws were "color-blind" on their face, but were designed to exclude black citizens disproportionately by allowing white election officials to apply the procedures selectively. Other laws and practices, such as the "white primary,", attempted to evade the 15th Amendment by allowing "private" political parties to conduct elections and establish qualifications for their members.

As a result of these efforts, in the former Confederate states nearly all black citizens were disenfranchised and removed from by 1910. The process of restoring the rights taken stolen by these tactics would take many decades.

--

Prior to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965, southern (and some western) states maintained elaborate voter registration procedures whose primary purpose was to deny the vote to those who were not white. In the South, this process was often called the "literacy test." In fact, it was much more than a simple test, it was an entire complex system devoted to denying African-Americans (and in some area, Latinos) the right to vote.

The registration procedures, and the Registrars who enforced them, were just one part of this interlocking system of racial discrimination and oppression. [. . .]

In Alabama, a typical registration process for an African-American citizen went something like this:

In the rural counties where most folk lived, you had to go down to the courthouse to register. The Registrars Office was only open two or three days each month for a couple of hours, usually in the morning or afternoon. You had to take off work — with or without your employer's permission — to register. And if a white employer gave such permission, or failed to fire an African-American who tried to vote, he could be driven out of business by economic retaliation from the Citizens Council.

On the occasional registration day, the county Sheriff and his deputies made it their business to hang around the courthouse to discourage "undesirables" from trying to register. This meant that Black women and men had to run a gauntlet of intimidation, insults, and threats just to get to the Registration office. Once in the Registrars Office they faced hatred, humiliation, and harassment from clerks and officials.

The Alabama Application Form and oaths you had to take were four pages long. It was designed to intimidate and threaten. You had to swear that your answers to every single question were true under penalty of perjury. And you knew that the information you entered on the form would be passed on to the Citizens Council and KKK. [. . .]

In addition to completing the application and swearing the oaths, you had to pass the actual "Literacy Test" itself. Because the Movement was running "Citizenship Schools" to help folk learn how to fill out the forms and pass the test, Alabama changed the test 4 times in less than two years (1964-1965). At the time of the Selma Voting Rights campaign there were actually 100 different tests in use. In theory, each applicant was supposed to chose one at random from a big loose-leaf binder. In real life, some individual tests were easier than others and the registrar made sure that Black applicants got the hardest ones. [. . .] Your application was then reviewed by the three-member Board of Registrars — often in secret at a later date. They voted on whether or not you passed. It was entirely up to the judgment of the Board whether you passed or failed. If you were white and missed every single question they could still pass you if — in their sole judgment — you were "qualified." If you were Black and got every one correct, they could still flunk you if they considered you "unqualified."

Your name was published in the local newspaper listing of those who had applied to register. That was to make sure that all of your employers, landlords, mortgage-holders, bank loan officers, business-suppliers, and etc, were kept informed of this important event. And, of course, all of the information on your application was quietly passed under the table to the White Citizens Council and KKK for appropriate action. Their job was to encourage you to withdraw your application, — or withdraw yourself out of the county, — by whatever means they deemed necessary.

If you're stupid, they say, don't vote. Sounds familiar.

TV and Other Off-Line Appearances

Tuesday night, Owen Robinson and I will be appearing on WTMJ, channel 4, off and on after 9:00, to provide commentary and analysis. We'll also be doing updates on what the blogs are talking about, so post away or email me about what you're thinking. I'm there for you.

A week from today, I'll be appearing with Owen again--as well as six other Cheddarsphereans--at the Download 2006 conference, a post-election opportunity for bloggers/ media/ normal folk to get together and chat about what happened on election night and why. The event is at the Waukesha County Technical College, and is free. However, you should RSVP as soon as possible if you're going.

Dan Kenitz is stoopid

The Dan Kenitz fan club seems to have grown to four: Patrick "brilliant!" McIlheran, as I mentioned yesterday; Charlie Sykes (there's a shocker), who read Kenitz's op-ed on the air yesterday; the normally reasonable Lance Burri; and Dan Kenitz himself.

I'm sure it's done wonders for his blog traffic, too.

Let me see if I can rephrase the problem here. This week when John Kerry flubbed the punchline to a joke that would have called George W. "is our children learning" Bush stupid, Kerry was criticized for insulting the president. Flubbing the line made it seem like John Kerry was calling our troops in Iraq stupid, for which he was nearly crucified. Yet this very same week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel decides that the best use of its op-ed space is allowing a peurile conservative columnist to call voters--liberal voters, mostly--stupid, repeatedly. Five days before the voters go to the polls, the JS thinks its greatest contribution to the discourse is a column insulting half (give or take) of its readers in an uncreative, juvenile fashion.

It's a joke, Kenitz says. I have no sense of humor, Lance Burri says. Well, look, calling someone stupid is not funny. Lenny Bruce was funny. "Arrested Development" was funny. Some days even "Marmaduke" is funny. Kenitz's column was not funny, not even if viewed as smack talk. The high school students I teach talk funnier smack than that. (My favorite from this week: Your mama's so fat, I tried to walk around her and got lost.)

And while no, I don't think that anyone who reads Kenitz's infantile rangtings yesterday would decide not to vote becuase of it, I do think it reflects badly not just on Kenitz, anyone who praises him, and the paper, but on a lot of conservatives like that--the Jessica McBrides of the world who can't face reality. They see that they're losing, nationally and locally, and their last remaining hope is convincing themselves that no, it's not them, it's everyone else. Everyone else is stupid. Everyone else doesn't get it. Everyone else is going to ruin it. Only people who agree with me should be allowed to vote.

Kenitz, McBride, Sykes, McIlheran and the rest of you holding on to the last disappearing threads of your Bush Revolution illusion: You need to look in the mirror for a while. It isn't my missing sense of humor that is the problem here. It's you.

Jessica McBride denies the existence of PTSD, history, reality . . .

Jessica McBride, UWM lecturer in Journalism, is wrong. A lot. She is not afraid to show it. Here, she's desperately trying to hang John Kerry around Steve Kagen's neck (the italics are her quotes of a Lakeland Times interview with Dr. Kagen, and that's her bold, too):

And then there's this creative way of increasing casualty figures:

Kagen cited 650,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, 2,700 U.S. soldiers dead and another 20,000 injured, as well as countless more "injured mentally."

This is perhaps the most egregious flub in her post (not at all the only one). She seems to be denying that post-traumatic stress disorder--a very real and very debilitating disorder--somehow doesn't exist or doesn't count. Last I checked, McBride is not a doctor (MD or psychology or even journalism), and not really qualified to make diagnoses or rewrite, wholesale, chapters of the DSM-IV. Her insistance that men and women returning from Iraq with PTSD aren't really casualties is insulting both to the vtes and their families.

Indeed, Iraq has produced a higher number of PTSD sufferers than previous wars. Even a cursory Googling turns up hundreds of articles about the seriousness of the disease and the toll it takes on the soldiers and their lives. Here's just one take:

Many of the most common wounds aren't seen until soldiers return home. Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is an often-debilitating mental condition that can produce a range of unwanted emotional responses to the trauma of combat. It can emerge weeks, months or years later. If left untreated, it can severely affect the lives not only of veterans, but their families as well.

Of the 244,054 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan already discharged from service [as of February 2005, when this article was written], 12,422 have been in VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms associated with PTSD. [. . .]

Post-traumatic stress was defined in 1980, partly based on the experiences of soldiers and victims of war. It produces a wide range of symptoms in men and women who have experienced a traumatic event that provoked intense fear, helplessness or horror. The events are sometimes re-experienced later through intrusive memories, nightmares, hallucinations or flashbacks, usually triggered by anything that symbolizes or resembles the trauma. Troubled sleep, irritability, anger, poor concentration, hypervigilance and exaggerated responses are often symptoms.

I suppose if Jessica McBride wants to explain in greater detail how these men and women aren't really suffering and weren't really casualties of this war, she's welcome to. But first, she might want to do some further reading on Iraq and PTSD: I recommend the VA, the Christian Science Monitor, a help group for PTSD vets, the Iraq War Veterans Organization, Inc., and even her beloved FOXNews.

But, as I mentioned, McBride's denial of PTSD is not the only denial of reality she engages in--and there's also her lack of such common journalistic techniques as, say, research. What drew her into the Kagen article in the first place, besides maybe a pathological (oops, I'm not qualified to diagnose, either! See how easy it is to avoid such problems?) irrational desire to elect John Gard to Congress, was Kagen's mention of what his constituents had told him (same rules on italics and bold):

As usual, Doc Kagen, of recent "injun time" fame, goes off the rhetorical deep end. Such as when he said that everywhere he goes, people tell him they are concerned about Iraqi troops... in the U.S. (!)

"John Gard will write a blank check for this Republican Congress and this president to stay indefinitely in Iraq," he says. "Everywhere I go, people tell me the same thing - our troops don't belong in Iraq, and Iraqi troops don't belong in the U.S. So we understand that it's a mess. There's no plan. There's a losing strategy and there's no end in sight. So my response is: I'm going to be very interested in oversight - aggressively - and bring this country to accountability. Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush must be held accountable for their actions."

While I agree that there is little likelihood of Iraqi troops coming to town now, I think Steve's interlocutor there made a relatively good analogy: We have as much business being in Iraq as Iraqis do being here, that is, none. McBride has a different opinion, of course, but differing opinions do not "off the deep end" necessarily make--especially when the ones with those opinions are people completely different than the one she diagnoses as being off the deep end. More:

He [Kagen] sounds suspiciously like John Kerry:

"But even when we had a draft we know who served. It was the lowest socioeconomic strata. It's always been throughout human history that those who are not in power are the ones to fight the wars."

Does McBride not think this is true? Does she not remember her history lessons? Though it's true that the wealthy volunteers died at a similar rate in Vietnam to the poor, that's because the poorer draftees didn't get the "hazardous roles as pilots or infantry captains and lieutenants." Demographically, draftees were poorer, period. And the theme of complaints about the old (and powerful) sending the young to die is not original to Kagen (or Kerry); it goes back, in this country, to Revolutionary War-era poetry, at least. Yes, more!:

He wants to cut Homeland Security funding.

Kagen says he wants to get pork-barrel spending - whether in homeland security or elsewhere within the government - under control.

'Cause there's no pork in DHS, you know. And:

He also seems to be implying that Americans are enemy combatants... or something. Seriously, this guy could get elected to Congress. He can't even form a rational thought.

Kagen attacked the president's recent signing of a bill allowing the federal government to decide who can be defined as an enemy combatant. "If you're so defined under the law, they have the right to take you away and you don't have a right to a jury trial," he said. "You do not have the right of habeas corpus. So we've created a totalitarian state and given up our right of habeas corpus and our privilege of being an American. [. . .]"

McBride also doesn't know how to read the law that clearly gives the administration the right to declare whom it will an enemy combatant,

even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

This dangerous compromise not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops "during an armed conflict," it also allows him to seize anybody who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison.

Perhaps she'd like to see that of me or Dr. Kagen, some indefinite detention somewhere I don't have access to Google to demonstrate how wrong she is.

Or maybe she just doesn't care. The Brawler yesterday documented McBride's disdain for "true objectivity." That may encompass her need to wallow in the wrongness, coat herself in it. Her insistence on "truthiness"--that what she feels is right must be right, reality be damned. That she is willing to toss aside not just a partisan opponent (in Kagen) is not a surprise. What is a surprise is that she's willing to toss aside veterans of the Iraq War and the Vietnam War, that she's willing to toss aside your civil rights, that she's willing to toss aside the truth about something as easily verifiable as DHS pork.

There's a difference between "true objectivity" and offense. Regardless of what she may think, McBride is the "MSM," and a professional influencer of the next generation of media folk. If this is a harbinger of the future . . .

Two Horrible Op-Eds

And neither of them is even by Patrick McIlheran! ***See UPDATE below about this!***

First up is one that ran in Thursday's paper, community columnist Michael King's salvo in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's continuing War on Blogs (see our previous war coverage here):

I admit that I've fallen into bad habits lately. I've been reading local political Web logs.

I know my time would have been better spent playing poker online or watching YouTube videos of Japanese teenagers lip-synching to Jessica Simpson songs, but sometimes I just can't help myself. [. . .]

For those who have never poked a mouse into the dark corners of the Cheddarsphere, as the true junkies call the online world of Wisconsin blogs, I'll provide a brief glimpse into the hype of hyperspace. [. . .] About 10% of the local blogs are worthwhile reading. They provide original content, good writing, interesting perspectives and thought-provoking analysis of current events. Avoid these at all times--unless you'd actually like to learn something.

The really interesting action occurs in the other 90% of the blogosphere. As a group, these blogs are basically an electronic version of a rowdy middle school lunchroom. Name-calling, crude insults, insider jokes, petty feuds, wounded feelings, inflated egos and unfounded claims of influence or power are the norm here.

In other words, don't bother reading the blogs, people, since it's not worth your time.

Now, I admit, there are a lot of the blogs out there, on both sides, that don't provide much or strikingly original content, and there are Cheddarsphereans who are, indeed, juvenile morons. But you know how I deal with those blogs? I don't read them. It's really that simple; I don't feel the need to point out how much better I am than they.

I don't know if King reads this humble blog, so I don't know if, maybe, he'd care to elaborate on whether he just thinks he's being funny turning off potential readers to the wide world of quality local independent non-traditional self-published internet-based journalism. Seems to me, this time of year, there are better ways to spend your procious 700 printed words than just slamming the innanity that is some segments of the Cheddarsphere.

I'm also curious if King would care to name names, as I don't think that his 90-10 ratio is even close to accurate.

Whatever King's sins here, they pale in comparison to this essay from today's paper by actual blogger Dan Kenitz of BipolarNation. I think it may be trying to be satire, but it's essentially a series of punches to the face. For example:

• If you believe that it's everyone's responsibility to vote, you're stupid. Don't vote.

• If you're disillusioned with the entire democratic process because you don't like President Bush, voted against him twice yet he still got elected, you're stupid. Don't vote.

• If you understand the depth and nature of the American military's sacrifice from Bunker Hill to Baghdad and its continued importance to our survival as a nation and as a collective soul, you're smart. Vote.

• If you want to re-elect Gov. Jim Doyle because you saw a TV ad that says Rep. Mark Green gives kickbacks to Big Oil, you're stupid. Don't vote. [. . .]

• If you think Milwaukee Republicans got carried away about Democratic voter fraud in recent years while supporting voter ID requirements that make sure votes are being cast by actual people, join the Democratic Party, change your name to John Doe and vote 1,700 times. [. . .]

• If your primary motivation for voting is that someone offered you a pack of cigarettes if you vote for Candidate X, you're an honorary Democrat. Don't vote. [. . .]

• If you get emotionally upset because a columnist called you stupid, don't vote. You're easily excitable and shouldn't have any say over who gets access to The Button.

This is not exactly set-up-roadblocks-and-purge-rolls-of-black-sounding-names levels of vote suppression, but, again, it's a damned big waste of a column just days away from a turning-point election. Calling people stupid (like on those WISN billboards) is not the way to win friends and influence people, or even promote your side to a victory. It makes you look like a bully and a thug, and pretty petty to boot.

Well, I don't know, that's perhaps all that's left for some conservatives--the ones who've given up actual conservative values to support the the moral vacuousness that is much of the state and national Republican leadership. They can't really talk about small government or personal liberty any more now, can they? They're just kind of stuck calling names (maybe Michael King's next piece can be about his fellow MJS community columnists!) and metaphorically beating you up for your lunch money.

I'm not bitter that I wasn't selected as a community columnist, that's not why I'm writing this. I have a much better (and more flexible) gig here, that I love dearly, even without the $25 a post, and I'd have this exact same reaction whether King and Kenitz shared newspaper space with me or not. But if this is the best the MJS could come up with for the week before the mid-term Congressional election, before the election for governor, then the editors are in bigger trouble than I thought.

In sum, just because every story needs a good moral: Do vote. Do read the blogs that inspire and inform you, and do spread the word about those blogs and how good they are.

Don't act like a thug in print and think it's funny.

UPDATE! P-Mac came through with a blog post praising the dickens out of Kenitz's op-ed! Calls Kenitz "brilliant"! That means I can impugn the McIlheran on this one, too!

As Rhiannon of Not to be Televised says, in the comments to this very post, "The MJS needs to realize that publishing this sort of thing makes them look like crap journalists." I would add, so does praising it.

And, while you're at it, read Seth on these same topics.

Friday Random Ten

The GOTV Edition

1. "Scarecrow" Pink Floyd from Early Singles
2. "Bird on the Wire" Girlyman from Little Star
3. "Canoe Song" Peter Mayer from Elements
4. "Dead End Streets" the Loomers from Shine
5. "Sylvia Hotel" Cheryl Wheeler from Different Stripe
6. "Train from Kansas City" Neko Case from The Tigers Have Spoken
7. "Cannot Love You Enough" Willie Wisely Trio from Parlez-Vous Francais?
8. "Moonshiner" Redbird from Redbird
9. "Such Things are Finely Done" Michael Peter Smith from Such Things are Finely Done
10. "Conquer Me" Blues Traveler from Save His Soul

Holiday Appropriate Bonus YouTube: Peter Mayer's "John's Garden":

Obama-mania Explained

Rarely is the right and left Cheddarsphere so united--united, in fact, with right and left elements of Wisconsin's "mainstream media"--as they are now over one question: Barack Obama--what's up with that?

Obama was in town the other day hawking both his book and Democrats running for office, and, as Anne Q swooned for him, voices from all over wondered, sometimes in mock exasperation, what the big deal could possibly be. Well, the answer is simple, and I'll give it to you in two words:

Harold Ford, Jr.

Okay, I realize that that's two words and an abbreviation, but hear me out.

In 2003, even into 2004, there was a ton of talk among the comments sections in the national liberal blogs about Harold Ford, Jr., being an ideal candidate for Vice President in 2004. Those discussions always seemed to end with someone--often me--pointing out that by innauguration day 2005, Ford would still have been only 34 years old, ineligible to hold the post.

But Ford has what Obama has--they are both young, attractive, moderate, light-skinned African-American men. This excites just about everyone in the Democratic Party.

You see, the only reason Democrats have been losing nationally is because our candidates have been too white. Or, the only reason Democrats have been losing nationally is because our candidates have been too old. Or, the only reason Democrats have been losing nationally is because our candidates have been too ugly. Or, the only reason Democrats have been losing nationally is because our candidates have been too liberal. Or, the only reason Democrats have been losing nationally is because our candidates have been too northern (Ford only)/ not religious enough (Obama only).

In other words, whatever particular diagnosis any given pundit or blogger may have made to explain away the Democratic Party's national woes in the last several elections, Ford (in 2003) and Obama (today) are the cure. And we really would like to heal our woes, so when we see a cure, we grab onto it with both hands and start gobbling it up.

So the next time Eugene Kane or Patrick McIlheran or your favorite blogger asks, "What's the deal with Obama?" just tell them he's the cure du jour for what's ailing the Dems. By 2008, assuming he runs, which I kind of doubt, we may well be onto something else (perhaps middle-aged, maverick, short, Jewish men, eh, Russ?) as our national obsession.

WI-AG, the folkbum endorsement: Kathleen Falk for Attorney General

The biggest problem Republican J.B. Van Hollen seems to have--or, rather, the biggest problem I have with J.B. Van Hollen--is that he thinks the job of Attorney General is something other than what it is.

Actually, that may not be true; Van Hollen and his staff people are probably not, in fact, that dumb. But they have made a conscious decision to campaign on a flawed premise, in the hopes that they can fool enough of the people for a few more days and collect the votes they need to put Van Hollen in office.

That premise? J. B. Van Hollen wants to be Superman. You know, out there fightin' for truth, justice, and the American way.

Every time I've heard him (or one of his surrogates), the emphasis is on fighting crime. Tackling illegal immigration. Stopping all the terrorists lurking behind every cheese-and-taxedermy shop in the state. Which is all such a small part of what the state Department of Justice does, it's not even funny.

I can't say I blame him; the only thing Van Hollen ("Jump!
Jump! Go ahead and jump!" Sorry--I just couldn't hold out any longer) has going for him is his record as a tough-on-crime prosecutor and US attorney. And when stacked up against Kathleen Falk's decidedly less shallow vitae, Van Hollen's resume looks pretty thin, hollow, unimpressive.

I endorsed incumbent Peg Lautenschlager in the primary not because I don't like Kathleen Falk, but rather because I thought Peg had done well as Jim Doyle's successor in the office, and she deserved a second term. But as I predicted, Falk won easily enough. And that's okay with me--as I wrote at the time, "she is head, shoulders, and torso above the Republican competition." She remains so.

Consider, for example, the decade and a half Falk served as an Assistant Attorney General, years of experience doing the kind of work that AG's actually do. Most of that time, Falk was our Public Intervenor, the person who directly answered to the will of the people on matters that involved distputes between the public and other state agencies. She knows exactly what it's like to stand up for and with the citizens and voters of this state, which Van Hollen can only dream about (in his red cape and underpants-on-the-outside).

Consider, as well, the fact that Falk manages, budgets for, and leads with competence and acumen an organization many times the size of the state's Department of Justice. It should be a piece of cake for her to handle an office of that size, while Van Hollen has only ever lorded over a virtual fortress of soiltude.

Consider, finally, the fact that Falk was arguing cases in Wisconsin's courts--including our Supreme Court--almost before Van Hollen could change his own clothes, phone booth or no.

That's just three basic, fundamental, critical ways Kathleen Falk is light-years ahead of Van Hollen in what it takes to be AG. And yet, Van Hollen and his team (Fraley, in particular) have tried to make this race one about experience, since Van Hollen, in his understudy Superman role, has prosecuted criminal cases. Anyone remember a single criminal case, outside of Chai Vang's, that an AG in Wisconsin has personally tried in the last decade or two? No? Me neither.

So this is what we're left with: J. B. Van Hollen, who thinks this job is all about the Superman, and who has a great deal of experience that doesn't adequately prepare him for the office, thinks Kathleen Falk doesn't have the experience or the expertise to do the job. This, ladies and gentleman, is what we in the business call irony--like the clothing brand the misspells academics, or the old Norton CrashGuard program I had that wouldn't used to let my computer start up. I'm not saying that the AG's office never prosecutes the kinds of crimes Van Hollen thinks he'll get to try; however, the AG's office is so much more than that.

Unfortunately for Van Hollen, he's banking on the voters forgetting that fact, that the AG does more than just what Jack McCoy does, more than just fighting crime. I don't know that he can pull that deception off to the extent that he needs to.

--

Like me, Paul Soglin endorsed Peg Lautenschlager in the primary, and he was much less sanguine about a Falk nomination than I. However, I open up my browser yesterday to see this from the former Madison mayor:

I have had my differences with Kathleen Falk. They are relevant as to differences within the progressive community. My views on her negotiations with Governor Thompson on the future of regional planning and certain land use issues were important within the Democratic Party primary. When I look at her opponent's values on these matters, the contest isn't close.

He identifies his level of support as "enthusiastic." The Recess Supervisor, perhaps sensing the same issues with Van Hollen that I have, also endorsed Falk yesterday--though I say perhaps because he doesn't seem to do it for any good reason other than he thinks she'll make a good governor some day.

--

Experience isn't always the end-all and be-all of electoral politics. I support both Steve Kagen and Bryan Kennedy, neither of whom have held office before. After all, the House is the kind of place where the leadership doesn't let you do very much unti they think they can take the leash off of you. And a quiet first term is not a bad way learn the ropes and start working, as one of 435, toward a committee chair or other leadership positions.

But the Attorney General doesn't get to stand back and watch the world work around her. The job requires an ability to jump in with both feet running, an ability to be the leader from day one. Kathleen Falk doesn't have to learn on the job. She doesn't have to learn how to listen to the public when they speak. She doesn't have to learn how to successfully manage a department as large and diverse as Justice. She doesn't have to learn how to represent the people or the state in court on matters not criminal. The learning curve for Falk, in other words, is near zero.

J. B. Van Hollen may want to be--may think he is--Superman. But not even the ability to leap steep learning curves with a single bound is enough for him to deserve this. Vote for Kathleen Falk on November 7.

Who Says American Manufacturing is Down? We Manufactured A John Kerry Flap!

John Kerry flubs a joke--a mediocre one, for sure--and now all the Democrats on the planet have to prostrate ourselves, contorting into apologia and indignance. I'm reminded of a "Seinfeld" episode: What Kerry did, it offends me as a comedian. A man who's been speaking in public for 35 years should be able to deliver a punch line.

In the meantime, no Republicans are rushing to distance themselves from House Majority Leader John Boehner, who--in what was not a flub--blamed the troops on the ground (the generals, specifically) for our failures in Iraq.

Double standard, much?

The English teacher reads his email

From an actual email inviting me to help out a candidate. It took me a while to figure out which one, so I made sure to highlight his name before posting this, so you wouldn't miss it. You may have to squint:


So you don't think I'm partisan (right now), I also got this invite from someone on my side:


My invited what?

Oh well. Back to work . . .

WI-Gov, the folkbum endorsement: Jim Doyle for governor

If you're thinking Duh upon reading the title of this post, well, fine. I'll not waste your time recapitulating the last two years of this blog's coverage of the guy I affectionately call J-Dizzle and his opponent, that Green fella (and his other opponent, that other Green (Party) fella). Instead, I'm going to let others do the talking for me--two unlikely endorsements from conservative sources who, looking at the same choices you and I will face on Tuesday, have decided that Jim Doyle is the better option.

No one was surprised when the liberal Capital Times yesterday endorsed Jim Doyle for governor. And I predicted long ago that, whatever the intentions of their news editors, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would, too. They've been dribbling it out, though--Michael James Caughill calls it "The Death of a Thousand Editorials". But the conservative Madison paper, the Wisconsin State Journal, also pulled the trigger for Doyle.

Let's look back four years, when the WSJ ran this:

For the first time in 20 years, the Wisconsin State Journal urges youto elect a Democrat as governor. Jim Doyle has some shortcomings, but he will be a more effective leader than our current unelected governor, Scott McCallum, who has struggled and failed to chart a clear course for the state over the past two years.

So, yeah, you could perhaps call the WSJ's endorsement this time around mere consistency--or stay-the-course-ism (all the rage in conservative circles this year). But I don't think that's the case; clearly, the WSJ was displeased with McCallum and wanted someone more--what's the word?--competent in charge. This year, the choice is not between an incompetent McCallum and a lesser-evil Doyle; Green is almost an ideal Republican candidate. And yet, here's what the WSJ says about the matter this year:

Wisconsin is better off than it was four years ago.

That's a simple yet powerful reason for re-electing Gov. Jim Doyle to a second term. Doyle, a Democrat, deserves a measure of credit for Wisconsin's progress in economic development, education and health care. [. . .]

Since Doyle's election four years ago, Wisconsin has gained more than 90,000 jobs, when seasonally adjusted. The state's per-capita income is rising. The vast majority of workers and more children in Wisconsin have health insurance.

Doyle's opponent, U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R- Green Bay, has some good ideas. But he has failed to make a compelling case for change at the top.

And while Green is not extreme, the Republican-run Legislature sometimes is.

Doyle stopped the Legislature from putting barriers between patients and the medications their doctors prescribe. Doyle made sure women, including university students, have easy access to birth control. Doyle vetoed legislation that would have allowed concealed handguns in shopping malls, movie theaters and on playgrounds.

Two points to note there: Mark Green failed to make his case (we'll come back to this), and Doyle has been our firewall against a legislature that lives far to the right of most of the state. I have said often, and occasionally proudly, that while I don't like everything about Jim Doyle, he has been the only thing standing between us and the Alabama-ization of Wisconsin. Groups like Wisconsin Maufacturers and Commerce, who see Wisconsin ranked high in taxes or low in business climate, look longingly at the other end of the scale dominated by such economic powerhouses as Montana or Mississippi and demand to know why we aren't more like them. This legislature, obligingly, tries its darnedest to get us there. If that's what you want, well, don't vote for Doyle.

The first of those points, thought, about Green's failed campaign, was a theme in this endorsement from the conservative anonymous Madison insider known as the Recess Supervisor:

Mark Green is about as nice and genuine as a politician can come. Unfortunately, his campaign plan appears to have been ripped out of a book entitled "Generic Campaign Plans for GOP Gubernatorial Candidates." There's nothing new there, or innovative, or exciting. It's just the same old ideas that Republicans have been selling for years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. And since Mark Green is not the most exciting fellow, he's basically a stand-in, a cardboard cutout, for the Republican Party and the Republican agenda. In some years, that might've been enough. Not this year.

Green's campaign, in a few words, is boring. Lackluster. Just plain blah. And in politics, boring will never knock off an incumbent unless that incumbent steps in a huge pile of something during the race. Doyle doesn't have to make a case for being governor. He already is.

I wanted Mark Green to be a great candidate. I wanted him to make a case. Sadly, he hasn't. I crapped a lot on Scott Walker earlier this year, but I can guarantee you something--and I'm sure the Walker supporters would agree with me on at least part of the statement. I don't think Walker would've won, but at least Scott Walker would've had an agenda. You knew what Scott Walker was about. You knew what he wanted to do. [. . .]

Green has hammered on the only opening he's been given--ethics. And unfortunately, these issues aren't easy ones for voters to grab. The Adelman Travel matter isn't something that can be explained in ten seconds, especially considering that the state saved money by rebidding the contract. The Elections Board matter? Mark Green's stuck trying to get back a bunch of out-of-state money donated by Washington lobbyists.

Besides, Doyle smartly cemented in voters' heads a connection early-on between Mark Green and Jack Abramoff. Not that voters remember that guy anymore--with Mark Foley, Jack's become yesterday's news. But what Abramoff allowed Doyle to do was create an impression of "hey, this guy Green isn't perfect either." And having done that, the ethics issue becomes a colossal push. Green can't score big points with it because people are as suspect of the messenger as they are of the guy he's accusing. [. . .]

Mark Green says you should vote for him because Jim Doyle is a crook. Is there anything else there? Go watch all of his commercials on his website. Go. Find me a message other than "I'm a nice guy and I think the other guy is a total crook." That message you can't find is the one that would've won this race.

These are damning words, and words that seem accurate to me. I comment on this race on some of the national blogs, and I remember a while back, someone worried that Doyle might lose, knowing that even liberal Madison had previsouly elected a Republican, Scott Klug, to represent them. I said, look, Green is no Scott Klug. He's not even a Scott Walker. I'm glad to see the Recess Supervisor agree.

And what the Recess Supervisor says about the discernable bits of Green's agenda being, at best, generic, well, they are. It's a theme I picked up on looking at Green's education "plan," which was cobbled together from old Doyle proposals and, I think, whatever he could come up with Googling "conservative education proposals." Doyle at least has a record to stand on (a record that doesn't include things like voting to gut student loans), rather than a heaping helping of leftovers, and voters deserve more than leftovers. The Recess Supervisor, like the WSJ, does talk about that record, and why it isn't enough to fire Doyle, if you, as they say, Read The Whole Thing.

In any election with an incumbent, the challenger has to make the case that the incumbent doesn't deserve another chance. I think people are still waiting for Green to really, really make that case. After almost two solid years of Republican attacks, Doyle has as much or more support as he did four years ago. No one who voted for him the first time seems to be changing their minds.

So that's that: Jim Doyle is winning the support--and Mark Green is losing the support--of people from across a wide range of the political spectrum. When conservatives see that Green offers nothing interesting or exciting, and that Doyle has actually done relatively well on the bread-and-butter issues, they go Doyle. When liberals are reminded of the extremity of the state legislature--and that imminent threat of Alabama-ization--they go Doyle. When teachers learn that Green wants to strip them of collective bargaining rights, even though Doyle didn't come through on vouchers and the budget, they go Doyle. When women learn that Green thinks they're too stupid to make decisions for themselves, they go Doyle. When anyone who cares about health issues realize that Green will stifle promising research and allow pharmacists to substitute their moral values for your doctor's judgment, they go Doyle. And so on.

The choice, for me, is clear. I'm hoping that you, too, see what I--and the WSJ, and the Recess Supervisor--see, and you vote Jim Doyle on November 7.

Election Night

I will not be doing this:

CNN is trying to incorporate bloggers directly into its coverage of next week's midterm elections by inviting them to an "E-lection Nite Blog Party," an event aimed at corralling some of the top online opinion makers in one place to provide instant reaction as the results come in.

The cable news network plans to host more than two dozen bloggers from across the political spectrum--including sites like RedState and Daily Kos--at a Washington Internet lounge where they can monitor the election returns on a slew of flat-screen televisions. (Each blogger will get his or her own monitor, which can be tuned to any channel.) There will be free wireless access--and plenty of food and beverages, natch.

But if all goes according to plan, I'll be doing something else. I'll let you know more later.

BOTW

Welcome, Forward Report readers! I hope you'll stick around after this week is over. Take a stroll through my archives (at the bottom of the page) and leave comments if, when, and wherever you like.

Anti-Gay Marriage and Civil Unions Amendment, the folkbum recommendation: Vote NO November 7

Shall section 13 of article XIII of the Wisconsin constitution be created to provide that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state and that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state?

I'm going to be blunt here for a second: For a significant part of the "yes" crowd, this amendment is all about the butt sex. They don't like it, and this is a chance to register that disgust.

For a significant part of the "no" crowd, this is about same-sex marriage (or, perhaps, civil unions). They want it legalized, and this is a chance to register that desire.

The amendment is actually about neither of those things--if it passes, the butt sex will still be legal, and if it fails, same-sex marriage will still be illegal. Even if we get what we want, we won't get what we want.

For a small, teeny, tiny slice of people in the middle, this vote is actually about the scope of the amendment's wording, whether it's too broad and overreaching or just broad enough to stop those activist judges. It is on them--I'd guess maybe five or seven percent of voters, total--that the burden in this election falls; this amendment will succeed or fail based on their choice in the voting booth.

For me, the choice is easy. I'm part of the "no" crowd as described above; I believe there is no reason (and I have argued this exhaustively over the last two-plus years) to deny gay and lesbian couples the rights and responsibilities (and the title) granted automatically to heterosexual couples through marriage. Whatever horror stories partisans try to spin about Scandanavia or Massachusetts, no conclusive evidence exists that the sky has fallen where gay marriage is legal (see this post, for example).

For many bloggers on the right--Dad29 is a good example--the choice is easy. You know by his constant references to "homosex" marriage and his insistence that Mark Foley's predatory nature is normal for gay men that his understanding of the issues doesn't get far beyond what parts go where. And, as nice as Dad29 may be in real life, his is an attitude rooted in bias and prejudice against people who engage in that behavior--behavior which both hurts no one and, as with sex in any "heterosex" marriage, is not what truly defines a relationship worth recognizing. See, for example, this story of two men whose connection is not rooted in sex at all. But Dad29's irrational obsession with the butt sex would deny these men a satisfaction for "the need for mutual love and affection."

For Julaine Appling, the point-woman for the "yes" vote here in Wisconsin, the choice is also easy, and she is well-poised to harness the discriminatory impulses of those who hate the butt sex. Cory Liebmann has documented her ultra-discriminatory history:

Appling attended Bob Jones University in the 1970s, receiving three degrees. During the time that Appling attended Bob Jones University, they refused to admit African American students. Bob Jones started admitting married African American students in 1971 and single African American students in 1975. This is also a university whose chairman refused to fly the campus flag at half-mast when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Chairman Bob Jones, Jr. called the civil rights leader an "apostate." The University that Appling chose to attend also banned interracial dating until 2001. Prior to that year, the University said that it would expel students who dated or married "outside their own race" or "espouse, promote or encourage others" to violate those rules.

It is clear that Julaine Appling's education at Bob Jones University is informing her thinking on discrimination. University officials held that its ban on interracial dating and marriage did not discriminate against anyone because it applied to all races equally. Compare this with a statement from Appling's organization, which, after saying that the amendment would not discriminate against anyone, continues to say the following: "all Americans have the right to marry, subject to certain conditions that apply equally"

There is a more intellectual flavor of proponent, too, the Rick Esenbergs and Owen Robinsons of the world, convinced that a yes vote is all that will save us from the courts--"black-robed mullahs," in the words of another blogger. Esenberg, in particular, has spent three of his last four posts (as of this writing) telling us how what happened in New Jersey (their Supreme Court pulled a Vermont, ordering that the state offer either marriage or civil unions to same-sex couples) is The End Of The World And Could Happen Here Any Minute Now And We Must Pass This Amendment To Protect The People From The Courts.

It's this argument that, on the one hand, is far more persuasive than people who don't like the butt sex or people who insist on forcing their religious views on the rest of us. But on the other hand, this is also the most ridiculous, since the "will of the people," which supposedly would be subverted by the courts--was subverted by the Jersey court, they say--is against the sentiment of half this amendment. Let me rephrase: Their argument is that the will of the people (as expressed, for example, by a vote on an amendment like this, or through their elected representatives) should not be overturned by a court. And if same-sex marriage were imposed, that would be the case.

But a solid majority of Wisconsinites are in favor of offering civil unions to same-sex couples: A 2004 Badger Poll (.pdf), taken when the amendment was first up for discussion, found that an amendment that made no mention of civil unions--in other words, banned only marriage--polled at 64%, well above the 53% the amendment as written polled (these results were mirrored in a St. Norbert poll earlier this year, which I haven't been able to Google up, but is referred to here). A Badger Poll from earlier this year (.pdf) found support of civil unions--outside of the context of the amendment--had support of a full 60% of Wisconsinites. If what happened in New Jersey happened here, it would finally force the legislature to confront the fact that most of us here feel that same-sex relationships do indeed deserve protection, rights, and recognition, whether we call it marriage or not. In other words, a civil unions ruling would make the legislature actually implement the will of the people--hardly the End Of The World scenario Esenberg and his ilk would have us believe.

Another, even more silly argument from that side, is that if the amendment fails, the next day there will be court cases demanding legalized same-sex marriage. I doubt that, in part because Wisconsin's law against same-sex marriage has been challenged and stood previously. But we also know from experience that even if the amendment passes, there will be court cases galore. Everyone who's honestly looked at this recognizes that the "yes" side is just as prone--if not moreso--to using the courts to get what they want. The Alliance Defense Fund, for example, already has a history of filing suit here in Wisconsin to stop same-sex partner benefits. This was the same Alliance Defense Fund tapped by John Gard and the legislature to defend the state against the suit to provide partner benefits at the UW.

Finally, it's also important to remember that this amendment, like the death penalty referrendum, relies on Republicans' belief that voters are rubes. If they really cared, they could have had this amendment on the ballot 18 months ago, but they chose to delay protecting the people from the evils of gay marriage long enough that it would boost turnout for Mark Green. In fact, some on the "yes" side were a bit giddy at the news from New Jersey, figuring it would galvanize and energize Republican voters (and they accuse us of making this partisan!).

In the end, as I said at the beginning, the vast majority of us will be voting on ths amendment not based on the subtleties and ramifications of its wording, but rather on the broader notions it represents--either we don't like the butt sex or we don't see why our gay and lesbian friends should be denied equal rights just because they're born loving differently than we do. Clearly, I fall into the latter camp, and I encourage you--even if you don't like the butt sex, even if you have been tempted by the silly arguments of the Esenberg camp--to vote no next week. An amendment denies the legislature the ability to implement the popular civil unions; an amendment provides the impetus for those who hate the butt sex to fill the courts with lawsuits for years to come.

And an amendment which denies rights to citizens has never been done before here in Wisconsin. This is not the time to start that tradition, either.

Vote no on November 7.

If the choice is so clear, don't muddy the water trying to explain it

In the first of a promised series on editorials about where the candidates for governor--Republican Mark Green and Democrat Jim Doyle--stand on "the issues," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today discusses the education platforms of each candidate. This issue happens to be one I know well, as a teacher and follower of education politics. And though I think they reach the right conclusion--Doyle is the better choice on education--getting there is a challenge.

In a sad effort to be fair to both candidates, the editorial board ends up offering their readers mush--it's about as shallow as your average Jessica McBride column. In an age when too many people feel there is no difference between candidates of either party, the editorial board does a disservice by blurring distinctions in a both-have-good-points haze.

It starts well enough, entitled "Education: It's about deeds," it gets underway reminding everyone that "when it came to putting money on the line for educational programs in Congress, Green has come up short--raising the fear he would repeat that pattern as governor." Indeed, on everything from fully funding No Child Left Behind to making student loans more affordable (as college gets less so), Green has failed to stand up for the side of education. And remember, this isn't just about putting money into the hands of those greedy teachers unions; no, this is about making sure families have access to opportunity and local schools don't have to make the difficult decision between testing and, say, art classes (ramifications ignored by the editorial).

But then the editorial dissolves into a puddle of he said-he saidishness and on-the-other-handisms. Take this line: "Clearly, school financing has to be overhauled. Both have said they would examine ways to do this." Horse hockey! Green has stammered out answers in response to pointed questions; Doyle actually convened a panel and put forward a proposal that died between his office and the legislature. (No, I didn't like the plan; but it's absolutely not a he "would examine ways" sort of thing.)

And the editorial again misses what I see as the two biggest red flags in Mark Green's education plan--the deceptively dangerous "70% solution" (dismissed with "it's unclear what it would take to reach Green's target") and the end of collective bargaining for teachers, which still has received no journalistic coverage anywhere that I've seen--not even from the teachers unions! (A fuller discussion of all of Green's plan is here.)

Though the editorial ends by noting that Doyle seems to be winning on education, at least, it does nothing to highlight what is indeed a stark contrast between where the two men stand on K-12 and higher education. The two paragraphs about the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program--the voucher program--are perhaps the perfect example:

Green's proposals on Milwaukee's voucher program are mixed. He readily supports the program--that's good. It has expanded educational opportunities for needy families. He wants to include private schools (not children) in the suburbs--not a bad idea. He also wants to lift the income cap--a worrisome step. The program must stay targeted at the needy who otherwise lack school options.

Doyle is no big fan of choice. But he was a key to expanding the program, giving it desperately needed breathing room. He deserves credit for this compromise, and, we'd note, his objections were aimed at getting more legislative support for smaller class sizes. A good thing, too.

Let me put that into English for you: Mark Green supports unfettered expansion of an unregulated and unproven system that puts taxpayer dollars into the hands of people who are not accountable to the taxpayers in any way--tax dollars that place an undue burden on the city of Milwaukee and are, in fact, partially responsible for the levy increase we learned about a couple weeks back. Governor Doyle supports working within the public schools to improve the education of all students, and (unmentioned by the editorial) bringing some measure of accountability to the private schools that take tax dollars. (His "compromise" was not strong enough on accountability--see, for example, here and here.)

That is a significant difference, and the paper plays it as "both have good points to make." No, they don't. Vouchers are, without question, the single biggest flashpoint issue in education in this state, and the two candidates will take radically different actions in office regarding the MPCP--not to mention their very different reactions, I suspect, when the incredibly pro-voucher legislature reconvenes. I recognize that the paper's editorial board and I disagree on the voucher question; but their downplaying here of the significant difference of opinion on the expansion of and need for accountability in the program does not, in fact, serve the voters' interests. Particularly when many of the voters they reach are directly impacted--through the tax implications, if nothing else--by the program.

I don't know what issue the editorial board will tackle tomorrow, but I hope that they do a better job of drawing the line between the two candidates--muddying the waters over what ought to be a clear choice helps no one make up their minds about this election.

WI-05: Bryan Kennedy 2, F. Jim Sensenbrenner 0

Bryan Kennedy online | Kennedy's ActBlue Page

2-0. That's the score in the endorsement race so far. Endorsements, like yard signs and, sadly, blogs, do note vote. But it is a sign when two of the four papers that reach Sensenbrenner's district have said we should abandon the blowhard. (The WSJ hasn't endorsed yet, and, sparse as their website is, I don't think the Freeman has yet, either.)

The Capital Times, the more liberal of Madison's two dailies, had this brief paragraph Friday:

U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, has become an embarrassment. It's not just his silly immigrant bashing, it's also his overly partisan chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee and his arrogant refusal to even consider the ramifications of Bush administration assaults on basic liberties. Democratic challenger Bryan Kennedy, a college professor with Capitol Hill experience, would make an excellent replacement for this disappointing incumbent.

Those are not surprising sentiments, as they're shared by a wider and wider segment of the district's--and the state's--population. And it reminds me of a shorter version of my own Kennedy endorsement two years ago.

Of greater note is the endorsement in tomorrow's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I won't reprint the whole thing--it's pretty long and detailed--so you should, as they say, read the whole thing. However, here's a juicy excerpt:

Two years ago, we recommended Jim Sensenbrenner for another term representing Wisconsin's 5th Congressional District. Today, we simply cannot. Sensenbrenner has been wrong on too much, from an immigration policy that puts him at odds with much of his own party and the business community to failure to exert meaningful oversight over White House domestic spying policies. [. . .]

Give Sensenbrenner credit for pushing to renew the Voting Rights Act and for bucking the administration on ethics reform. He was right about the risk for fraud in relief money sent to the Gulf Coast for victims of Hurricane Katrina. But those are meager accomplishments.

In the place of those ellipses, the editorial board submits a list--seemingly dozens of items long--that begin with "Sensenbrenner was wrong." For most of you, I probably don't need to go into those details. You know them as well as I do.

No doubt the Freeman (and possibly the WSJ, though they endorsed Jim Doyle this week) will overlook all those things Sensenbrenner was wrong on, and recommend that voters return the blustering buffoon to office. But it's worth remembering that Congress must change, and soon, and this country's leaders must turn things around. If that doesn't happen, we'll keep heading inexorably toward the cliff precipitated by thoughtless foreign policy, reckless domestic spending, and corruption of the highest order. Sensenbrenner is a part of that inertia; Kennedy will be a great help toward a Democratic majority in the House, which can put the brakes on that inertia.

It's time for change in Washington--and Sensenbrenner is most emphatically not a change. Remember that November 7, and vote for Bryan Kennedy.

Busy Weekend Open Thread

It's convention weekend and all, and I'm not going to be able to post as much as I wanted. There's still a lot to do and write about before the election, and I wanted to keep going with my November 7 ballot recommendations. Won't have time to do it this weekend, though.

So I'm trying an open thread. Talk about whatever (or whoever) you like below. What do want me to write about when I can get to it?

Friday Random Ten

The unexpectedly busy weekend Edition

1. "The Pioneers" Bill Frisell from Good Dog, Happy Man
2. "Be Here Now" Willy Porter from Dog Eared Dream
3. "This Just Doesn't Seem to Be My Day" The Monkees from The Monkees
4. "Manhattan Bridge" Blues Traveler from Save His Soul
5. "The Eyes of the Beholder" Lucy Kaplansky from The Tide
6. "Easier Than Sorry" The Story from Grace in Gravity
7. "Montpelier" Girlyman from Remember Who I Am
8. "Hypnotist of Ladies" They Might Be Giants from Apollo 18
9. "Undone" Mark Erelli from Hope & Other Casualties
10. "Time" Tom Waits from Rain Dogs

Bonus YouTube: Peter Mulvey, "Sad Sad Sad Sad And Far Away From Home":

Death Penalty Referendum, the folkbum recommendation: Vote NO November 7

Should the death penalty be enacted in the State of Wisconsin for cases involving a person who is convicted of first degree intentional homicide, if the conviction is supported by DNA evidence?

There are many different reasons to vote against this non-binding, advisory death penalty referendum, not the least among them (for me, at least) a resistance to state-sanctioned killing. If there is killing to be done, it will not be in my name. I may be a godless, soulless, artless liberal, but I believe that every human life--from murderer to Iraqi civilian to Michael J. Fox--has value, and I have no right to say when that value becomes zero.

But beyond that, the people behind this referendum are using it, using voters across the state, for their own ends--exploiting them, as some might say. Those ends have little to do with the wording of the referendum question. For one, the referendum is timed to create the largest impact on turnout: Originally scheduled by the State Senate to drive up conservative turnout in the September primary, by the time the Assembly got a hold of the measure, Scott Walker had dropped out, leaving no top-ticket Republican race in the primary. So the Assembly changed the date to November, figuring higher conservative turnout then couldn't hurt.

The people behind this were also hoping the timing would correspond neatly to the trial of Steven Avery, a trial that has been delayed by developments since the legislature's setting of the measure. As originally conceieved by supporters, the ballot question would have asked about multiple murders (as reflected in some of the initial official analysis), but after Avery allegedly murdered his single victim--and his case became very high profile--that changed, too. The supporters, again, used what they had for the greatest political gain.

And it's clear this week that regardless of the actual wording of the referendum, supporters in the legislature will do whatever they want, anyway. Renee Crawford points us to an article in Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal where the lead sponsor of the referendum makes it clear (my emphasis):

Sen. Alan Lasee, R-De Pere, the referendum's lead sponsor, cautioned against reading too much into the resolution's wording.

Lasee said the ballot question with its DNA clause is meant to poll voters on a general concept--how would they feel about the death penalty if safeguards could be built in to avoid convicting innocent people? It has never been his intent to limit the death penalty to convictions involving DNA evidence, he said.

He included the DNA clause to defang opponents. "It was my hope that this would dispel some of the fence-sitters from saying that the sky is falling and that someone is going to be wrongly convicted," he said.

Asked how seriously voters should take the resolution's language, Lasee said, "Voters can read into or out of it whatever they want. The bottom line is, 'Should the death penalty be reinstated, with or without DNA testing?'"

(Aside to John McAdams: You sound a little bloodthirsty in that article, too.)

I don't think I'm being too cynical here; it's pretty clear that the sponsors of this referendum don't actually care that much about justice, about the value of human life, or, for that matter, the intelligence of the voters themselves. Regardless of whether or not you are willing to sanction state-sponsored killing, you should be insulted by this. This state was pretty forward-looking to have abolished the death penalty back in 1853--150 years before the recent round of moratoriums. But that doesn't mean a thing to the reactionaries running the legislature. So tell them how much they are wrong, and vote no on November 7.

The Michael J. Fox ad, and reactions

I acually had the Fox ad for Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill bookmarked, and I was going to post it, and ask if Fox might make one for Doyle. Well, he did--and before I got to my post.

You can't watch it without being moved. And it's not, contra Mark Green and Republican apologist Fred, dishonest. The ad declares that Green has voted to oppose embryonic stem-cell research. Which he has. Which he will do as governor--not vote against, of course, but not support in the way that Jim Doyle will, and has. Breakthroughs may not come in time to save Fox--adult stem cells are curing diseases now with a 20-plus year head start--but stifling the potential guarantees no cures will come.

Elsewhere in the Right Cheddarsphere, Michael James Caughill recognizes that the issue is legitimate, and, while lamenting the ad's effectiveness, doesn't think it hits below the belt. Jessica McBride, on the other hand, calls the ad "exploitive". Michael J. Fox, of his own free will and because he believes in a cause, makes an ad (several, actually, in key races--McBride throws out "copycat"), and he's being "exploited."

What's funny, then, is that McBride then launches into a tirade about "double standards":

The subtext is: That mean Mark Green/Jim Talent don't want Michael J. Fox to be cured! Mark Green could go get some Parkinson's afflicted guy who can hardly talk and who disagrees with embryonic stem cell research, I suppose. But then the media would say they were being exploitative.

The media never call the Democrats on it. If George Bush so much as runs a snippet of footage from 9/11, and they are all over him for that (not to mention if they air an ad about a law enforcement officer slain after a crime lab delay). Democrats are allowed to be as exploitative as they want. [. . .] Just check out the spokespeople adopted by the Democrats for various causes:

Cindy Sheehan = Iraq war.
Jersey Girls = Pre 9/11 intelligence failures.
Max Cleland = Iraq war.
Chris Reeve = stem cells.
Patty Wetterling (famous mother of a missing child who is running for Senate in Minnesota) = Foley.
They even have a Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois who lost both legs in Iraq.

Yep, that's us Democrats . . . if only we'd had an orphaned quadriplegic deaf-mute gay leper, we would have run him instead of Tammy Duckworth, what with the exponentially higher exploitation factor. Seriously, if McBride is holding on to evidence that any of the people she's listed were employed in the cause against their will, then she should come forward.

Also, I wonder where McBride was when Michael J. Fox was cutting ads for Republican Arlen Specter in 2004. My searching says . . . nowhere.

But my favorite response to these ads comes from Missouri expatriate Barbara O'Brien:

Actually, I’d say the Fox ad is less an argument for morality than a test of morality. If you see the ad and feel compassion for Fox, you pass. If you whine about how tasteless, unfair, exploitative, or illogical it is, you flunk.

McBride (and Fred, and some of the Game's commenters) all flunk, too. And to explain why, I recommend this other good Barbara O'Brien post--read it, and follow the links, too.

In the meantime, consider compassion. Remember it on November 7.

Music Monday: Remembering Pat Tillman

I spent the weekend away, so I'm just catching up on a bunch of things. I'll post some tonight if I can.

In the meantime, an interlude: One of the reasons I was away was to see Ellis Paul in Madison last night. As I often do, I requested "Kiss the Sun (A Song for Pat Tillman)," which Ellis wrote after correspondence with an Iraq War veteran. As you consider your vote on November 7, remember that Mark Green voted for the abomination that this war has become, and as a founding member of the Stay the Course Victory in Iraq Caucus, Mark Green has stood behind the death of every single US soldier since. He stood behind this administration, too, as they lied to use Pat Tillman's death for their own purposes. No one asks him about it in the debates, but there is blood on Mark Green's hands.

Kiss the Sun (A Song for Pat Tillman)
When I was nineteen
I joined up with the reserves
Fought on weekends
Paid my college tuition
But out in the killing fields
you come to question all you learn
Is peace a truth
a universal truth
or some man made superstition

(chorus)
I dreamt I ran through Kansas wheatfields
slept in the shadows,
where the Rockies kiss the sun, they kiss the sun
I dreamt I could hear freedom's sweep
in Martin Luther King's speeches (Lenny Bruce, Woody Guthrie)
Wasn't he reaching for the promise of America?

I heard Pat Tillman died
in the hills of Afghanistan
He came for justice
not for greed, not for ego
His truth came through the fog
like the hometeam's marching band
Are you a warrior, or a savior,
or the great American hero?
(chorus)

My wife, she's writing
the war's on CNN
"It looks pretty bad from here..."
"You should see it from my end -"
I'm just a sentinel
Just a sentinel
Fighting an oilman's war
And I need to know, I need to know
Is that what Pat Tillman died for?
(chorus)

(Lyrics | iTunes)

As a companion piece to that, consider this letter by Pat Tillman's brother Kevin (via Michael J. Mathias):

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Remember this November 7.

Blogger Ethics

I got the same info that Scott got, and I've also declined to publish it. But Scott is right in raising the issue as a hypothetical: When a candidate makes a big deal about his morality, but is hiding a personal history that is not just youthfully indiscretionate, but morally repugnant, where do you draw the line?

Here's a different example: Gretchen Schuldt, whose blog I quite enjoy, has been hitting Tom Reynolds about his home electric bills, and how he may be paying them from campaign funds. (Tom Reynolds is not the candidate Scott and I got dirt on.) I haven't touched that, either, since, crazy as Tom Reynolds is (video here), that's not an issue that I see as a winner for our side. In fact, I think now that it's on TV, it makes the campaign against Reynolds look kind of, well, petty.

Dave Diamond, in fact, asks why Reynolds's action is different from what Bryan Kennedy is doing. (For the record, I think the big difference is the level of documentation Kennedy's done that Reynolds, apparently, hasn't.)

I've struggled with how to cover legislative races on this blog, and while I want to do everything I can to help elect Jim Sullivan over that nut Reynolds, I don't feel right about doing it on anything of lesser substance. On the other hand, Reynolds is Gretchen's state senator, and she has a much more personal stake in that election than I do, and I can't really begrudge her the right to wage that battle the way she wants to.

Republicans and conservative bloggers this year have not at all been afraid to play really, really dirty, either--much dirtier than anything Gretchen's done. (The SSDC memo is a good example--Republicans got their hands on it June, but leaked it to bloggers this week, and waited until the bloggers leaked it to file a state elections board complaint. Dirty.) But I think I have a line I'm not interested in crossing. I don't know if you all like that about me, or if you have never given it a thought, but, well, there it is.

Where's your line? Is my line in the wrong place? Talk to me about this.