Sound Off on MPS

You may have read about the Greater Milwaukee Committee's teaming up with the Milwaukee Public Schools to try to fix the seemingly unfixable problems in MPS. I have my own ideas you'll hear about soon--I'm working on getting the numbers together before I launch my campaign--but while you wait, you can chip in your own two or four cents. Feel free to sound off in the comments below, or at one of a dozen and a half meetings MPS is holding for the community. I shamelessly copied this schedule from the newspaper:

Here's the schedule that was released for public meetings, all of them set to run from 6:30 to 8 p.m.:

Nov. 27, Pulaski High School, 2500 W. Oklahoma Ave.
Dec. 4, Vincent High School, 7501 N. Granville Rd.
Dec. 5, Milwaukee School of Languages, 8400 W. Burleigh St.
Dec. 7 Fratney Elementary, 3255 N. Fratney St.
Dec. 11, Audubon Middle School, 3300 S. 39th St.
Dec. 12, North Division high school complex, 1011 W. Center St.
Dec 13, Marshall High School, 4141 N. 64th St.
Dec. 14, Hawley Elementary, 5610 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Dec. 18, South Division High School, 1515 W. Lapham Blvd.
Dec. 18, Milwaukee High School of the Arts, 2300 W. Highland Ave.
Dec. 19, Washington High School complex, 2525 N. Sherman Blvd.
Dec. 20, Hartford University School, 2227 E. Hartford Ave.
Jan. 3, Fritsche Middle school, 2969 S. Howell Ave.
Jan. 10, Thirty-Fifth Street School, 4834 N. Mother Daniels Way.
Jan. 11, Sholes school complex, 4965 S. 20th St.
Jan. 16, MPS central administration building, 5225 W. Vliet St.

In addition, a meeting has been scheduled for parents of special education students on Jan. 9 and for parents of former MPS students on Jan. 17. Both of those will be held at the central administration building from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

If you have opinions--and I know you do--it's worth trying to get to one or more of these meetings to make sure the people making the decisions actually hear what you think.

In addition, campaign season is just about upon us for five of the nine seats on the Milwaukee Board of School Directors. The pro-voucher people have almost certainly staked out their candidates already. Have you?

Friday Random Ten

The sleeping off the turkey Edition

1. "Sleeping Dogs" Brian Joseph from Somewhere it's True
2. "Awake" Peter Mayer from Earth Town Square
3. "When You Wake Up (And It's Snowing)" Jay Bullock (unreleased)
4. "Sleeper" Eliza Gilkyson from Going Driftless
5. "Sleeping in the Flowers" They Might Be Giants from John Henry
6. "The River, Where She Sleeps" Darryl Purpose from A Crooked Line
7. "Darling Wake Up" Kat Eggleston from Second Nature
8. "Keeping Awake" The Innocence Mission from Glow
9. "Sleeping Bag" Sons of the Never Wrong from One if by Hand
10. "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" R.E.M. from Automatic for the People

What I'm Thankful For

• I'm thankful for my wife, my health, my general I-guess-I-don't-have-it-so-badness, and that my family, friends, and coworkers are all pretty much okay this year. My dog's getting crazier, but then I'm thankful we have a good vet and can afford to treat her.
  
  
• I'm thankful that I can afford a turkey and can cook it myself; recent news of rising demand, again, for help feeding families is disheartening.
  
  
• I'm thankful for the job, as much as it stresses me, and the opportunity to try to do a little bit of good in this city. No, I don't expect to change the world one classroom at a time, but if I can make a little difference, that's enough.
  
  
• I'm thankful for those in service to this country, in the military, in the peace corps, or elsewhere, spreading the best of what America has to offer under, often, hellish circumstances and on a mission that was long ago doomed to failure.
  
  
• I'm thankful for the internet, and the people I've met and have come to know well here in the ether (and occasionally in real life). I can't name everyone, so I won't start, but this whole blogging thing has opened up a world of cool and interesting people, on all sides of the divide, that I am glad to know. Add to that the folks at Apple Computer and the cable company that provide this access. The blogging has scored me some TV gigs, and that's worth something; the Governor reads my blog, and that's also not nothing. Some days it scares me a little just how much people are looking to me for advice, opinion, leadership--I mean, I know me--but the opportunities have been tremendous and more than I could have hoped for just writing crank letters to the editor.
  
  
• I'm thankful for Howard Dean and the 50-state strategy. And for Nancy Pelosi. Seriously. Consider:

  Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi will open the House for the first session of the 110th Congress on January 4, and keep it in session for the first several weeks of January. While that may not sound remarkable outside-the-beltway, it is departure from tradition that is certain to prompt some teeth gnashing among Republicans.
  
  Congress typically convenes the first week of January after a holiday recess just long enough for new members to be sworn in, and then promptly adjourns until the president's State of the Union Address toward the end of the month. Pelosi's team apparently figures there's no reason to allow President Bush to set the agenda in January by leaking bits of his speech. Instead the Democratic Congress will immediately plunge into its lengthy to-do list, starting with an ethics reform package, and perhaps have some bills on Bush's desk by the time the State of the Union is ready for delivery.
  
  "From economic security to national security, the American people have resoundingly called for a new direction,'' Pelosi said in a just-released statement. "It is imperative that we waste no time in addressing the pressing needs facing our nation.''

  Contrast that with the Republicans, who put off the annual budget bills until the last minute, and then just skipped out on them altogether. I also love the 100 hours agenda. Expect me to rave more about it later.
  
  
• I'm thankful for good music, a lot of which I've seen and heard this year. New records from Peter Mulvey, Jeffrey Foucault, Mark Erelli, and Ellis Paul, among others. I didn't make it out to Patty Larkin live the other week, but here's a YouTube:
  
  
  
• And I'm thankful for you, my readers. Is it cheesy? Sure. But in almost exactly three-and-a-half years of doing this, I've cultivated a fine audience, a collection of people willing to debate, engage, and explore ideas. The thing that I'm most proud of here is not the TV or undue influence I may someday wield; it's the community. And, after all, isn't that what Thanksgiving is really about?

Enjoy your day, your family, your friends. Be well, eat well, shop carefully, and rest up. Next week, everything starts back up again. Peace.

Is that a deficit in your pocket, or are you just happy to see it?

Wisconsin's conservatives are revelling in the news that Wisconsin faces a $1.6 billion deficit heading into the next budget cycle:

Gov. Jim Doyle and the Legislature will have to close a $1.6 billion deficit as they develop the next two-year budget, according to a new report released Monday.

Officials vowed that they would not raise taxes to close the gap between what state agencies say they need and what taxes are expected to generate.

The $1.6 billion figure was the latest estimate of the so-called structural deficit facing the state. It is about 6% of the $26.4 billion that state government is on track to collect in taxes and fees over the next two years.

They're revelling because it's Jim Doyle who is the public face of that shortfall, and not Mark Green, and because with one house of the legislature now in Democratic hands, they can blame us for any failure. You've got everything from smarmy I told you sos to you get what you deserve coming from their side, with a healthy dose of Doyle lied, he lied, he lied because he claimed to have balanced the budget (I paraphrased a little). But let's go back to the story, shall we?

Gov. Jim Doyle and the Legislature will have to close a $1.6 billion [. . .] gap between what state agencies say they need and what taxes are expected to generate.

One thing the critics are forgetting is that we don't owe anyone any actual money yet; this is just the gap between budget requests and projected revenues for the next two years. Two years ago (note that date on that memo, Rick), we got an almost identical report, and, by all accounts, we expect to end this biennium with a small--in the tens of millions--surplus. In other words (raids to the transportation fund notwithstanding), it's the righties here who are lying when they say Doyle didn't--past tense--balance the budget. The 2007-2009 budget isn't written yet; Doyle didn't claim to have balanced it yet; we don't even know the details of all the agencies' demands yet. How can Doyle have lied about something that hasn't even happened?

I suppose turnabout is, indeed, fair play, since we are still dealing with the aftermath of the Thompson-McCallum years (where's our tobacco settlement money?). But I can only imagine sighs of relief from their side--along with their stifled giggles--that Green won't be dealing with the problem. Green, if you recall, couldn't even begin to describe how he'd address budget issues during the campaign just completed (staying vague on purpose?), beyond just promising to spend money wisely and cut taxes.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the projected deficit here won't shrink as the budget process nears, and we face a full $1.6 billion shortfall. Rather than just lie about Doyle and snigger at the challenge he and the legislature faces (or predict end-of-the-world tax and fee hikes), I challenge the right to propose a solution. What would you cut? Do we educate 80,000 fewer K-12 children? Release 20,000 prisoners? Pave 800 fewer miles (.pdf)?

Personally, I think we do something bold and try to fix the high cost of health care:

Employers in Wisconsin pay an estimated 26.5% more to provide health benefits than the national average, according to a respected national survey released Monday.

The annual survey by Mercer Health & Benefits LLC found that health benefit costs average $9,516 this year for each employee in Wisconsin, compared with $7,523 nationally. That's $1,993 in additional average costs for each employee.

The Mercer survey also found that costs in Wisconsin rose this year at a faster rate, 9.3% on average, compared with 6.1% nationally.

If you think these stories--deficits and health care--aren't related, you're not paying attention. If the state paid less for its employees' health care (and all the local units of government, too--not to mention you, the consumer/ citizen/ taxpayer), the projected cost of running the place would fall and there would be more money in your pocket, too. I continue to lament that, fifteen years ago when the state tinkered with school funding formulas (adding revenue caps and the QEO), they didn't tackle health care instead. If they'd done the work then to keep health care inflation at closer to overall inflation--or just closer to the national average for health care costs--we wouldn't be facing a deficit now. See my post yesterday, or Carrie or Ben for more.

So there's my idea. Now you--give us a hand, oh ye wise sages of AM radio and the Right Cheddarsphere. Don't just dance your happy dance, and don't be vague like Mark Green. Try to be productive in this discussion, and put your ideas where your big mouths are.

Update: More from Seth, here, and you can make up your own mind about Milwaukee Journal Sentinel bias.
Update 2: Carrie takes on Charlie Sykes and George Mitchell; in short, they're all wet.

Health Care He Said-She Said: I Say, Simplify

Two Wisconsin Congresscritters wrote dueling op-eds in the Sunday Journal Sentinel, Privatizin' Paul Ryan and Slammin' Tammy Baldwin. They do a he said-she said on health care.

I wonder what would happen if you took the two essays, Rayn's and Baldwin's, stripped the authorship information from them, and presented them to the public, which one of the two positions the public would prefer. Because, as I read them, it comes down to this:

Baldwin: Health care is so expensive because it's such a complicated system.
Ryan: Health care is so expensive because the system is not complicated enough.

The choice is pretty clear in my mind--why would we want to make the way we purchase and pay for health care more complex? Who, exactly, does that appeal to? Cui bono--who benefits from a more complicated system? Certainly not health care consumers. Probably not doctors and other providers, either.

Oh, but Jay, you're thinking, surely you're being reductionist and Ryan's and Baldwin's ideas are more nuanced than that. Well, I don't think what I wrote is an unfair rendering of their arguments. See for yourself; here they are in their own words:

Baldwin:We don't have the time or the space to go into details on the overuse of services, the duplication of services, fraud and other factors that all contribute to the unnecessarily exorbitant and inherently unfair cost of health care in this country.

It's been seven decades since President Truman first called for health care for all in this country, but we still have an inadequate health care system. [. . .] Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and recapturing their administrative waste. Modest new taxes would replace premiums and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business. Costs would be controlled through negotiated fees, global budgeting, and bulk purchasing. [. . .] The costs of health care will never be controlled until we, as a nation, make a commitment to guarantee health care for all and then make that happen most efficiently and economically.

***
Ryan: [T]he heart of what is actually driving runaway medical expenses [is] the lack of a working free market in health care that puts power in patients' hands. [. . . W]e need to make sure patients can access reliable, up-to-date information on what hospitals and doctors actually charge for medical procedures. [. . ] Making sure the public has access to this kind of data, as well as information about the quality of care patients receive, is essential to fostering competition and lowering costs.

While consumers need accurate information to make sound judgments and select the best health care provider to meet their needs, they also need tools that give them more control over their health care purchases and make coverage more affordable. [. . .]

Health savings accounts are a relatively new option for health care coverage that enables individuals to set aside tax-free savings for future medical expenses. I co-wrote the law that took effect in January 2004 to permit HSAs, and they have become an increasingly popular way to obtain coverage and manage health costs. [. . .] HSA holders or their employers buy a high-deductible insurance plan to take care of large hospital bills, and they use money from their HSA to pay for check-ups and other routine medical expenses. [. . .] They also give patients an incentive to pay attention to what they spend and seek the best deal, in terms of price and quality, which will help bring down the cost of health care.

Transparent pricing doesn't really help much when your insurance plan doesn't cover the cheaper hospital or the cheaper doctor, does it? The last round of conservative-driven reform in the health care industry centered around HMOs and other managed-care plans, which made explicit and rigid the rules limiting where patients could seek treatment. Even under my teachers-union insurance, which is most assuredly not an HMO, I pay quite a bit extra for out-of-network services (some of which, like pathologists, I may not have a choice about). What good does it do me to know I could save my insurance company $10,000 on an operation if I went to a hospital that would cost me thousands out-of-pocket? Am I really going to make that choice?

And I've never understood the conservative fetish for HSAs--they apparently think you have too much insurance. And if only you had less, you'd be healthier, or at least you'd go to the doctor less often. That is just about the worst public health policy I could imagine. I mean, I may have the luxury of deciding that it's not worth fixing the suspension on my 1997 Saturn (it really isn't); I don't have the luxury--none of us should--of deciding that it's not worth seeing the doctor for this or that ailment just in case something worse comes along. And, indeed, it's prevention and preventive care--something HSAs discourage--that is the strongest reform we could make to our health care system. Even if only a small percentage of catastrophic cases could be prevented, the savings to the system would more than make up for the increased cost for wide-spread preventive care.

To be fair, Paul Ryan does support some reasonable reforms; indeed, I've endorsed the idea of pricing transparency as part of a wider set of reforms, and he supports a tax credit on premiums. But he neglects to mention that some of the reforms he supports have downsides. For example, the innocuous-sounding bill to allow small businesses to form "trade associations" and buy health care from cheaper "out-of-state" providers was the infamous "Enzi Bill," a bill that would have allowed employers in one state to avoid that state's laws, laws which might require covering certain conditions or treatments. That bill was opposed by everyone from the AARP to 39 state Attorneys General.

And, to keep being fair, Tammy Baldwin stops short of actually proposing a single-payer system, with the cop-out that "no single health care reform proposal, not a single-payer plan nor the more conservative, employer-based programs, have any chance of gaining the majority of votes necessary for passage at this time." Which is too bad, since now that there is some momentum in Congress for change, Baldwin should take the gloves off and see what she can get done.

In the end, there is no way we can avoid the unpleasant facts: As the only major industrialized nation without some kind of single-payer system, the United States pays double--in terms of GDP and per-capita cost--what other nations do for health care, without double the results. In fact, experts peg the death toll due to underinsurance in this country at between 20,000 and 80,000 annually; how much greater is the drag on our economy from the many hundreds of thousands or millions more who don't die, but just lose days of work? The only solution, in the end, is one which guarantees everyone a certain level of care. HSAs won't do it. A more transparent system of pricing won't do it. Even tax credits on the cost of a premium won't do it.

And while Ryan repeats the standard dire warnings about Canada, I will repeat my plea that we could be more like France--a country you never hear conservatives warn about because single-payer works there, and works well.

Health care is not so expensive because it isn't yet complicted enough, and Ryan's plea for more piecemeal and patchwork answers is the wrong way to go. Instead, let's follow the advice Baldwin offers: Simplify.

Friday Random Ten

The It's Friday? Already? Edition

1. "Elsewhere" Sarah McLachlan from Fumbling Toward Ecstacy
2. "Elvis Presley Blues" Gillian Welch from Time (The Revelator)
3. "Willie and the Hand Jive" Eric Clapton from 461 Ocean Boulevard
4. "Damn Love Song" Kris Delmhorst from Five Stories
5. "The Kenworth of My Dreams" Richard Shindell from Courier
6. "Wayfaring Stranger" Neko Case from The Tigers Have Spoken
7. "House That Used to Be" Old 97s from Too Far to Care
8. "Glad" Traffic from The Very Best of
9. "Swandive" Ani DiFranco from Little Plastic Castle
10. "City of Angels" 10,000 Maniacs from In My Tribe

Special Bonus YouTube: Richard Shindell doing "Fishing"

Tommy!

I think it is the solemn duty of every single Democrat in the state of Wisconsin to encourage Tommy Thompson to run for president. After all, George W. Bush has set the precedent of a less capable brother gunning for the big show, right?

We have to get Tommy! the nomination--by any means necessary.

More from Your Liberal Media

One of these days I'll get to meet Mike Plaisted and shake his hand. He has the stomach to read what I don't. For example, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He writes,

[R]eading veteran state-house reporter Steve Walters’ open letter to state leaders in today’s Crossroads section, it appears the key writers reporting on the race were also drinking the Republican Kool-Aid.

In the brief section of the letter directed to the reelected governor, Walters, without any basis that I’m aware of, accuses Doyle of the sin of ambition. He claims that a second term is something Doyle "desperately wanted since January 2003, when you stood in the Capitol rotunda, with your proud and smiling mother looking on from her wheelchair, and took your first oath of office as governor." He advises the governor to spend the next four years "creating a legacy instead of being obsessed with having to raise another $12 million to seek a third term." So he "desperately wanted" a second term before the first one ever started and he was "obsessed" with raising money for his campaigns. Gee, Steve, anything else? Oh, yeah – he says, since Doyle has now had five successful statewide campaigns: "That's not a bad public service record to retire on."

Well, alrighty, then. Doyle was supposedly in a big hurry to get to his second term and Walters is already encouraging him to pull the plug after this one. Well, I mean, if you are Doyle, why bother? His first term was supposedly meaningless without the second and the chief political writer for the Journal Sentinel is already hoping to treat him like a lame duck.

That "ambition" thing is how they justified getting Caesar. Not that I think Doyle is Caesar--Doyle hasn't taken Gaul (or even the U.P.), for example--but it's an old trope and Walters should know better than to drag it out just because he doesn't like Doyle. Worse, he shouldn't have let that obvious dislike of Doyle color his reporting. Walters--and my conservative reader(s)--would probably disagree that it did so, but it's clear, and Plaisted, Xoff, I, Seth, and others documented it all summer throughout the autumn.

In fact, reading Walters's letter, Doyle is served a heapin' helpin' of scorn in every sentence, while the other recipients of the letter--Judy Robson, Mike Huebsch, Jim Kreuser, and Scott Fitzgerald--all get compliments or outright praise.

Just remember, ladies and gentleman, that is your liberal media at work: a scornful, impudent reporter assigned to cover the object of his disgust. I'm looking forward to four more years of Capital reporting from his slanted pen.

Citizen detained overseas: Where's the outrage?

I'm surprised the righties aren't all over this story:

In 2001, Jack Smith, a citizen of Perioa, Illinois, was in the Qatar legally, on a student visa. He was a computer science graduate student at the American University in Qatar, where he had earned an undergraduate degree a decade earlier. In Qatar, he lived with his wife and five children.

In December, 2001 he was detained as a "material witness" to suspected acts of terrorism and ultimately charged with various terrorism-related offenses, mostly relating to false statements Qatar's security aparatus claimed he made as part of a terrorism investigation. Smith vehemently denied the charges, and after lengthy pre-trial proceedings, his trial on those charges was scheduled to begin on July 21, 2003.

But his trial never took place, because in June, 2003--one month before the scheduled trial--Qatar's Emir declared him to be an "enemy combatant." As a result, Qatar told the court it wanted to turn him over to the U.S. military, and thus asked the court to dismiss the criminal charges against him, and the court did so (the dismissal was "with prejudice," meaning he can't be tried ever again on those charges). Thus, right before his trial, Qatar simply removed Smith from the jurisdiction of Qatar's judicial system--based solely on the unilateral order of the Emir--and thus prevented him from contesting the charges against him.

Instead, the administration immediately transferred Smith to a miltiary prison. Smith was kept in solitary confinement, denied all contact with the outside world, including even his own attorneys, not charged with any crimes, and given no opportunity to prove his innocence. Instead, Qatar simply asserted the right to detain him indefinitely without so much as charging him with anything.

It has everything the right loves in their outrages--a Christian family man living peacefully with his family in a Muslim country held without charge and without access to anyone who could help him clear his name. Admittedly, there's no video tape or threats of beheading--the right loves them some gore--but what gives?

Oh.

Wait.

I know what the problem is:

In 2001, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar, was in the United States legally, on a student visa. He was a computer science graduate student at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where he had earned an undergraduate degree a decade earlier. In Peoria, he lived with his wife and five children.

In December, 2001 he was detained as a "material witness" to suspected acts of terrorism and ultimately charged with various terrorism-related offenses, mostly relating to false statements the FBI claimed he made as part of its 9/11 investigation. Al-Marri vehemently denied the charges, and after lengthy pre-trial proceedings, his trial on those charges was scheduled to begin on July 21, 2003.

But his trial never took place, because in June, 2003--one month before the scheduled trial--President Bush declared him to be an "enemy combatant." As a result, the Justice Department told the court it wanted to turn him over to the U.S. military, and thus asked the court to dismiss the criminal charges against him, and the court did so (the dismissal was "with prejudice," meaning he can't be tried ever again on those charges). Thus, right before his trial, the Bush administration simply removed Al-Marri from the jurisdiction of the judicial system--based solely on the unilateral order of the President--and thus prevented him from contesting the charges against him.

Instead, the administration immediately transferred al-Marri to a miltiary prison in South Carolina (where the administration brings its "enemy combatants" in order to ensure that the executive-power-friendly 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over all such cases). Al-Marri was given the "Padilla Treatment"--kept in solitary confinement, denied all contact with the outside world, including even his own attorneys, not charged with any crimes, and given no opportunity to prove his innocence. Instead, the Bush administration simply asserted the right to detain him indefinitely without so much as charging him with anything.

Draw your own conclusions, of course. But this makes me feel outraged. How can I not? How can anyone not? How can anyone not see how fundamentally wrong and un-American this is?

There is no evidence that this man did anything other than sit around at home with his family, go to school, and follow the laws of the United States. And he can't see his lawyer? Welcome, as they say, to Dick Cheney's America. Two months . . .

Support Karen Carter, LA-02

I don't usually shill for candidates outside of Wisconsin, but here's another important race. As you may know, Louisiana's November elections are just kind of free-for-all primaries, with the top two vote-getters in a run-off the next month. One such run-off is happening in the LA-02 this year, and I'd like to ask my readers to support Democrat Karen Carter.

This is not a seat that would go from red to blue--it's already held by a Democrat. But that Democrat is William Jefferson, he of FBI-sting-money-in-the-freezer fame. The left side of the blogosphere is uniting behind Carter and against Jefferson, running a $10,000 challenge to get Carter some much-needed scratch for the home stretch. (As of this writing, they've already rasied nearly $12,000.) Consider helping out; we need to send the mesage that corruption in Congress is wrong regardless of which party you belong to.

Another wrong loser

My BFF Owen has a gigantic ideological stick where you know it's gotta hurt, but he usually gets his facts straight. Today he totally blows it in terms of telling the truth.

However, I can't say I disagree with his ultimate conclusion:

I must admit that I find the reaction of some Lefties to the election to be somewhat comical. Many of them are interpreting the election as a wholesale rejection of Conservatism. They insist that those of us who are conservatives, should abandon our beliefs and just accept the fact that the election proves that we are wrong about everything.

I do not actually think that the results are evidence of any kind of a permanent Democratic majority anymore than I believed Karl Rove when he said in 2004 that the Republican majority was permanent. There is still plenty of battleground, particularly in the West. But I think last Tuesday was, in fact, the end of a kind of re-alignment that began in 1994: Republicans now pretty well own the South; it took a dozen years for the moderate Republicans left in the Northeast and chunks of the Midwest to finally exit stage right. It was also a rejection of Bush--and the more we learn, the clearer that is. It's also a reaction to the utter hell that Iraq has become. (Remember when Iraq was supposed to be no more dangerous than Detroit? When Motor City residents start tattooing names and SSNs on their bodies, call me.)

But then, moving from that perfectly reasonable premise, Owen runs down the litany of false statements that, I think, conservatives are using to make themselves feel better. I'll take them one at a time; he's in italics:

• Never mind that many of the Dems who won across the country were espousing many conservative beliefs.
  Depends on how you define "many." If you mean "a few" including high-profile ones like Bob Casey, then sure. But some facts are in order: Chris Bowers counts 24 newly elected Dems from the House who are anything but conservative. In the Senate, Tester, McCaskill, Brown, and Klobuchar all have liberal voting records behind them. Tom Schaller puts it into convenient chart form, and adds, "the liberal wing of the GOP suffered a disproportionate share of losses compared to the moderate and/or conservative wings. Since the Democrats who beat them ran uniformly to the left of their opponents, the notion that conservative Democrats knocked off a set of mostly liberal Republicans defies simple logic."
  
  
• Never mind that the election results are completely average in historical terms.
  There have been two 6th-year midterm elections since the 1950s. In 1986, the Dems, the "opposition party" to Reagan, picked up fifve seats. In 1998, the Dems, the "ruling party" with Clinton, also picked up five seats. Since 1994's 54-seat switch, the number of seats switching have been less than ten at a time. To call last Tuesday average is to completely minimize it.
  
  
• Never mind that there were many forces in this election that were independent of philosophy (corruption, waste, etc.).
  And Republicans had nothing to do with those? Who's been in complete power for six years?
  
  
• Never mind that the Republicans lost much of their base precisely because they had become a bunch of big-government politicians.
  Except that the Republicans didn't lose their base. In fact, Republicans lost independents, who made up almost a quarter of the voters this year. Kevin Drum compares the 2004 and 2006 exit polls to find that "Conservatives are still solidly supporting the Republican Party." I bet, for example, that Owen and all of his conservative readers turned out for Republicans on the ballot last Tuesday.

I should also point out that the Dems received a higher percentage of the votes in both House and Senate races this year (53% and 55%, repsectively) than Bush did in either 2000 or 2004. This is not to suggest that I think Dems must run roughshod over everyone--as Bush suggested he could do with his "mandate" and "political capital." I am suggesting, however, that what happened Tuesday is not something that can be swept under the rug or hidden behind lame (and false) excuses. The national Republican Party--and the current flavor of conservatism--has led voters to speak with a clear voice in opposition.

Far be it from me to tell Republicans how to plan for 2008; it sure seems to me, however, that sitting around and lying to yourself about why you lost is a bad way to start.

Your Liberal Media at Work

Via Media Matters:

That's 1994 on the left, and this week on the right. Sigh.

McIlheran Watch: Another Sore Loser

I remember 2004. I even remember 1994, mostly. An election, as those were for me, that ends up as a repudiation of you and all you stand for can really kind of hurt. How you deal with it shows a lot about your character. If you're Charlie Sykes, for example, you mislead your readers into thinking that you had a bigger impact than you did. If you're Joe Lieberman, you pretend nothing major happened. If you're any conservative Tim Rock read this week, you imagine the grapes were sour, anyway.

But my favorite has to be Patrick McIlheran; if you're him, you turn your back on a year's worth of your work as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's conservative frontman and declare that you don't have to be popular to be right:

[W]hat got defeated [. . .] is a certain sense that conservative ideas are right because they are popular [. . .]. Conservatism's superiority is taken for granted because it is self-evidently a 'winning' philosophy. We win, therefore are right. We are right, therefore we win. [. . .]

So it's going to be harder, maybe lonelier, for conservatives. So? Our ideas aren't validated by being popular. They're validated by being right.

(Of course, if you click through to read it, you'll find P-Mac is basing his assertions on a column by . . . wait for it . . . Charlie Sykes.)

Why is this my favorite? Because McIlheran has made a point, repeatedly, about how popular the positions he espouses are! Watch:

Though, in a heartening development, people aren’t necessarily buying the X-Files take on the NSA looking at calling records. ABC polls and finds that people regard looking at who’s calling whom as necessary to fighting jihadists.
********But the rallies Monday, with people in t-shirts reading, “We are not criminal,” aren’t necessarily helping. Polls show that most Americans, while sympathetic to immigrants, don’t like people sneaking in.
********Owen at Boots and Sabers comments with particular lucidity today: [. . .]

“Also, it is worth noting that polls show that 70% of the people support a constitutional amendment to limit government spending or revenue. This appears to be yet another case of the special interests driving Madison in a direction contrary to the will of the people.”
********No business that Mark Bradley knows of has broken up over taxes owed upon death. He ought to know - he's a big-name Wisconsin estate lawyer. He's not saying it doesn't happen, but he says fears over what is now a 46% tax are overblown. If a family absolutely doesn't plan, the IRS will take installment payments over a decade or so.

Others differ, of course. Ann Kinkade, who heads the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Family Business Center, says she's heard horror stories, though none firsthand. Businesses working with her have estate planning in mind.

This is a key question, since the tax is with us still. Despite polls showing most Americans don't like the IRS rifling the pockets of rich corpses, the Republican Senate still can't pull the trigger on a tax that's as anachronistic as the top hat on the Monopoly Man.
********The Wall Street Journal reports that support for legalized abortion is falling. The Roe vs. Wade decision that took the matter out of the hands of states and voters is now supported only by a 49% to 47% plurality in a Harris poll.

Sixty-three percent don’t think the Supremes will overturn the decision, but 40% favor laws that do more to protect children from being aborted.
********But if the unified aim is to make this nation forgive, en masse, 11 million people who broke the law, good luck. Polls show such rallies are hardening attitudes, if anything.
********[E]xpanding the labor pool depresses wages. Interestingly, more than a quarter of American-born Latinos polled by the Pew Hispanic Center last summer agreed. [. . .] Most of all, conflating legal and illegal immigration into one chanting insistence that America owes someone something won't fly. That Pew poll found that 60% of American-born Latinos want to keep driver's licenses out of illegal immigrants' hands.
********Critics ask us to take counsel of their fears. "People become afraid of their own government," Feingold says. That is, not only is it offensive that the government listened in, but without oversight, we don't know the NSA wasn't up to no good.

But polls show a more sanguine public, and no wonder. The more facts emerge, the more the claims erode, especially since, amid the plentiful emerging evidence that the program existed, no signs point to political abuse.
********People seem to sense this, as when they tell pollsters - 65% to 26% this summer in a Wisconsin poll, for instance - that they don't favor financing campaigns from tax money. Of course not: Once incumbents can just take from you the money they need, it's one less reason for them to have to listen to you.
********But polls repeatedly show that ordinary Americans are bothered by the illegality of illegal immigrants, and the presence of 11 million of them after the problem was supposed to have been fixed by reforms in 1986 shows a failure of the federal government. It's not surprising when local people take a whack at it.

Remember, that's just the past year, and probably not even as thorough a search as I could have done.

But, anyway, now we know what McIlheran really thinks. And the next time he shows up with some poll or another claiming to be speaking with the voice of the majority, we can remind him: Sorry; just because it's popular doesn't make it right!

One place I won't be eating again

So we went for lunch at the new Red Robin over in Greenfield. We'd never eaten there before, and were delivering stuff to Half Price Books, and thought we'd try it. While the food, eventually, was very good, we had an experience that should land the place on Casper's list.

Even though we arrived at almost noon, we were able to get right in. Our server was a little slow coming back with our drink order--that should have been a sign--but we ordered and started looking forward to trying the food and the bottomless fries.

And then we waited. Made pleasant conversation. Got a refill. And waited. And waited. And waited. Well, we thought, they just opened, it's a Sunday lunch crowd, we'll give them some slack.

And we waited. No sign of the server or the food, and it was, by then, going on 12:40. How long does it take to make a chicken sandwich and some fajitas?

Finally, we noticed that several tables that were seated after we ordered got their food, though we still hadn't been able to catch the attention of our server. So I desperately tried to flag down the manager I'd seen walking around. When I finally got his attention, and explained the problem, he, without apologizing yet, went right back to the kitchen to "find out what happened." A couple of minutes later, he was out with our food--and apologies--and we dug in. But no offer to comp a meal, or anything beyond a vague "I'll check back with you later."

By the time we were halfway through our food, finally our server made it back to our table. At this point, we hadn't seen or talked to her in more than half an hour. No apology, no attempt at an explanation, nothing. Just an offer of more refills.

When the check came, itwas full price. And our server had the gall to point out the customer service survey she put in the folio with the bill!

We wave the manager down again, explain to him that his server's obliviousness further complicated the situation, and asked if he'd ever found out where the problem had been. He said that the error had been in the kitchen, and that he'd be sure to talk to the server at the end of the shift. He told us to wait there, and disappeared long enough to grab ten "Bird Bucks" as if that made up for it--we'd now been at the restaurant almost 80 minutes, double the time we noticed other tables taking--and told us that the next time (ha!) if we noticed that the service was taking more than ten or fifteen minutes, to notify a manager.

In other words, it was our fault we waited so long.

The "Bird Bucks" have already been recycled.

More on Charlie Sykes

Having slept on it--twice--I think I went too far. Not that I don't think Sykes's post there was not wrong (it was, in spades) or smug (even his JournalCorp colleagues saw that) or sore (it had a sense of desperation to it).

However, I started name-calling, and I don't do that. I shouldn't have done it, regardless of whom the target was. I apologize.

But I'm not wrong: There is nothing in the 2006 results for Southeastern Wisconsin (the "Milwaukee media market," as Sykes stakes it out) that should make conservatives feel proud. Or better about Green's loss. Locally and nationally, conservatives have offered excuse after excuse. I've read a lot from them this week about why they lost, very little of it admitting that they lost because the current model of conservative governance is past its prime.

No, there were claims, for example, that the newly elected Dems are really conservatives (they're not, really), or that these big swings in the 6th year of a presidency are normal (5 seats switched in both '86 and '98). More locally, some bloggers all but called voters stupid. (My favorite was Patrick McIlheran's response, but it deserves its own post later.)

I'm no stranger to taking losses hard, of course. But Sykes's post just--I don't know--set me off.

Perhaps it comes from thinking he should know better than to lie--and I maintain it was, at least, a lie of omission, as he didn't do the research he should have to find out if his point were truly valid. The excuse he offered was not merely a lame attempt to gloss over a resounding defeat. Instead, it struck me as a self-congratulatory halo-polishing, giving himself credit for keeping "the Milwaukee Media Market" redder than the rest of the state. Its wrongness--as demonstrated by the numbers--was stunning; its tone was disgusting.

Still, I was over the top. Like, couldn't see the top from where I was. And that, too, was wrong.

One Further Feingold Irony

I know Russ repeatedly said he'd wait until after the midterms to make his decision. I'm guessing that had the US Senate stayed Republican, Russ would be running right now. But his new power as a member of the majority--and in the majority on the Judiciary and Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees--is, I would bet, what made up his mind.

Damn you Jim Webb!

. . . and see Glenn Greenwald.

Feingold's not running. Ruins my day.

John Edwards just keeps getting luckier and luckier:

Dear Friends and Supporters,

On Sunday, November 12th in Racine, I will hold my 1000th Listening Session with the people of Wisconsin. Before reaching that milestone, I want you to know that I've decided to continue my role as Wisconsin's Junior Senator in the U.S. Senate and not to seek the Democratic nomination for President in 2008.

Like many Americans, I am excited by the results of the November 7th election. My fourteen years in the Senate have been the greatest privilege of my life and I am extremely pleased with what we have accomplished. During so much of that time, however, we Democrats have not only been in the minority but have often been so deeply mired there that my role has often been to block bad ideas or to simply dissent. That is a very important role but I relish the thought that in this new Congress we can start, not only to undo much of the damage that one-party rule has done to America, we can actually advance progressive solutions to such major issues as guaranteed healthcare, dependence on oil, and our unbalanced trade policies. The Senate of the 110th Congress could also well be a place of greater bi-partisan opportunities for change; something I am very proud to have been effective at in both Republican and Democratic Senates.

I hope all of you know how much I have appreciated the incredible response you have given me and the efforts of our Progressive Patriots Fund since January, 2005. In addition to all of our work in Wisconsin and D.C., I have traveled to seventeen states trying to promote the election of progressive Democrats in all states. At every stop from Birmingham, Alabama to Burlington, Vermont, to Ft. Dodge, Iowa, to Las Vegas, Nevada, people have agreed with my view that we need to stand up for a strong, principled Democratic party that is willing to replace timidity with taking the risks of promoting a platform of bold solutions to our nation's problems. Unfailingly, people responded well to my positions: opposition to the Iraq war; calling for a timeline to redeploy our troops from Iraq so we can focus on those who attacked us on September 11th, 2001; my opposition to the flawed provisions of the USA Patriot Act that threaten the freedoms of law-abiding Americans; my call for accountability for the Administration's arrogant disregard for the law especially with regard to illegal wiretapping; fighting for fiscal responsibility including tough common sense budget rules that will help end the reckless policies that have heaped a mountain of debt on our children and grandchildren; as well as my strong belief in guaranteed healthcare for all Americans and substantial investment in alternative energy sources and technologies.

Yet, while I've certainly enjoyed the repeated comments or buttons saying, "Run Russ Run", or "Russ in '08", I often felt that if a piece of Wisconsin swiss cheese had taken the same positions I've taken, it would have elicited the same standing ovations. This is because the hunger for progressive change we feel is obviously not about me but about the desire for a genuinely different Democratic Party that is ready to begin to reverse the 25 years of growing extremism we have endured.

I'm sure a campaign for President would have been a great adventure and helpful in advancing a progressive agenda. At this time, however, I believe I can best advance that progressive agenda as a Senator with significant seniority in the new Senate serving on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Judiciary and Budget Committees. Although I have given it a lot of thought, I cannot muster the same enthusiasm for a race for President while I am trying simultaneously to advance our agenda in the Senate. In other words, if I really wanted to run for President, regardless of the odds or other possible candidates, I would do so. However, to put my family and all of my friends and supporters through such a process without having a very strong desire to run, seems inappropriate to me. And, yes, while I would strongly prefer that our nominee in 2008 be someone who had the judgment to oppose the Iraq war from the beginning, I am prepared to work as hard as I can through the Progressive Patriots Fund, and consistent with my duties in the Senate, to maintain or increase our gains from November 7 in the Congress and, of course, to elect a Democrat as President in 2008.

Most important, I want to continue my work as a Senator from this wonderful State of Wisconsin. Our fourteen year ongoing conversation that has taken place in hundreds of communities in Wisconsin in the form of open Listening Sessions is the principal reason I have been perceived as "ahead of the curve" on many key issues. Simply listening to the reasoning and passions of Wisconsinites remains the best source of good ideas and common sense I've ever encountered.

I love this country very much and am so lucky to be able to serve it in the United States Senate. My heartfelt thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement.

Sincerely,


Russ Feingold
Middleton, Wisconsin

Breaks my heart. I had a series of ads half-written in my head I was ready to give him. I'll still type them up at some point because they're (I think) hilarious, and could work for somebody--but they had that Russ vibe, you know?

So I'm now officially unafiliated. Warner, who I had pegged as Most Likely to Succeed, courted me before he dropped out, and Russ was the one I had my little blog-crush on. Vilsack's people have also courted me, but Vilsack, I thought, was very premature in announcing his candidacy for the bottom of the pack--Most Likely to Concede. Edwards clearly now has the upper hand--it'll be him and Hillary. Richardson still looks kind of good, I think. No way I'll get behind Evan Bayh. And there's some former governor of Alaska who thinks he'll be the next Howard Dean but won't.

So, anyway, suggestions? Make a case for your guy or gal in comments.

(Journal-Sentinel story here.)

Charlie Sykes: Sore (and Smug) (and WRONG) Loser

(See slight update here. Quite the discussion in comments there, too.)

I really wish Lena Taylor had smacked the mess out of Charlie Sykes Tuesday night. I mean, I didn't even give it a thought that TMJ-4 had Owen and me seated right next to each other. But then I noted that someone had the foresight to put Sykes and Taylor in different rooms, because, you know, she would have taken him down. I was never afraid that Owen would dive across the desk and throttle me; of course, I didn't do any of the smug taunting that Sykes did. With that smirk on his face and sleazy insinuations, I wanted to smack the mess out of him myself.

So today I see Sykes is congratulating himself over--you'll think I'm joking here--the size of Green's and Van Hollen's results in Southeast Wisconsin. Check this out (self-stroking italics included):

So, in a race that Doyle won statewide by 7-8 percentage points, he won the state's largest media market, which includes the state's most populous Democratic city and county, by only two-tenths of a percent. In other words, Doyle dramatically under-performed in this media market; Green, who was trounced statewide, dramatically over-performed here. [. . .]

Statewide Van Hollen won by less than half of one percent, but won the Milwaukee Media Market by more than six points, with a margin of 44,200. He won statewide by less than 9,000. Again, Democrat Falk under-performs, while Republican Van Hollen over-performs in the state's largest media market that includes the state's biggest Democratic county.

So what makes the Milwaukee market different from the rest of the state? Could it be.....????

Yes, my friends; as the Spice Boys noted today, he just can't help thinking he alone (well, perhaps also his little protege) was responsible for it all. I can just imagine the look on his face as he found those numbers. His smug ugly smile must have reached into the next office over.

Problem is, he full of crap. And not full of crap in the way that I often call him and his kind full of crap, but almost literally shoveling it out of himself to cover up for the complete and utter failure of the politics he's been pimping for the last decade.

I decided I'd test his numbers. Let's start with the AG's race. Here are the numbers Sykes gives for this week's election in his five-county Milwaukee media market sample:
Kathleen Falk: 305,488 (46.6%)
JB Van Hollen: 349,688 (53.4%)

I went back to the State Elections Board's 2002 data. Statewide, the results were different, of course, with the Democrat, Peg Lautenschlager, winning over the Republican, Vince Biskupic, 51.6% to 48.3%. So what were the numbers in the five-county media market? Glad you asked (rounded to the nearest 100):
Peg Lautenschlager: 249,600 (47.2%)
Vince Biskupic: 278,700 (52.7%)

Let that soak in for a second; the difference in the results here in the five-county Milwaukee media market between 2002 and 2006 is almost nothing. Think about that. Statewide, the Republican's performance between 2002 and 2006 went up 1.7%. In this media market, the Republican's performance between 2002 and 2006 went up only 0.7%. Seems to me Charlie Sykes ought be concerned that he dampened Republican performance among his listeners when it came to the Attorney General vote! He ought to be apologizing, not gloating.

But, you might say, the difference between 2002 and 2006 in the AG's race is almost so small it could just be statistical noise. That's true; it is very small. So let's look at the Governor's race, where the numbers are bigger. Here are Sykes's totals for the five-county sample in 2006:
Jim Doyle: 328,278 (50.1%)
Mark Green: 327,031 (49.9%)

Let's go back to the SEB's 2002 numbers. Statewide, Doyle defeated Republican incumbent Scott McCallum 45.1% to 41.4% (Libertarian Ed Thompson, of course, scored a bit over 10%). So what about our five Milwaukee-area counties? Again, rounded to the nearest 100:
Jim Doyle: 243,100 (44.7%)
Scott McCallum: 256,500 (47.1%)

This is how big of a lying, self-righteous idiot Sykes is: In 2006, this media maket voted for the Democrat--just barely. But in 2002, this media market gave the Republican a victory! So, you might ask, what makes the Milwaukee market different from the rest of the state? Could it be.....????

Yes, it is. Once again, Charlie Sykes shouldn't be sitting around gloating, trying to pat his back so much it bruises. He should be calling Mark Green and offering to commit hari kari because he may have cost Mark Green the race!

Charlie, time to retract. Time to give it up. You lost. If anyone should be gloating, it's us, not you (though I've really tried not to). So stop. Just . . . stop.

Download 2006 set for tomorrow!

Blogger download set for Saturday

One Wisconsin Now and Boots and Sabers present download 2006

Milwaukee - Progressive and Conservative bloggers from across Wisconsin will join together this Saturday, November 11 in Waukesha to discuss the fall elections at download 2006, sponsored by One Wisconsin Now (OWN) and Boots and Sabers.

The event is free and open to the public. Eight bloggers will meet in two separate panels to discuss the results, the media coverage, the ads and the issues in the 2006 elections. An agenda is included below.

What: OWN and Boots and Sabers present download 2006

Where:
Waukesha County Technical College,
Richard T. Anderson Educational Conference Center,
800 Main Street in Pewaukee

When: Conference opens at 11 am; panels begin at 12:15 pm.

Who: Bloggers from across the state; the public is encouraged to attend.

"We are excited to provide an opportunity for this dialogue," said John Kraus, Executive Director of One Wisconsin Now. "This will be an interesting forum to hear from both progressive and conservative bloggers, as they come together and share their thoughts on the 2006 elections."

Also, in honor of Veteran's Day, OWN and Boots and Sabers are encouraging attendees to bring domestic calling cards of greater than 100 minutes that will be sent to recovering and wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C.


Saturday, November 11, 2006
download 2006
agenda

11:00 am -12:00 pm: Meet Up (Food and beverages will be provided)
12:00 pm-12:15 pm: Welcome and introductions
12:15 pm -12:45 pm: Panel 1- Election Results & Media Coverage

* Gretchen Schuldt, Milwaukee Rising
* Cory Liebmann, One Blog
* James Wigderson, Wigderson Library and Pub
* Jenna Pryor, Right off the Shore

12:45 pm - 1:00 Q & A

Break 15 minutes

1:15 pm - 1:45 pm: Panel 2 - Issues and Ads

* Owen Robinson, Boots and Sabers
* Jay Bullock, Folkbum's Rambles and Rants
* Seth Zlotocha, In Effect
* Kevin Binversie, Lakeshore Laments

1:45 pm - 2:00 pm: Q & A

Conclusion

In honor of Veteran's Day we will be collecting domestic calling cards that will be sent to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. for wounded soldiers to call home. 100-500 minute cards are welcome.

For more information, click here.

Friday Random Quotes

A few things I've collected this week. They may or may not tell a story.

This election proves that the Democrats are the mainstream political party. We just elected a socialist from Vermont and a former Reagan official from Virginia to the US Senate. We elected a number of Red State conservatives, true, but we are also going to have a Speaker of the House from San Francisco. We cover a broad swathe, ranging from sea to shining sea with only the most conservative old south remaining firmly in the hands of the Republican party. The idea that this is some sort of affirmation of conservatism is laughable. It's an affirmation of mainstream American values and a rejection of the Republican radicalism this country has been in the grips of for the last 12 years.

*

Here's the baseline: the overall Democratic share of the congressional vote was about 5 percentage points higher than in 2004. And what you find from the exit polls is that Dems gained 2-7 points in practically every demographic group surveyed. It was an across-the-board sweep, not a victory that depended on any single big electoral shift.

So were there any big changes? Compared to the overall 5-point gain, did Dems get a bigger share of the white evangelical vote? No. Women? No. Young people? No. Low-income voters? No. Self-described conservatives? No. Suburban voters? No. The South? No. The Northeast? No. Any region? No. Dems gained a steady 2-7 points in all these groups.

*

Democratic candidates won--in every part of the country and regardless of their ideology -- by committing themselves to one basic platform. They vigorously opposed what have become the defining attributes of the Republican Party and they pledged to put a stop to them: unchecked Presidential power, mindless warmongering, a refusal to accept or acknowledge realities (both in Iraq and generally), and the deep-seated, fundamental corruption fueling the Bush movement and sustaining their power.

Virtually every Democratic winner, from the most conservative to the most liberal, in the reddest and bluest states, have that in common. They all ran on a platform of putting a stop to the radicalism, deceit and corruption that drives the so-called "conservative" political movement.

*

If George Bush wants to continue to wreck America, then there is no way anyone in Congress with a modicum of self-respect and love of country should let him get away with it.

That's easy to say, but what if it means a dangerous constitutional crisis?

Don't answer right away, folks. Stop. Think.

The standard cliche American response to these kinds of challenges is an instantaneous, adrenaline-fueled shout of, "Bring it on!" The intense desire to engage the enemy, mano a mano, to stop all the pussy-footing, and let's get down to it! We can win this thing! Plans? Plans??! I don't need no stinkin' plans! I'm right, I'll win and I'll just let the weak plan what happens then.

And we know how well that works. So step 1 in the post 11/07/06 world is for Dems and liberals not to act like drooling violent morons - because we're not, and anyway, it never works outside a Stallone movie - and think this through. To paraphrase Susan Sontag, we know we're strong. We are going to have to be smart.

In order to confront an out of control, delusional, and ruthless president, the Democrats are going to have to be in control, levelheaded, and prepared to do whatever it takes.

*

America Says No to Wedgies.

Friday Random Ten

The no gloating here Edition

1. "Gentle Soldier of My Soul" Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer from Drum Hat Buddha
2. "Airproofing" Leo Kottke from Live
3. "Hold Me" Lazlo Blane from All the Time in the World
4. "The Thief" Lucy Kaplansky from Flesh and Bone
5. "World with no Art" Brian Joseph from Somewhere it's True
6. "Dishwater Blonde" Willy Porter from High Wire Live
7. "Only You" Josh Radin from We Were Here
8. "Me and That Train" Patty Larkin from Strangers World
9. "Mrs. Robinson" Simon and Garfunkel from The Best of
10. "Will I Be Married" The Jayhawks from Blue Earth

Related Bonus YouTube: Leo Kottke doing "Little Martha."

Two lessons for campaigns

One: The campaigns that won here in Wisconsin on Tuesday were the ones with the clear, unambiguous, crystalized messages--at least for the state-wide races. Consider:

• The yes side of the amendment fight had a clear message the entire time--vote yes to "protect marriage." (I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm just using it as an example.) The no team, while they had just about the best GOTV efforts of anyone Tuesday, especially on the campuses, spent the last month of the campiagn muddying its message. The yes side stayed consistent, and no jumped from one message to another about the drawbacks of the second sentence, to keeping the status quo, to Tuesday's call about activist judges. The yes side's clearer message held out.
  
  
• JB Van Hollen ran on a single clear message, too: He decided he was running for Batman. "I want to fight crime! I'll get the terrorists! I'll clear out the illegal immigrants! I want to date Commissioner Gordon's daughter!" I think it was a phony and misleading campaign (it took some kind of gall to suggest that a 14-year Assistant Attorney General didn't have the experience to be Attorney General). But Van Hollen stuck to it, unambiguously, and won even against a Democratic wave so large it knocked out Jack Voigt. On the plus side, Van Hollen will be so tired from fighting crime all night he won't do much damage during the daylight hours.
  
  
• Mark Green's message through the whole campaign was an ill-defined "I'm not Jim Doyle" kind of thing. Green offered nothing beyond cookie-cutter Republican policies, borrowed or thieved from somewhere else. There was no bold, clear, unified message to truly distinguish himself from Doyle, or define himself without regard to Doyle. Even his attempts to ding Doyle for corruption failed, not least because he bore the stink of a corrupt Congress; throw in the fact that Tommy Thompson used to sell more state contracts by 9 AM than other governors do all day and, well, that didn't play with the voters. Doyle's initial message--Wisconsin is better off than it was four years ago--didn't seem to pay off, either. In fact, if you look at the polls leading up to election day, Doyle was having a hard time sealing the deal and couldn't get anything close to his actual vote total--until the last week. The last week, the issue became stem cells; the issue became Michael J. Fox. (I think the rape victim ad also helped crystalize it for Doyle's most key constituency, women.) Such clarity at the end attracted voters who, for 18 months of polling, weren't fully sold on Doyle.

So there it is: Find a clear and distinct theme, hammer it home, and don't muck it up.

Midday update: Seth makes this point much more eloquently today. By contrast, Jessica McBride, the professional pundit (!), sounds barely coherent trying to answer the question of why Green lost but Van Hollen won.

--

Two: There are, apparently, a lot of socially conservative Democrats in this state, Reagan Democrats, if you will. More than a quarter--getting near a third, maybe--of Doyle's vote total must have come from people who voted for the amendment. (A corollary: embryonic stem cell research doesn't seem to qualify as a social issue here.) I think that means a strong social agenda, including a repeal of our abortion ban in anticipation of a Roe challenge (as reader PK recommends in comments to this post), may not be the best way to start under new Dem managment in the legislature. Instead, I think the newly-empowered Wisconsin Dems need to look to economic issues--health care (which could have pro-woman positions, like eliminating the pharmacist "conscience" clause, for example), campaign finance reform, school funding reform, making UW more affordable again, and so on--as the way to begin the next legislature.

I'm sure that's not the end of what I think we should be taking away from this week. But it's what I've got for you this morning. The more I watch campaigns, and the people in them, the more I realize I should probably not tell people how to run their campaigns. Would the deicisions I would have made led to any different outcome? I don't know. But these two messages seem to stand out to me more than any others right now.

Blogger + Safari

Update: Seems to be working again. Phew!

Anyone else having trouble? I can't log in to Blogger for posting or to comment on blogs with Blogger-powered comments using Safari the last two days. I get an error page, status code 1-500-3. I can do it fine in FireFox, though.

What up with that?

Myriad Random Thoughts 4: Things I have learned

-> An election is the best way to spike my blog traffic. Can we do this every week?

-> Xoff has a life outside of the internet. If he's retired from blogging, I think I move up to assistant deputy vice president of Wisconsin Liberal blogging. If I could just knock off Soglin somehow . . . Seriously, thanks for the last two years, Bill. Stay in touch.

-> Blogs don't vote. (Actually, this election was more a confirmation of this; it's not something I just learned.) I've written before that some of my bloggy colleagues give themselves too much credit for things. But in everything from Joe Lieberman's win yesterday in Connecticut to Green's surpisingly large loss here in Wisconsin, we see the blogs repudiated. Wisconsin bloggers from both sides opposed the amendment (it was certainly not unanimous on the right), and it passed by 20 points. What wins is money and ground game (and, apparently, some latent bigotry), not blogs. Will that change by 2008? Doubt it. I may have more to say on this Saturday at Download 2006.

And thus ends the series of Myriad Random Thoughts. I'll see you at Drinking Liberally tonight, and then maybe I'll take a brief break. But this McIlheran column needs fisking. Brawler? Robola? You guys got it?

Myriad Random Thoughts 3: Things that befuddle me

-> Conseratives' spinning that the only reason Democrats won yesterday was because we ran conservative candidates. I'll give them Jim Sullivan, locally, and Bob Casey, nationally. But everyone from Kathy Vinehout to Sherrod Brown and from Steve Kagen to John Tester are solidly liberal. How do I know this? Because the very same conservatives were saying on Monday that all of these very same far-lefty moonbat candidates would go down in a leftward death spiral of socialistic fire. I don't care if their rhetoric is over top; I would like a little consistency, though.

-> Split-ticket voters. If only 5% of those who voted for Doyle and against Falk had voted Dem for both offices, we'd be talking about Attorney General Kathleen Falk right now, not Van Hollen. Looks like Kohl won Sensenbrenner's district again. Stuff like that.

-> Complaints that Green lost because he couldn't use $467k that the State Elections Board (and an appeals court and the state Supreme Court) said were off-limits. I ran some numbers, and if the reports of $20 million being spent by the campaigns are true, then each vote cost about $8.50. Green could have bought another 55 thousand voters or so with that extra cash, which still would have left him between 50 and 100 thousand votes short of a plurality.

Myriad Random Thoughts 2: Things I am happy about

I'm trying to get all my various reactions together. This is the second in a series of posts of small items.

-> Turnout! 2002's turnout was ony 1.8 million. Yesterday, we topped 2.3 million--an increase of more than half a million voters. In fact, more people voted for Mark Green in 2006 than voted for Jim Doyle in 2002. (It still pales compared to 2004's 3 million, but, you know, mid-terms.)

-> Health care referenda making a difference. One Wisconsin has remained relatively invisible in the Cheddarsphere, and yet in the real world, they made a huge difference. Cory Liebman tells us,

The high cost of health care was on the minds of many voters as they went to the polls yesterday. [. . .] It appears that this may have led to the Democratic takeover of the state Senate.

Republican State Senators Dave Zien and Ron Brown both lost in yesterday's election. Racine County Executive Bill McReynolds also lost his bid for the state senate. As a study from the Institute for One Wisconsin showed, all of these areas lead the state in paying high health care costs. All of these areas also had grassroots efforts that put health care on Tuesday's ballot. Those advisory referendums calling for health care reform won by overwhelming margins. Eau Claire County passed the health care reform referendum by 83%, La Crosse County by 84%, and the City of Racine by 83%. It seems that this very clear call for health care reform played a major role in flipping the state Senate in this election.

There was even a huge upset in a state Assembly race in Eau Claire. Democratic candidate Jeff Smith focused on health care reform and narrowly beat incumbent state Rep. Rob Kreibich.

The people of Wisconsin have spoken on health care reform and have entrusted the Democratic Party with the state Senate. They should make reforming health care one of the first items on their agenda to honor the wishes of the people that elected them.

-> The South Dakota abortion ban and the Arizona gay marriage ban both lost at the polls yesterday. I was hoping Wisconsin would be the first state to turn back the tide of anti-gay sentiment, but at least one state did this cycle. Kudos to everyone in SD and AZ who worked on the side of goodness and light this year.

Myriad Random Thoughts 1: Things I worry about

I'm trying to get all my various reactions together. This is the first in a series of posts of small items.

-> The moves against domestic-partnership benefit plans seem to be starting. I would be more worried if the motions were coming from actual attorneys, but it certainly seems like some parts of that faction aren't wasting any time laying the groundwork for legal challenges now that the amendment passed.

-> Some of the seats we Democrats won here in Wisconsin--and even nationally--are tough ones to win, and might not have gone our way without the Great Democratic Wave. I worry, for example, about Steve Kagen's being able to hold the 8th in 2008, a presidential election year. The last Dem to hold the seat was Jay Johnson, who was turned out after two years. The 5th State Senate District is a little schizophrenic and trending more Democratic, but Jim Sullivan will have to work hard to hold it in 2010, especially against someone relatively sane like Leah Vukmir.

-> Exit poll science: As I noted last night, by five minutes after the polls closed, TMJ4, which is where I was most of the evening, had called the Attorney General's race for Falk based on exit polling. Their polling was accurate for Doyle, but way off for falk. No one else called that race until after I went to bed (contra Peter DiGaudio, who claimed, for example, that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called it for Falk; they didn't--I was up until 2 AM waiting for that checkmark to appear and it never did). This is probably more TMJ's problem than a big-picture issue. But remember, the exit polls were way off in 2004, too.

-> I agree with Seth: The best thing Dems in Congress (and Dems in the State Senate) can do right now is work on correcting the course. I worry that some people will make conservatives' prophecies self-fulfilling and start demanding impeachment and non-stop investigations. This is not to say that I think there should be no accountability for anything the Bush Administration did wrong, or Republicans who held the Congress. But remember that virtually nothing got done in 1998 and 1999 when the Republican Congress decided that impeachment over consensual nooky was more important than the people's business. I have faith that Nancy Pelosi wasn't lying when she said she had a "100 hours" plan that is about real issues affecting real people. After that 100 hours, it's wait and see.

-> Bush has proposed a real winner to replace the "resigning" Don Rumsfeld. I worry that Dems will block him--as they should, with his Iran-Contra ties and everying (seriously: is right now the best time to be putting a man into the Pentagon with a history of selling weapons to Iran?!?)--and that Joe Lieberman will graciously offer himself as a bi-partsian compromise. The Republican governor of Connecticut then appoints a Republican to replace him, and >poof!< that Dem Senate majority goes bye-bye.

Prediction vs. Reality: How did I do?

In short, I deserve a lollipop. Let's check the scorecard:

Prediction: The Democrats will take the House, picking up 20-23 seats.
Reality: Looks like I was, indeed, low on that number. But still, plus one point for me, for calling the switch.

Prediction: Democrats will not take the Senate, though they will win four or five seats. No Dem incumbents will lose, except Joe Lieberman.
Reality: Lieberman won. And Dems took the Senate (at least based on who's made victory speeches so far). Minus two points (though I feel okay about missing this.)

Prediction: Jim Doyle will be re-elected.
Reality: Jim Doyle won easily. Plus one point.

Prediction: The Falk-Van Hollen race is too close to call, almost. I think Falk will win a squeaker
Reality: Plus one point for the close thing, but minus one for Van Hollen's slim margin of victory. Let's watch today for news of recounts and challenges.

Prediction: Both statewide ballot measures will probably pass.
Reality: Both passed. Two disappointed points.

Prediction: Republicans will keep the state Assembly.
Reality: They did, but lost some key races. Point.

Prediction: Democrats will take the state Senate. Reynolds and Zien definitely lose.
Reality: And how! Point, plus a bonus point for naming names.

Prediction: Herb Kohl will win. By at least 20%.
Reality: Wouldn't you know it. Point!

Prediction: The House races: Paul Ryan, Tammy Baldwin, Ron Kind
Gwen Moore, Jim Sensenbrenner (though with a much smaller margin than in 2004), Tom Petri, Dave Obey, Steve Kagen (by five or six points)
Reality: I didn't beat the spread I set for Kagen, and I was only partially right on Sensenbrenner, depending on how you define "much." So I'll say plus just five points, minus one.

Prediction: David Clarke will be re-elected.
Reality: He was. Point.

Prediction: John Chisholm will win the Milwaukee County DA's race.
Reality: He did. Point.

Prediction: All the various Iraq war bring-'em-home referrenda will pass.
Reality: They did. Just one point--I won't count them all individually.

And the total is . . . seventeen positive points, four negative points, for a net positive of thirteen, or 81%. I am not going to go through everybody else's predictions yet, but I think that's about as well as anyone did. Yay, me!

Dems take the State Senate. First on the agenda?

Yeah, yeah, I know I said I was going to bed. But this is the first election night in a long time that I'm enjoying. I have to savor this.

With the Senate going in at 19 Republicans to 14 Democrats, we needed three seats to win control. I believe we've got four, as I write this. UPDATE: We do have four. We won all four races, though Zien-Kreitlow was tight and will undoubtedly be recounted.

SD-05: Jim Sullivan has handily defeated incumbent loon Tom Reynolds. With 100% reporting, Sullivan has 36,144 votes (52%) to Reynolds's 33,691 (48%). There's no checkmark yet, but I can't imagine this won't get called for Jim.

SD-21: John Lehman spanked Bill McReynolds in a race for an open seat. With 100% in, it's Lehman 31,736 (53%) and McReynolds 28,069 (47%)

SD-23: This is the one I don't know yet. Pat Kreitlow is trying to unseat another incumbent loon, Dave Zien. With 81% Kreitlow's at 30,119 (51%) and Zien has just 29,063 (49%). Watch it here.

SD-31: Farmer Kathleen Vinehout is also out to beat an incumbent Republican, Ron Brown. WisPolitics.com has called this race, but other outlets haven't. I trust that the result will hold, though. With 90% reporting, Vinehout has 28,250 (51%) and Brown has 26,884 (49%). Watch it here.

If Kreitlow holds on, we'll have an 18-15 advantage--we'll have flipped that Senate right around.

Now the question is, with a D Senate and a D Gov, we can set the agenda. What's first? Campaign finance reform? Re-doing the school funding formula? Civil unions, as I jokingly mentioned below? Gimme your suggestions in the comments. I know many of the powers-that-be check in on this blog, so they'll be interested in your ideas, too.

Back Home

So it was what it was. I didn't expect it to be much more.

-So what are the bloggers saying?
-People are winning, people are losing! It's great!

Seriously, though, I think it was in general, a good thing. Thanks to Owen and everyone at WTMJ4, especially Pete and Laticia, who spent the evening in the cramped little Studio D with us.

I'm sure it was a very long drive home for Owen. As we were leaving, he expressed his feeling that Doyle was just not a Good Person, and that of all the losses, that's the one that is hardest to take. Well, I know that punched-in-the-gut feeling of seeing what you've worked hard for fall short. I gave up blogging for three solid months after November 2, 2004. I don't envy him or his party's near-term future.

As I'm writing, I'm doing scary well on my predictions. That never happens. Fred's head must be spinning.

One thing Owen and I talked about, in those looooong stretches between the brief bursts when they threw the thing to us, is the seeming anomaly between the way the state seems to have voted in general--Democrats are doing very well, which I'll get to in just a moment--and the staggering margins by which both state-wide referenda passed. I'm shocked at the size of the margin especially for the amendment, not because I thought it would fail (I predicted it would pass) but because I assumed a Democratic Wave would keep it close. TMJ's exit poll results, which are the only ones I saw as they flashed on the screen, showed Dems voting 70-30 against the amendment. I guess that 30% really added up to a lot of votes statewide, to make that margin so large.

One thing my wife pointed out: The Republicans scheduled these referenda votes in a stunt to boost their turnout. These referenda passed handily, and yet they still have lost key races. Even Jack Voigt, the Republican who's been State Treasurer since forver, seems poised to lose to a Democrat, simply because this was, Attorney General's race aside, a Dem year despite the referenda turnout.

So, yeah, as I predicted: the AG race is the nail-biter. Given the relative difference between the way Van Hollen's people were treating the media and the way Falk's people were treating the media during the night, I think Van Hollen's less confident. As I type this, there's just a couple thousand votes difference, and I still think Falk'll squeak it out. There will be recounts, though, and probably some pretty nasty accusations along the way.

And, as I write this, the Dems are winning or almost winning not two, not three, but four State Senate seats. They've called Lehman over McReynolds; Vinehout is leading Brown, Sullivan is leading Reynolds, and Kreitlow is within 50 votes of Zien. The Assembly will stay Republican, no doubt, but some upsets may be in the making: My internet friend and fellow educator Randy Koehn is within a couple hundred votes of turning John Gard's Assembly district Blue.

In the end, I think it was a good day for Democrats, locally and nationally. Kagen's win in the eighth Congressional district was certainly part of that Wave. The Doyle win is incredibly important. The Kagen win is massively symbolic. The amdendment, well, we'll work through it. Senator Scott Fitzgerald claimed recently that the amendment actually wouldn't ban civil unions--with a Dem Senate and Gov, maybe we can test him on that, seeing as how CUs are supported by 60% or more of us. There is room, in other words, for mitigation. Maybe. (And we'll see how long it takes for the court challenges to start against, for example, the City of Milwaukee's domestic partner benefits.)

It's late. I want to see how it ends. But I have an exam to give in the morning. Good night.

Okay, late update (1 AM): Sullivan wins--with 99% reporting, he's 2400 votes up. Vinehout wins, too, according to WisPolitics (if not the newspaper's site). That means we have the Senate! Kreitlow is also now back in the lead, 1500 votes up with 75% in; that seat gives us a 18-15 margin, which would really change the dynamic.

Van Hollen is now up by 20,000 votes, and Jack Voigt is back up, as well. Maybe the Rs will hold some state-wide offices.

A good face for blogging?

I've always believed that I have a face made for radio and a voice made for blogging. But Michael says Owen and I are "inspiring a new phrase: A good face for blogging."

Yeah, well--you just watch the Bugles there, Mike. We don't have universal health care just yet, bud.

UPDATE: Judge for yourselves.
"I'm a Mac."               "And I'm a PC."                                  

AP Calls it for Doyle

AP I have confidence in. If it's only Owen in the next segment, call 911--he probably strangled me in frustration.

Congrats, gov!

I Voted For Non-Democrats

Three of them: Rae Vogeler, because I want a third party on the State Elections Board; Don Holt, because I thought he'd be a better sheriff; and Winston Sephus, because he carves a mean pumpkin. Looks like Winston is picking up a few thousand other votes, too.

Photo by Scott Feldstein.

Local Races

What are you hearing? I'm hearing that Jim Sullivan is over-performing in Waukesha County--good news for the State Senate outlook.