Jazz at Alverno Presents

Gerald Clayton has become a leading young light in jazz since Alverno booked him over a year ago.

The timeless charm of Jackson Browne

On a somber night in Milwaukee, Jackson Browne inspired a sense of intimacy in an emotionally soothing performance at the Riverside Theater.

Nick Lowe still charms and rocks at Turner Hall Ballroom

An enthusiastic audience welcomed the career singer-songwriter, who performed songs made famous by himself and others over 40 years.

The not-so-guilty pleasures of Opening Day

Different civilizations have developed all kinds of rituals for celebrating Spring but can any compare to the first day of the baseball season?

Renewable energy is good for Wisconsin and America

Opponents claim that a higher standard for renewable energy would wreck the state's economy but promoting wind and solar power creates jobs and is patriotic.

The achievement gap is a disgrace

We teach our children about consequences, but nobody is being held accountable for the failure of Milwaukee's schools.

Watching over the Pabst Brewery

Joseph Zilber and Frederick Pabst are undoubtedly together watching with great interest what will become of the prominent land just north of the county courthouse.

Joe Biden cuts to the chase

History will give Barack Obama credit for passing health care reform but the Vice President delivered the day's most colorful soundbite.

The endgame on health care reform

The nation seems divided on health care reform, but doing nothing won't make anybody happy.

Doyle calls on state businesses to spend their meeting dollars here

Whether traveling for business or pleasure, staying in Wisconsin is good for your bottom line... and the state's.

It’s time this train left the station

A regional approach to southeastern Wisconsin's transit needs makes sense. Time will tell if the state legislature agrees.

Barrett aims for the fence

Ted Bobrow sits down with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to talk about his campaign to become Wisconsin's next governor

Jobs announcements feel espléndido!

New jobs are always welcome, but these recent announcements are particularly good news.

Feingold stresses continued urgent need for health reform

The Senator says he will even support reconciliation to pass it - as long as the rules are followed

The illusory appeal of Ayn Rand

Architect Howard Roark may be a heroic figure, but he's fictional. In the real world, government has an important role to play.

Barrett brings home the silver (literally)

When your campaign theme is "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs," big announcements like this week's don't hurt.

School wars go nuclear?

The idea that we had to destroy the village to save it didn't work in Vietnam, so you wouldn't think it would work for MPS either.

Early money and going for the jugular

Fundraising is important, but campaigns are like street fights and winning is what matters most.

An inauspicious start to Black History Month

Most people would like to live in a world where race doesn't matter. In the meantime, let's open our eyes to the world as it is.

Doyle, Obama and herding cats

President Obama and Gov. Doyle are both pretty savvy politicians, but they both have their work cut out for them.

The Doyle Legacy and Tom Barrett

All eyes will be on Madison tonight for Gov. Doyle's final state of the state address and nobody has more at stake than Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Supreme Court campaign finance decision changes everything

Think campaigns are about as dirty as they can get? Think again!

Health reform takes a blow, but it ain’t dead yet

If Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown works to extend the health care program in his state (that he voted for) to the rest of the nation, reform will succeed.

GOP gets Brown; city’s sick leave ordinance gets day in court

Attorneys for the MMAC and 9 to 5 engaged in legal swordplay over the merits of Milwaukee's paid sick leave ordinance.

ISO Wisconsin’s next governor

Kind is out. The contender list is slim. Only a few appear to have the drive to remain.

Chicago schools show no improvement

Chicago school reform may not be the panacea the Obama administration would like to think it is.

City’s troubling decision to sit out sick leave appeal

Mayor Barrett earned kudos for intervening on behalf of a woman shouting for help. But his decision not to defend the city's sick leave ordinance leaves him on the sidelines of an important fight.

Suspect Charged in Barrett Assault

Anthony J. Peters has been charged with the assault on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Police have recovered an 18-inch tire iron which they believe Peters used to beat Barrett in a dumpster apparently covered with blood and gray hair.

Discovery World hosts memorial to Les Paul tomorrow

One of the Milwaukee area's most celebrated natives will be honored tomorrow when Discovery World hosts a memorial to Les Paul. Paul will "lie in repose" in a closed casket and the public is invited to pay their respects.

Mayor Barrett Says Anyone Would Have Done What He Did

A somewhat weak but typically good-natured Mayor Barrett recalled the events leading up to his Saturday night beating. "I wanted to let you know that I'm still standing," he quipped.

Barrett to hold news conference this morning

Mayor Barrett's decision to speak publicly this morning is a good sign that he is on the mend. Meanwhile, his suspected assailant's mom is putting the blame on Barrett.

He’s Baaaaack!!!

This guy comes back more often than Jason! A mid-season game between two regional rivals suddenly takes on national interest of epic proportions.

Mayor Barrett felt his life was in danger

When the assailant said he had a gun and ordered Barrett to lie face down, the mayor came up swinging. That's when the guy pulled out a metal baton and began whacking the heck out of him.

Why Doyle Won’t Run in 2010

Gov. Doyle says two terms in office are enough and pledges his decision is final. "I won't pull a Brett Favre on you."

Barrett “did the right thing”

Mayor Barrett looked pretty awful after being attacked, but he's recovering fast. He may leave the hospitial today, according to his brother, John Barrett.

Tom officially a badass

Mayor responds to cries for help; takes a beating but gets one in. Way to go, Tom! Feel better fast.

Politico.com says Doyle won’t run in 2010

Sources tell Politico.com that Dems are concerned about Jim Doyle's chances in 2010. Or maybe there's a federal appointment in his future. Brett Favre finally retired, maybe Doyle thinks his time has come too!

Barrett Denies Charge of Racism

MPS School Board President Michael Bonds charges racism but Mayor Barrett says it's all about the children...and the money.

The Other Shoe Falls on MPS

What makes a school district succeed is the quality of the people in charge, not how they are chosen. Mayoral control does not guarantee improvement, and many will assess their approval of the city's takeover of MPS based on their confidence in Tom Barrett.

Gwen Moore Hosts a Textbook Town Hall

Undoubtedly, few people who came with their minds made up were influenced to switch sides. Yet, it is gratifying that if someone did indeed show up undecided they may very well have learned something.

The Property Tax Revolt of 2010

If you think the health care reform debate is devolving into an out-of-control shouting match, just wait.

True community will always trump PR

Hundreds of neighbors mingled on a gorgeous summer evening in Riverwest's Kadish Park. But on the way home, a reminder of why nights like these are so important.

Health Care Reform Full Court Press

Barack Obama may not be much of a bowler and he didn't bring much heat at the All Star Game. But when it comes to basketball and policy, he got game. Think health care reform is in danger? I'd think again.

The Future of News

Once people get used to not paying for something, it’s hard to pry the cost of a subscription out of their penny-pinching paws.

Move On, Folks, Ain’t Nothin’ to See Here

When I found myself writing about Le Affaire Flynn/McBride last week, I promised myself that I’d return with a thoughtful reflection on why these stories are so irresistible. Then the Mark Sanford story broke and last week seems so, so long ago.

Caesar’s Wife and Jessica McBride

It didn’t take Milwaukee Magazine editor Bruce Murphy long to respond to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigative reporter Dan Bice’s story about Jessica McBride’s affair with Police Chief Edward Flynn. Murphy does a fine job of detailing why the quality of the story should not be questioned. Not a single fact has been challenged and, by all accounts, the physical relationship between Flynn and McBride didn’t begin until after the story went to press. My response to Murphy’s comments pretty much says all I want to say on the topic. Calling the overblown coverage of this incident and its effect on McBride’s reputation a “tragedy for journalism” certainly overstates the matter. Ms. McBride and Chief Flynn deserve most of the responsibility for the disrepute this brings to them both. Then again, Bice’s comment that “Reporters are forbidden from writing about individuals to whom they have strong personal ties” struck me as simplistic and wrong. All journalists develop relationships with the people they cover. The vague term “strong personal ties” calls to mind a debate over definitions made famous by Bill Clinton. The “New Journalism” of the last 40 years recognizes the fact that writers become emotionally involved with their subjects and suggests that the idea of objectivity is a lie or, at least, unrealistic. Of course, writers are expected to disclose the nature of their relationships with their subjects. Obviously, the chronology of this incident made disclosure, the ultimate defense for the interested writer, a mere afterthought. Murphy’s defense of McBride, while understandable, doesn’t take into consideration the importance of reputation for public officials, journalists and the organizations that employ them. Murphy invites readers to comment on whether or not he should consider McBride as a future contributor. Murphy clearly believes McBride is a talented writer and does not seem to feel her subsequent behavior calls her work or her ethics into question. He says he would expect her to disclose a relationship if she was asked to write about Flynn in the future. But would he assign her a piece on crime or law enforcement? Would it be sufficient to disclose her relationship or does the disclosure rule out certain topics? He’ll need to work out a policy that not only applies to McBride but staff writers and other freelancers. Most things in life aren’t black and white which is one of the reasons I named this column Gray Matter.

Won’t Someone Please Think of the Children?

Any self-respecting editor knows that a personal relationship between a writer and a subject calls the legitimacy of the story into question. And suggesting that Bruce Murphy disputed that rang untrue. I took the liberty of contacting Murphy for clarification. I sent him an email saying that I don’t much care what two consenting adults do but it seemed to me that a reporter ought to maintain a certain distance from his or her subjects or disclose the nature of any personal relationship. So what gives?

By The People, For The People?

The eyes of the world are focused on Iran where the will of the people is struggling to be heard. Here in Milwaukee the people spoke in favor of a paid sick leave mandate. So what's the difference?

Ubiquitous Obama Adjusts to Evolving Media Universe

While media mavens struggle to figure out how to earn a buck selling the news, the tsunami of changes they face also presents enormous challenges for the folks who make the news. Way back in the last century, when a president wanted to make news he simply walked into the White House Rose Garden and whatever he said was quickly fed to the nation and world via the Associated Press, The New York Times, the major broadcast and cable television networks and a handful of other major media organizations. Occasionally, if the president wanted to speak directly to the public, he would deliver an address to the nation that the networks felt obligated to broadcast live during the post-dinner hours that were quaintly referred to as primetime. But that was then. These days, fewer and fewer people are getting their news from traditional sources. The preponderance of cable news networks, internet news options and the rapid growth of news on demand offered by cellphones and PDAs make it increasingly difficult for our political leaders, not to mention all the others who are competing for our attention, to get their messages out to their desired audiences. What this means is, well, actually we really don’t know yet what this all means. But it certainly means things are changing at an incredibly rapid pace and whatever worked yesterday is out of date before the ink dries on today’s newspapers. There’s a metaphor that has probably outlived its usefulness. Clearly, President Obama has his hands full trying to control the news cycle and get his message out while dealing with a recession, fighting two wars and otherwise running the country. You have to give the guy credit; just this last week or so he managed to announce the nomination of a new Supreme Court Justice, oversee the conditions for GM to declare bankruptcy, ensure that no less than five Congressional committees are moving forward with proposals to reform the nation’s health care system, all before heading off to the Middle East to deliver a speech intended to restart America’s relationship with the world’s Islamic population. Everyone seemed to agree that candidate Obama made remarkable use of the internet during the campaign. But doesn’t that seem a long, long time ago? During his first few months in office, President Obama experimented with a few innovations such as an internet public hearing and distributing his weekly address in video on YouTube. The White House’s efforts to get its message out can sometimes take your breath away. One minute you’ve got NBC News anchor Brian Williams following Obama around for a day winning the president a delicious, fat wet kiss for two nights on the network. Then The New York Times runs a story that gushes about how effectively All The President’s Men (let’s face it, they are mostly men) are working with Congress, especially on health care reform. And you couldn’t turn on a computer the last 24 hours or so without getting invited to […]

Bronx Girl Makes Good

It’s going to be hard to demonize the girl from the Bronx projects. She went to Princeton and Yale Law, served as a prosecutor and corporate attorney, was appointed to the federal bench by the first President Bush and was elevated to the appeals court by President Clinton. Sonia Sotomayor has the kind of back story that lends itself to a delightful “Movie of the Week” portrayal.

Smoke Free Compromise Expected to Pass

The good news is that the Wisconsin legislature is likely to pass a comprehensive bill to prohibit smoking in all workplaces in the state as soon as Wednesday. Yes, that includes all bars and restaurants. The bad news is that the law won’t take effect until July 5, 2010.

The Sweet Spot of Political Speech

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was eloquent. He was inspirational, charismatic, a veritable rock star. Tens of thousands of people turned out to hear him speak at rallies here in the United States as well as abroad. Now he’s been reduced to reminding us to wash our hands and cover our mouths when we cough. Mario Cuomo famously said politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. But, truth be told, both are incredibly challenging and Obama has demonstrated, once again, that he gets it and is a master at political speech, both soaring and mundane. Then there’s Vice President Joe Biden. Joe the VP has a lot going for him but he has his Achilles heel. His tendency to speak off the cuff and stick his foot in his mouth is still getting him in trouble. Many of his diversions from approved language are humorous, trivial and occasionally truthful. While poking fun at Chief Justice Roberts’s flub following the inauguration was harmless, his claim that Obama would likely be tested during the first 100 days and the admission that the recovery plan had a less than 100 percent chance of succeeding were refreshingly honest. Yet when Biden went renegade on the Today show yesterday and claimed that he’d recommend his family stay away from confined spaces such as airplanes and subway cars, it was widely agreed that he had muddied the message of the day. White House officials were quick to clarify about what the vice president had “meant.” There is no reason for healthy people to restrict their normal activities, they said. Yet many local governments, including Milwaukee, are exercising caution by closing schools believed to be at risk of exposure. Biden deviated from the official talking points when he switched to the often tried and true perspective of parent. This can be an effective strategy to express empathy for the choices facing average voters and citizens. But Biden would have been wiser to use this strategy to bolster the party line rather than contradict it. For example, he could have said “As a father, I understand why many parents may be concerned about sending their kids to school or being anywhere in a crowd. But the risk of infection in most communities is incredibly small and we don’t see a need for changes in most normal behavior. “The take home message remains sensible steps such as routine hand washing are our best defense from infection though people with flu symptoms should stay home and not go to school or work.” So far, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Health Commissioner Bevan Baker are effectively walking this fine line. Mayor Barrett even employed the “father” card to explain why he was taking the step to close the schools. We look to our leaders for clear explanations for their actions as well as cool under pressure. During health emergencies, economic crises and other high-profile challenges, we want to know the essential facts that informed our government’s decisions as well […]

Janet Zweig ain’t Karen Finley

The breaking news from Milwaukee’s City Hall Tuesday was that the Common Council voted, by a lopsided 12-2, to approve the public art installation for E. Wisconsin Avenue designed by Janet Zweig. The tempest in a teapot didn’t boil over and Mike Brenner did not even have to resort to defecating on the lawn of any alderman who opposed the project. The threat, he says, was a conscious decision to throw fuel on the fire of the controversy to focus attention on the importance of supporting Zweig’s project. Ald. Joe Dudzik, who, along with Ald. Bob Donovan, ultimately voted against the project, went for Brenner’s bait. He left a message on Brenner’s voice mail daring the provocateur to make good on his promise, thoughtfully leaving his home address. Brenner, being the creative guy he is, recorded a remix using Dudzik’s phone message and posted it on his web site. Well, boys will be boys. Now I really have to move on from the Brenner-Dudzik, err, pissing match before you get the impression that the Zweig piece coming soon to Milwaukee’s downtown is some kind of creepy, offensive concept with the potential to embarrass our fair city. History is full of examples of high-concept art intended to shock and/or disgust, often referencing urine or feces. Who can forget Karen Finley’s creative use of chocolate or the incredibly self-indulgent Andres Serrano even going all the way back to Marcel Duchamps’s celebrated and controversial urinal of 1917. Zweig’s public art for the Instructional Technology Center, Santa Fe Community College. It invents and writes a new line of text, displayed on a mechanical “flip-disk” sign every time someone passes through. Sorry to disappoint, but Janet Zweig’s art is none-of-the-above. Janet Zweig is a Milwaukee-born artist who has built a national reputation developing the kind of interactive art that engages without offending. Take a look at the current issue of Sculpture magazine for an overwhelmingly positive examination of her work. The process that culminated in her being chosen for this project has been going on for years, at least since 2002. Milwaukee Magazine’s Bruce Murphy does a nice job of reviewing the history and, bless his soul, contextualizing the current flare-up. Zweig seems to have bent over backwards to avoid offending anybody. Her use of old-fashioned flip-disk technology, the kind associated with signs at rail stations, introduces a type of interactivity to her work that is refreshingly modern without appearing pretentious. And she plans to involve local artists and others in the work as a clever way to return some of the funds to the community. The lion’s share of the $300,000 cost is coming from the federal government and the $60,000 city contribution goes exclusively to local folks. Hard to find anything to complain about, right? Well, not so fast. I’m not an expert on art but my gripe with the proposal is that it doesn’t appear to be public enough. As engaging as the concept seems, I believe that one strength of the […]

Abrahamson and Evers, Don’t Leave it to Chance

If you’re reading this, you probably know that there is an election in Wisconsin next Tuesday. Turnout for these Spring elections tends to be notoriously low which is never a good thing for democracy. Yet the candidates for the two statewide races present critical differences in experience and philosophy and the choices that voters make will have an enormous impact on Wisconsin’s future. We will select someone to serve on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court for a ten-year term and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction who will guide state oversight of education for the next four years. Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson is a nationally respected jurist who deserves reelection. Her tenure on the court has set a standard for judicial excellence, not only in terms of her decisions but also for her administrative acumen which has expanded openness and efficiency. Her opponent is an unabashed conservative who is asking for your support based on his ideology. This is the third year in a row that the voters are being asked to choose between two very different candidates for a seat on the state’s highest court. Conservatives and business groups have succeeded in the past two, more egregiously last year when Michael Gableman engaged in an ethically challenged, despicable campaign to defeat incumbent Louis Butler. Gableman’s defense to the charges he faces about the distortions in his ads is that the First Amendment protects political advertisements as free speech. It’s not very reassuring when a judge sitting on the Wisconsin Supreme Court claims that the Constitution gives him the right to say anything he wants regardless of its truth or any ethical standard set by a judicial commission. But it shouldn’t be necessary to rehash the elections of the past when discussing Shirley Abrahamson. She has earned your vote. And then there’s the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction between longtime education professional Tony Evers and another ideologue, Rose Fernandez. Evers has served as a teacher and administrator for decades and has helped improve the working relationship between the state and local school districts. Fernandez has no experience in education other than as a supporter for alternatives to public education. She also wants to replace Milwaukee’s elected school board with an appointed board. If you care about public education, especially in Milwaukee, the choice is clear. Vote for Tony Evers. There are also local court and school board elections that deserve your attention. So get out and vote on April 7th. Your vote matters especially during the low turnout Spring election.

The Yin and Yang of Economic Recovery

It was like a week-long stimulus package for political junkies. First, President Obama’s appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show made him the first sitting president to appear on a late night talk show. Not really a historic event of epic proportions but Jay’s ratings spiked and that accounts for something. Then the president’s 60 Minutes interview, his second in two months, provided him with another platform to take his message directly to the American people. This kind of audience isn’t something to be taken lightly but he still wasn’t done. By the time of his Tuesday night primetime news conference, also his second since taking office, even strong supporters were wondering if Obama was risking overexposure. Yet today, Obama is on the internet responding to questions from the public. The president appears to be one of the nation’s greatest sources of renewable energy, outdoing even that tiresome cartoon rabbit as he keeps going and going and going. Drawing on FDR’s successful fireside chat strategy but updating it for the 21st century, Obama seems to combine the legendary communications skills of Ronald Reagan with the policy acumen of Bill Clinton. Clinton was good at appearing at ease and in control of the facts but Obama’s performance is in a class all by itself. He makes mistakes, for sure, but even an East German judge would award him at least a 9.7 given the degree of difficulty. Few people actually understand the intricacies of the financial system, let alone know how to fix it. But we expect our leaders to. We judge them on the critical measures of competence, confidence and commitment, and Obama has earned high grades on all three. During the campaign, Obama was often labeled as a rock star and John McCain tried to make this into a negative. But we want to be infatuated by our leaders as long as they also demonstrate the energy and ability to attend to our needs. Obama’s greatest strength has been his ability to walk this fine line; inspiring while occasionally chastising, showing intelligence without appearing wonkish, and working hard enough to appear focused without appearing to strain under the pressure. I know it’s only been two months but we live in a society with little patience. Some people on the right and the left made up their mind about Obama a long time ago and probably won’t change under almost any eventuality. But the president’s popularity and, to a great extent, his success will depend on the response of the critical mass in the middle. It is way too early to assess the success or failure of the Obama presidency. But on the critical metric of public confidence you have to give the guy credit. He seems in charge, he seems to have a plan and he seems to be up to the challenge. The naysayers are apoplectic about how much debt the federal government is amassing. Well, duh! But Obama has not been blind to this problem and has returned time […]

More Work To Do

Barack Obama won by applying solid community organizing fundamentals to a national campaign. He built an extremely loyal and disciplined network of staff and volunteers, developed an extraordinarily smart strategy and rode the combination all the way to the White House. Wisely, he is now applying those principles to help ensure that his national agenda gets the grassroots support it needs to succeed. Mobilizing the Obama nation in support of his budget and his agenda is a no-brainer. Developing grassroots organizations to advance real change locally is equally important and shouldn’t be overlooked. Energy? Education? Health care? Jobs? What happens locally matters! It really, really matters! Governor Doyle, very much like President Obama, has seized on the challenging economic environment to include ambitious yet responsible, forward-looking yet, dare I say, necessary reforms in his proposed state budget. And critics, just like the ones opposed to the President’s budget, are complaining that the budget process isn’t the right way to advance a policy agenda. Well, it seems to me that such an argument is the last refuge of a minority party. Disagree with a particular proposal? State your case and make your argument. But the budget process is exactly the right time to ensure government is doing the things it should be doing. We certainly know that obstructionists have used the budget process to block things they oppose. So let the debate begin and let it be public and lively. The state legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance will be in town to hear what you have to say next Wednesday. Is there something in the proposed budget that you love or hate? Here’s an opportunity to be heard. My personal favorite is the proposed ban on smoking in workplaces. It’s about time Wisconsin workers didn’t have to risk their health by showing up on the job. And there’s no doubt that reducing tobacco’s impact will result in real savings in health care costs so don’t tell me this doesn’t belong in the budget. And here in Milwaukee my attention is riveted by the proposed MORE jobs ordinance. This common sense proposal would extend hiring standards to include developers who receive more than $1 million in financial support from the city. In other words, if developers are going to accept handouts from city taxpayers they damn well better be willing to hire a certain percentage of qualified city workers and pay them the prevailing wage appropriate to that job category. The opponents apparently believe in corporate welfare without any strings attached. I like what the New York Post had to say about the AIG mess; “Not So Fast, You Greedy Bastards!” Interestingly, the Common Council is expected to take up the MORE proposal on the same day as the local Joint Finance hearing. So I’ll be rushing to State Fair Park after raising the flag at City Hall. So that’s my two cents for today. By all means, let’s support the President’s national agenda but let’s also show that we care about what […]

Follow the money

When the economy entered its freefall towards the end of 2008, nearly every economist agreed that a vast infusion of government spending was necessary to avoid a catastrophic meltdown such as the nation hasn’t seen since the Great Depression. In a democracy like ours, that meant getting something like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 through both houses of Congress and signed by the President. Nobody can be completely satisfied by the sausage making-like process that goes into the drafting, negotiating and passing of a $787 billion piece of legislation. Ask the great economic and political minds of our day the following questions and no consensus emerges. Is it too much or too little? Does it have too many or too few tax breaks? Is it going to create enough jobs right away or is too much of the spending going to roll out in 2010 or later? Is the money going for things that we really need or have our political leaders used this opportunity to push through pet projects? A whole bevy of mainstream media prognosticators, bloggers all across the ideological spectrum and assorted navel-gazers have weighed in but the truth is nobody really knows. True to form, Joe the Vice President once again violated the First Commandment of political discourse when he deviated from his talking points and suggested that there’s about a 30 percent chance that this will fail. Given the uncertainty most of us are feeling about the economy, a 70 percent chance of success sounds pretty good to me. When dealing with something this complicated, does anyone actually expect a 100 percent chance of success? As we’ve come to expect, President Obama has found just the right terminology to describe the stimulus package. It’s not whether it is too big or too small, too liberal or too conservative, what counts is whether it works.  Inaction was not an option and this package is what emerged from this very complicated and somewhat ugly process. One element of the stimulus package that is probably getting too little attention is the decision to turn much of the money over to states and cities to spend as they see fit. Arguably, this was seen as the most efficient and least controversial option but it isn’t without its problems. The mad rush for the money reminds me of the classic cinematic celebration of a certain search for a big “W.” As Mayor Barrett put it in his State of the City address, the money is going to be spent somewhere so he’s going to do everything he can to make sure a good portion is spent addressing Milwaukee’s needs. Now you have to admire Gov. Doyle and Barrett for their aggressive advocacy on behalf of their constituents in pursuing these federal dollars. And you have to wonder about the sanity, principled or otherwise, of Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker who opposed accepting stimulus dollars because he thought it should have all gone for tax cuts. You also have to […]

The State of the City

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett scored points by choosing the new Harley-Davidson museum as the setting for his State of the City address last month. The terrific new building, on the edge of the Menomonee Valley, served as an ideal backdrop for Barrett’s speech. Barrett is understandably proud of the progress made in redeveloping the valley. For years, this industrial corridor has been a festering sore symbolic of the economic and environmental damage left by Milwaukee’s manufacturing past.

What Would Ebenezer Do?

Nobody likes it when somebody tells them what to do so I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the business community is throwing a hissy fit over the new Milwaukee sick leave law. But the truth is that the local chapter of the 9 to 5 organization played by the rules and collected enough signatures to place the proposal before the Common Council. Then, also according to the rules, the council had the choice of either passing the proposal or submitting it to referendum (which they did). The City Attorney determined that the proposal was legal and, on November 5th, the voters overwhelmingly supported the fairly modest proposal. So, beginning next month, large employers in Milwaukee will be required to offer nine sick days a year to fulltime employees (smaller firms will need to offer five days) and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and others are yelling that the sky is falling. Do you think I’m exaggerating? Well I don’t think there’s any other way to describe it when the MMAC director of government affairs Steve Bass refers to the new law as “terrorism.” In other words, when a democratic process requires employers to treat their workers compassionately, then it’s the same as murdering innocent civilians. With all due respect, Mr. Bass, take your head out of your ass and learn to choose your words more carefully. Now some concerns about this sick leave requirement deserve to be addressed. Some say that the cost to employers is excessive and may discourage new businesses from locating in Milwaukee and may even drive existing ones to close or move. I say, I doubt it. Let’s see the evidence. It certainly didn’t have that kind of effect on the other two cities where it has been in place for several years. But a clearly ridiculous argument, undoubtedly thought up by some high-priced attorney looking for a weakness in the law, suggests that requiring sick leave deprives employers and their workers of the right to negotiate benefits. That’s right, a sick leave mandate obstructs workers rights. George Orwell, meet MMAC President Tim Sheehy. I don’t think even Scrooge would have come up with that argument. Reminds me of the GM, Chrysler and Ford CEOs flying in to Washington, DC on separate private jets to ask for a bailout. Do you somehow lose your common sense when you get paid with stock options? Even Frank Capra couldn’t make this stuff up. And, as if to add insult to injury, this imbroglio happened to break out during the holiday season when we are all supposed to be thinking about the needy and appreciating the message of a holy man who lived 2000 years ago. What am I thinking? Christmas is about getting presents and stimulating the economy. Duh! I guess that Wise Guy was on to something when he said “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the […]

Riders on the Earth Together

Watching Brett from Baghdad

New York Times Baghdad bureau chief James Glanz has filed a wonderful first-person report on watching the Jets-Bills game last Sunday from a war zone. It turns out Glanz has rooted for the Packers his entire life; his dad covered the team for a Madison television station. So, amazingly, he uses the piece to approach the question of what Brett Favre is doing playing for the Jets, not as an expert or even a sports journalist but as a fan. He compares the sensation of watching football from Iraq to what it must feel like to observe life on Earth from Mars. Glanz shares the experience of explaining football to an Iraqi soccer-loving colleague whose cell phone keeps ringing with requests for help understanding the shoe-throwing at President Bush incident. It’s a great read. And now for something completely different. By now you’ve probably heard that Caroline Kennedy is being considered for the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton. Nobody’s asked me, but I’m all for it. Perhaps it’s appropriate that I disclose my close, personal relationship with Miss Kennedy. One of my earliest memories was seeing pictures of Caroline and John, Jr. when they were kids living in the White House. As young as we were (you see we are virtually the same age), I realized then and there that Caroline and I would be married some day. Caroline Kennedy was my first crush. Things haven’t quite worked out as I imagined back then. She ended up marrying some milquetoast named Edwin Schlossberg. Edwin Schlossberg? So our paths may have diverged but I haven’t forgotten about her. I’d notice when she’d turn up on television promoting a book or stepping up to the plate to address the challenges facing the New York City school system. (I have the greatest respect for Sr. Joel Read but she ain’t no Caroline Kennedy!) And my thoughts were with her when her brother died so tragically in that plane crash in 1999. That left her as the sole keeper of the Camelot flame and I knew we’d hear more from her in time. I know that some will protest that she hasn’t the credentials to step into such an important office. What nonsense! Like her mother and much of the rest of her family, she has been extremely active in public affairs though without the high profile normally associated with political candidates. Her books, including variations on her father’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Profiles in Courage,” show her high regard for public service and her management of the Kennedy image demonstrates the gravitas and political savvy that bode well for her ability to serve the Empire State. Fare thee well, sweet Caroline, for I harbor nothing but good wishes for you. And if you happen to tire of that Schlossberg guy, give me a holler!

Get Off the Damn Couch

One of the most refreshing, unusual and effective aspects of the Obama campaign was its ability to convince an incredible number of regular people that they had a personal investment in his election. Every campaign relies on committed volunteers and every candidate builds networks of supporters, contributors and true believers. But the Obama phenomenon took this to an unprecedented level, partly through creative use of the internet, partly by providing real opportunities for more people than ever by building an incredibly effective grassroots network, and, most significantly, by convincingly making his campaign about engaging citizens in the political process. Time and time again, the Obama campaign drilled home the message that his election was going to change the way government works. It wasn’t just about him, it was about us. Well the election is over and now we’ll find out how that’s going to work. Normally, it’s easy to be cynical and figure that that the status quo is going to win out again. But you’ve got to hand it to the Obama transition for making good on candidate Obama’s promise, so far. The Obama transition has provided lots of opportunities for people to get involved and be heard. But, truthfully, I have confidence that President-elect Obama has a better understanding of what it’s going to take to reform Washington than most of us in the vineyards. What I am most excited about is the potential for the legions of us who were caught up in the excitement of this promise to get to work on the local needs we face in our community. We can no longer show up on election day and leave it up to our elected officials in Washington, Madison or City Hall to figure things out. We need to claim our rightful place, our necessary place at the table. The Obama organization is asking its supporters to get together in living rooms across the country this weekend and get started. Believe me, this can get messy and it probably will. One of the great advantages of the Obama campaign was its laser focus on one goal, electing a president. The question we will all face in these living room sessions is, “Where do we start?” Well the answer is “Somewhere.” Let’s face it, here in Milwaukee there is no shortage of problems. We need more jobs, our school system is failing an unconscionable number of students, and our society’s safety net programs are letting too many children and families slip through. Here’s where that great American idea of a free market comes into play. Let’s see what happens when the concept applies to how we want to fix our communities. We may not have all the answers but we can certainly bring imagination and commitment to the process and get started. So don’t put it off. The time is now. Get off the damn couch and let’s get started.

Needy, Truly Needy and the Downright Greedy

So the feeding frenzy has begun. What do you expect? When the federal government announces that it’s willing to spend as much as a trillion dollars there’s going to be a lot of folks lining up with ways to put that money to good use. You know what I’m reminded of? Remember how, after last spring’s floods, people lined up at the Coggs Center on Vliet when word got out that food stamp benefits were being handed out? Remember how certain voices on the right clucked what a shame it was that these lazy, poor people were looking for handouts? Well look who’s got their hands out now? Once again, let me be very clear. There is a role for government to take steps to stimulate the economy. But I hope someone is giving thought to how to generate good, family-supporting jobs and match them with the people who need them. After all, the opportunity to get your hands on free money has been getting people in trouble for a long, long time. Just look at that highly damning indictment against the current Illinois governor. Careful, though, cause this Blagojevich dude (and his wife) are caught using some salty language. When will they learn? I mean haven’t they all seen It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World? It’s bleeping hilarious.

Masters of the Universe

The CEOs of the Big Three American automakers are returning to Capitol Hill clearly chastened by the lashing they took two weeks ago. Back then, they apparently expected easy access to a mere fraction of the $700 billion Congress has authorized to rescue the nation’s economy during this financial crisis. One can understand their reasoning. After all, the collapse of their companies would put not only their own employees out of work but would have a devastating effect on their suppliers and thousands of other businesses. Yet their failure to appreciate Congress’s distaste for bailing them out and their inability to predict the public relations disaster that would result from arriving in separate corporate jets make you wonder if these guys should be trusted running a car dealership in Sheboygan. Nobody wants to see more people out of work. And I certainly don’t want to see labor contracts that provided job security and health and pension benefits held up as the whipping horse responsible for the Big Three’s downfall. The idea behind those labor agreements, despite the need for some common sense reforms, should serve as models rather than dismissed as a symptom of poor management. Experts tell us that the immediate challenge facing our economy, including the carmakers, is the sudden evaporation of credit and the Big Three certainly have assets that can be used as collateral for the loans they seek. But the image problem facing the bozos in charge on Wall Street and Detroit cannot be so easily addressed. Once again the curtain has been pulled to reveal these so-called “Masters of the Universe” who earn millions of dollars a year while driving their businesses into the ground. Do you remember “Bonfire of the Vanities,” the Tom Wolfe novel that poked fun at the go-go economy of the 1980s. The book was made into a not-so-well-received movie featuring Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks and Melanie Griffith in 1990 and many may feel that the story hasn’t aged well. Well I’ve got news for you. The powerful message of the book, just as relevant as ever, is that the American Dream isn’t about working hard and living within your means. That’s for chumps who can get laid off without warning or justification. The American Dream is about making a killing, either through luck, like with a lottery ticket or at the casino, or, more venally, by manipulating the system like the Michael Millkens, Jeffrey Skillings and Ken Lays of recent memory. Of course, the trick is to avoid having one’s cover blown, either through government investigation, scandal or coincidence. Because there’s nothing the public enjoys more than watching one of the privileged few get their comeuppance. That’s the power of the Fourth Estate. It can be noble and lead to the unveiling of corruption and other crimes or it can be petty and exploitative, like watching a celebrity go through the humiliation of a perp walk. So enjoy the bread and circuses as the mighty are held accountable. Hopefully, […]

The Bruce Bowl???

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so, of course, our thoughts naturally turn to … FOOTBALL! Understandably, most Packers fans are in a state of shock following the whupping the team took from the New Orleans Saints in the very same stadium which was the site of the team’s Super Bowl win way back in 1997. Now I really don’t want to dredge up the angst of the Brett Favre controversy of last summer. Really, I don’t. But as a lifelong fan of the New York Jets I just have to say that I am deliriously excited about that team’s prospects this year with Mr. Favre under center. Let me be clear that I root for the Packers and have been very disappointed by their performance this season. Aaron Rodgers has played very well, especially considering the enormous pressure placed on his shoulders by the team’s management. It isn’t often that a 13-3 team is turned over to an unproven young quarterback when a hall of fame caliber one is still healthy and capable of playing. In fact, as I’ve said before, how thrilling would it be for the Packers and Jets to have faced each other in this year’s Super Bowl? But that’s unlikely to happen. At 5-6, the Packers are going to struggle to even make the playoffs. Now bear with me as I raise the possibility of an extremely unlikely scenario that could only happen while I live here in Wisconsin. It now appears possible that the Giants and Jets, two New York teams who play in New Jersey, might actually meet in the Super Bowl. It couldn’t be called the Subway Bowl, unless the sandwich shop decided to pony up a whole bunch of dollars. The Turnpike Bowl, maybe or the Garden State Bowl, perhaps. Then again, Jersey purists might argue that fans in southern New Jersey are among those crazed fans of the Eagles and they might want no part of such a contest. Yet with the Great Bruce Springsteen scheduled to entertain during halftime one must admit there would be something special about a contest between the Jets and the Giants. It would amount to a rematch between Brett Favre and Eli Manning that would appeal to even the biggest Aaron Rodgers fan among the hardcore Packer Nation. So I submit to you now, for your consideration, that if the Packers fail to make a run for the Super Bowl that you might join me in rooting for such a rematch that we’ll just call The Bruce Bowl.

Outing a Bully

It’s a truth many of us learned on the playgrounds of our youth: nobody reacts to criticism worse than a bully. So it’s no surprise that conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes responded to a negative article in the December issue of Milwaukee Magazine with a longwinded, sniveling diatribe that leaves the reader wondering why a guy who makes a living attacking people is so damn thin-skinned. To anyone who listens to the Sykes show on WTMJ-AM, or any of the formulaic right wing radio talk shows, much of the criticism outlined by the station’s former news director seems fairly obvious. Sykes, Mark Belling on WISN-AM and their ilk carefully select topics designed to stir up anger in their predominantly conservative audiences. They seek stories that confirm their world views and look for people to vilify. These could be public officials, bureaucrats, parents, school administrators and run-of-the-mill average citizens. Anyone, really, who provides them with the opportunity to demonize government and show how our hard-earned tax dollars are wasted. And, as Dan Shelley says in the article, Sykes is obviously very bright and very good at what he does. Sometimes Sykes can be very entertaining. He engages in a kind of verbal ju-jitsu that takes the inert energy from the many absurd stories generated by newspapers and elsewhere and builds it into an inflammatory narrative designed to entertain and anger his listeners. I get it and I can actually enjoy listening to it, in small doses, as I do Lewis Black and Dave Chappelle. But what bothers me is how manipulative he can be when dealing with listeners who call in. Those who agree with him are treated with kid gloves; they are thoughtful, insightful, clever. Callers who disagree with him are broken down in two categories. The inarticulate or weak ones are dangled as useful foils who give him the opportunity to throw the sarcastic jabs and belittling blows to diminish the caller. The brighter, more effective and persuasive callers with contrary opinions are quickly dispatched with a “thank you for your call.” It’s a cowardly tactic quite typical of the playground bully. Belling engages in a different tactic that accomplishes the same result; he raises his voice at callers and belittles them to the point you wonder why anyone would ever listen to this jerk. In fairness, it must be pointed out that Belling seems to yell at everyone but in the world of talk radio there are significant gradations to screaming. It’s also revealing (and disturbing) that Sykes is given his platform by Journal Communications Inc., which owns the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WTMJ-TV and WTMJ-AM. Sykes regularly attacks the newspaper as a part of the liberal media though the same company pays his salary and profits from his success. Sykes is also given a platform on television every Sunday morning through a show that purports to be public affairs programming. He surrounds himself with mostly like-minded fellow travelers from conservative media as well as a token, usually […]

Whither Hillary?

I may be wrong but I don’t think Barack Obama will choose Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State. For one thing, during the campaign they took significantly different positions on foreign policy; from her vote for the Iraq War to the wisdom of meeting with bad guy foreign leaders to going after bin Laden in Pakistan. Then there was how she inflated her role as First Lady being sent to hotspots around the globe. Then there’s the Problem with Bill. The former president is already an extraordinary diplomatic resource of cosmic proportions; traveling around the globe on behalf of his foundation, he is able to meet with state leaders and serve as an emissary, if asked. Hillary’s Foggy Bottom appointment would require some restraint on 42 (good luck with that) and I’m not sure that serves our nation’s best interests or Obama’s. Then there’s the Biden factor. Surely, Joe the Veep was brought on board to make use of his extensive experience on the world stage. It’s hard to imagine two egos the size of Biden’s and Clinton’s effectively sharing responsibility for advising the new president on all things foreign. My guess is that Hillary would be a much better choice as Health and Human Services Secretary, following in the footsteps of two prominent Badgers, Tommy Thompson and Donna Shalala. Both Obama and Clinton promised health care reform during their campaigns. Nobody knows this issue better than Hillary and she has already been rebuffed from leading the effort in the Senate by Edward Kennedy who intends to champion it himself as long as he’s drawing breath. And way too much was made of the difference between Clinton’s proposal and Obama’s. Clearly, the children’s mandate proposed by Obama would be a lot easier to pass than the universal mandate endorsed by Clinton. But nothing will happen unless Obama undertakes an Olympian effort in collaboration with Congress. Hillary and Bill tried to ram their proposal down the throats of Kennedy, Pat Moynihan, Dan Rostenkowski, George Mitchell and other Lions of Congress which was the main reason the effort failed miserably. Everything Hillary Clinton has done since 1994 demonstrates that she learned this important lesson. She has become extremely engaged in the art of legislative compromise and could be a valuable leader in this effort. In addition, children’s issues are near and dear to her heart and the HHS position would provide her with a platform to develop and implement new initiatives that could improve the lives of millions of young people. It might seem as a step down for someone of her stature and some of her supporters might see it as an insult. But she is savvy enough to know the HHS position would provide her with an ideal platform to develop a legacy that could last for generations. Not a bad deal for her and the country.

The Morning After

So the Obama girls will get a puppy. And the nation gets to celebrate. Barack Obama’s astonishing victory was the result of a nearly flawless, extremely well-run campaign. He assembled a talented, loyal and disciplined team around him who planned and implemented a remarkably effective strategy based on a message of change and hope, and built a grassroots organization all across the country around a candidate who believed that voters would support someone who displayed leadership qualities including intelligence, poise and maturity. And it worked. John McCain delivered an excellent concession speech, praising the new president-elect, pledging his support, and calling for unity in this time of challenge. Obama’s acceptance speech was appropriately somber, leaving the joyful hosannas to others while keeping his focus on the hard work ahead. So the long, long campaign is over. But the hard work of governing is just beginning. Let’s take a brief moment to reflect on the significance of this election. Much has been said about how historic it is that our nation will have it’s first African American president. No question. However, what might be even more consequential, especially to the community of nations that looks to us to set an example, is that we have held an orderly if rambunctious election that has resulted in a change in the party in power during a time of war. This democracy stuff can be a messy but wonderful thing. You will recall the contentious 2000 election sent a similar message when the outcome took weeks and a Supreme Court decision to get resolved. Remember how proud we were that the conflict ended peacefully, even if we weren’t so happy with that outcome? Let’s hope this time turns out better for the country and the world. One of the key local challenges will be to build upon the awesome organization that was created in support of candidate Obama. People turned out in droves to contribute their time and energy to elect someone they believed in. It will be difficult to maintain this organization without a specific focus or goal. But that’s our responsibility and there is no shortage of needs on the local scene. The overwhelming support of the sick leave referendum by voters in the city of Milwaukee despite the opposition of Mayor Barrett and the business community is an exciting example of the potential of such a people power movement. I find this recent trend by our political leaders to pass the buck on the pressing issues of our day by asking voters to tell them what to do through referendum to be very disturbing and cowardly. If you run for office, you are asking voters to place their confidence in you. Earn your salary by making those decisions or get out of the way and let someone else do it. One of the dangers of government through referendum is that voters may not take the time to analyze issues and may be susceptible to well-funded ad campaigns. Fortunately, the sick leave […]

The Finish Line

In case you haven’t heard, next Tuesday is Election Day when our nation will choose its next President. This is no time for complacency and each campaign is struggling mightily to turn out its supporters and maintain a full court press through this last week. Here in Wisconsin we are truly fortunate to have the option of early voting. There is every reason to believe that turnout will break all records and exceed 70 percent which would truly be a magnificent thing. So it may prove to be a great timesaver to vote early. The Obama campaign has built an admirable organization here but there is still work to be done and volunteer shifts to be filled. Nobody wants to wake up Wednesday morning and regret not doing more. So step up to the plate, Wisconsin, and volunteer to get out the vote. Visit www.wi.barackobama.com to sign up and let’s get this done. Also, I encourage you to check out the clever video that was produced by the Obama campaign to motivate Milwaukee voters to turn out and vote for the Democrat. It has some fun with a 2004 quote by Sen. McCain when he said he wouldn’t want to live in Milwaukee. It’s entertaining and amusing (though I could have lived without the image of a certain statue holding an Obama sign). So, by all means, vote. Vote early, Vote on Election Day. Whatever. Just vote. It’s good for what ails ya.

Wisconsin as a battlegound

Lots of people are assuming that Barack Obama has wrapped up Wisconsin. Certainly the polls suggest that Obama has a safe lead here and the fact that the Republican Party has stopped spending money on television ads here reinforce that impression. But, as we all know, the only poll that matters is the one on Election Day and we really don’t know how this will end. With that in mind, I call your attention to a video developed by the Washington Post capturing some of the diverse opinions and attitudes here in Wisconsin. It’s more than eight minutes long but I think you’ll find it as captivating as I did. The focus is on race and whether it will confound the results predicted by the polls. What I found most compelling about this video was the broad disparity of beliefs and attitudes across our state. Not that it should come as a surprise but it still makes your jaw drop. So, in a democracy, anything can happen when people go and vote. That’s why our system of government is so attractive and so difficult. You have to pay attention and take action. And that’s why that other guy from Illinois who ran for president called our country “the last, best hope of earth.” Lincoln’s words, quoted out of context, seem to reek of nationalistic hubris. But when you read the text of Lincoln’s speeches, especially the greatest one of all, his Second Inaugural Address, you can’t help but sense his humility and respect for every individual, friend or foe. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” I mean does it get any better than that? Roger Johnson in The New Statesman, draws an interesting contrast between the evocation of Lincoln’s words in Obama’s speeches and the repeated references to Ronald Reagan by John McCain and Sarah Palin. Kind of makes you think. And then there’s this analysis of Lincoln by Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago from 2002. Check out this concluding passage: More than a hundred years later, there is no point in hoping for another Abraham Lincoln. But one may hope that we have not entirely forgotten the possibilities of political and moral leadership that he exemplified. Wow. From 2002! So, remember, it’s a democracy. Who do you want as your president? And, finally, here’s a little comic relief. Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles has a little fun with the McCain campaign’s use of robocalls. Only 11 days left. Make sure you vote.

Imagine a More Just Milwaukee

Go ahead. Take a few seconds and give it some thought. If you had a magic wand and could do anything you wanted, how would you change Milwaukee to make it a better place to live, work and raise a family? Better schools? More jobs? Improved transit? More statues of fictional characters? We all have our ideas about how to improve our city. We talk about it all the time. And that’s okay. It’s good to talk about things we care about. But you know what? Just talking about it isn’t going to change a damn thing. We’d all like to think that simply voting on Election Day and paying our taxes will be enough to insure that all of our community’s needs are taken care of. Well I’ve got news for you. It ain’t. So do something. Anything. Want to see better schools but don’t know where to start? Confused by all the news reports that say MPS schools are underfunded or riddled with waste? Here’s an idea. Wherever you live, there’s a school near by. Stop by or call and get contact information for the PTA (that’s Parent Teacher Association for those of you who just arrived on this planet). Chances are they’ll have an idea or two about what you can do to help. Mentor a student. Help raise some money. Donate some materials. Whatever. You’ll be doing something concrete and you’ll feel better for it. Need other ideas? Visit Volunteer Milwaukee and look at all the local opportunities to make a difference. Don’t want to do it alone? Well here’s a suggestion. MICAH is holding its annual public meeting tonight to recruit members and solicit ideas about improving our community. MICAH stands for Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope. It’s a whole bunch of folks who believe that God helps those who help themselves. Yes it’s a faith-based organization but it’s open to everyone who cares about our city. Are you tired of religion being used as a cudgel of intolerance and divisiveness? Come and see how people of all faiths can join together to do something constructive. After all, whatever you believe, you gotta believe there’s strength in numbers. So check out MICAH’s public meeting tonight at 6 pm at St. Adalbert Catholic Church, 1923 W. Becher Street. As they used to say, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” It’s really that simple.

Is That All You Got?

The third and final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama last night was certainly the most spirited and entertaining yet. As promised, McCain was combative and sought to pin the label of tax and spend Democrat on his rival. But if McCain’s supporters were looking for a transcendent performance from their guy that would resuscitate his flailing campaign they were disappointed. McCain threw a steady stream of jabs at Obama but few found their mark. Obama responded with poise and confidence deflecting McCain’s charges effectively. On the economy, on health care, on taxes, on abortion, and on the negative campaign, Obama was in control of the facts and gained points for appearing more calm and decorous. McCain seemed to want to show anger without losing his temper and at times it seemed that his head was about to explode. His decision to use Joe the Plumber as a foil to call attention to Obama’s faults backfired. Under President Obama, Joe’s business would not face a tax increase if it generated less than a quarter of million dollars in profit. On health care, Joe’s small business would be exempt from facing higher costs. When McCain tried to appeal directly to Joe by sarcastically calling him rich, he actually supported Obama’s point. Hey, Joe, if you’re making $250,000, you are rich. Our nation is fighting two wars, facing a trillion dollar budget deficit and an economy in a tailspin. So hitch your belt up a notch and stop whining. Your country is just asking you to pay your fair share. Time and time again, McCain’s attempts to stick his finger in Obama’s eye left him appearing petulant and desperate. Meanwhile, Obama remained calm, almost Zen-like, and used McCain’s charges to make the point that the American people wanted to hear real answers to their problems and not the same, tired political attacks. On PBS’s Charlie Rose Show, Washington journalist Al Hunt somewhat inaccurately compared the debate to the classic boxing matches between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier recalling that Ali withstood the wrath of Frazier’s blows. Actually, what made the fights legendary was that both fighters threw mighty punches at each other and were remarkably well-matched. It reminded me more of the time when a fight broke out during a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox several years ago. Yankee bench coach Don Zimmer came storming out of the dugout and charged at Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez clearly determined to send a message to the much younger man. Martinez took Zimmer by the shoulders and let his own energy drop him to the ground. Obama seems at the top of his game with a sharpness of intellect, apparent limitless energy and infectious joie de vivre that makes it obvious that this is his time. Don’t take my word for it. Have a look at this video where Obama urges Wisconsinites to vote early and see for yourself. I know sports analogies make some people […]

Game, Set and …

Now hold on. You are not going to hear me say that this election is over. Sure every national poll has Barack Obama ahead and Real Clear Politics has Obama leading McCain in the all important Electoral College competition 313-158 (with 67 up for grabs). The latest poll here in Wisconsin has Obama ahead by 17 points and he’s leading in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, and even Virginia. But three weeks can be a lifetime in politics. Polls have proven to be wrong before, the race issue simmers under the radar screen and angry partisans are calling on John McCain and Sarah Palin to go after Barack Obama with everything they got. The overwhelming evidence does, of course, suggest that Obama is going to win on November 4th. Obama has run an exemplary campaign that built an effective grassroots movement while maintaining a disciplined and focused national organization. The candidate has energized young people unlike anything we have seen since Eugene McCarthy while conveying competence and confidence that appealed to all demographics. Also, national and world events seem to be conspiring in Obama’s favor. Even McCain supporters acknowledge that the more the economy dominates the election, the better it is for Obama. And dominate it has. The catastrophic events that have decimated Wall Street have altered the political landscape overwhelming the Iraq War, health care, and everything else. And, of course, McCain has failed to respond effectively to this barrage of challenges. His selection of Palin as a running mate briefly rejuvenated his campaign by finally giving the Republican base something to cheer. But that bump was short-lived as the economic crisis exploded and Palin’s appeal did McCain little good with independents and undecided voters. Despite all this, I do not wish to engage in a premature post mortem of the election. There are still 21 days left and no one can predict with certainty how this thing will end up. But there are a handful of things that need to be said at this juncture. First, GOTV is all important. All of the fundraising and ads and lawn signs and bumper stickers and office openings and coffees don’t amount to a hill of beans unless folks get out and vote. Again, the Obama campaign appears well-positioned to run an effective GOTV operation with all those offices and volunteers but time will tell. Second, whoever wins will need to launch a Herculean effort to bring our nation together following the election. Remember George W. Bush’s pledge to return civility to Washington? Even he admitted, to Bob Woodward, that he failed at that goal. And it can’t just be lip service or window dressing. Sure, anyone can appoint some likable character from the other party to the new cabinet. The need is for a drastic reconfiguring of the way things are done in Washington, substantively and stylistically. Both Obama and McCain seem to recognize this. It doesn’t just appear in their talking points; it seems imbedded in their DNA. Can […]

Sometime’s a Pie’s Just a Pie

It’s Sunday morning and I’ve got one eye on the public affairs programming while I’m getting caught up on the morning news online. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace just failed miserably to maintain decorum between McCain spokesperson Rick Davis and Obama uber flack David Axelrod. Come on, guys, let each other finish. Davis was the aggressor, taking every opportunity to shout over Axelrod. But Axelrod did not employ the proven tactic of simply shouting back “May I finish?” when faced with this kind of interruption. And Wallace just sheepishly grinned as the two combatants yelled at each other leaving viewers unable to understand either. Great television, it wasn’t. Meanwhile, over on CBS Sunday Morning, I caught Steve Hartman’s report on the two Milwaukee-area 50-year-old guys who fulfilled their pledge to each other back in college to do something really wacky when they hit AARP-membership age. They had a pie fight. How silly and how sweet (though the pies were made of shaving not whipped cream). Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer Jim Stingl first reported this hilarity last month so let’s give credit where credit is due. My search on YouTube failed to turn up any other footage of the Milwaukee festivities but it did lead me to some other variations on the theme. Any discussion of pie fights must, of course, pay tribute to The Three Stooges. Their humor doesn’t do much for me but this routine is a classic. And I also was intrigued to find a remarkable bit of soft porn packaged as an underwear ad. I’m not sure if it’s witty or puerile. I guess, to paraphrase Wallace’s employer, I report, you decide. But wait there’s more. Apparently there was a remake of the old Gilligan’s Island show on TBS that employed the device in an ad entitled “Ginger vs. Mary Ann.” Now I know I’m skating on thin ice here since this kind of objectifying of the human form is highly controversial. Personally, I think it’s funny but I also know that commentary is easy. Being funny is difficult. Here’s a blogger who apparently was offended not only by the TBS ad, but by the decision by The Daily Kos to run it. I guess I find myself siding with Kos and not feeling very offended by this kind of stuff. Of course, it’s all in the eye of the beholder or, as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart kind of said, obscenity is hard to define but we know it when we see it. Which brings me back to that disgraceful performance on FOX and my thoughts turn to that unlikely philosopher, Rodney King, who asked “Can we all get along?” It’s a long shot, Rodney, but maybe some day. Maybe someday.

Happy Birthday, Number Four

It’s a beautiful fall day, great football weather, which is only fitting since today is Brett Favre’s birthday. It still seems weird, doesn’t it, that Favre suits up Sundays in a jersey that doesn’t belong to the Green Bay Packers. Look, full disclosure here, I grew up in Queens, New York and have always been a Jets fan and I am ecstatic that he’s wearing the Green and White. But I’ve also been rooting for the Packers since moving to Wisconsin in 1999 and I wish them well too. Aaron Rodgers seems like a promising young quarterback and I hope the team shakes off these early season mistakes and roars to the playoffs (much like the Giants did last year). I don’t want to revisit the painful divorce between Favre and Packers management. But I also feel that I have a special obligation to pay tribute to the man today since I happen to share the same birthday. Here’s to you Brett. I hope you get to enjoy some quality time with your family after you’re done prepping for Sunday’s game. And I also hope you dispatch with the Bengals with ease so that you can watch the Pack take on Holmgren’s Seahawks in the late game. As for the rest of you, take a look at this article on the club of Brett’s backups from today’s New York Times. The article mentions some of the great practical jokes that Brett is known for though the Great Times is apparently too classy to mention his legendary flatulence. All in all, a good read.

Cool Trumps Hot

So did you watch the debate last night? If not, I understand. This election has been going on forever. Even I found myself getting distracted while John McCain and Barack Obama were having at it. The race seemed so close a mere four weeks ago. These debates were among the most anticipated in history. The pressure was on both candidates to define themselves for the dwindling number of voters who were still undecided and, perhaps more importantly, casting doubts in their minds about their opponent. But that was then. Since the conventions ended, the nation has witnessed an economic collapse unlike anything since the Great Depression of 1929. Wall Street is in a tailspin, capital markets have stopped functioning, and Congress has passed an $850 billion rescue package. People are nervous and angry. How much more of this can anyone take? Conventional wisdom says that the more concerned people are about the economy, the better off Obama is. But that only seems to scratch the surface. McCain has appeared so erratic since the economic crisis blew up that he almost seems intent on convincing voters to support Obama. You’ve heard the litany. First he said the fundamentals of the economy were fine, then he called for President Bush to fire Security and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, then he suspended his campaign, then he was back on the trail. It’s been exhausting to watch. McCain has effectively ceded the argument about which candidate is more stable and calm under pressure. And, what do you know?, McCain threw out another seemingly half-baked idea last night suggesting that he would instruct the Treasury Secretary to buy out the mortgages of every home in the nation that had been foreclosed. Obama’s response that the rescue package already gave the Treasury Secretary that authority seemed to let the air out of McCain’s trial balloon. McCain appeared to spend much of the debate wandering around the stage. By itself, age should not be a factor but McCain’s choppy answers and his surliness emphasize the contrast between the two candidates. McCain is dangerously close to appearing cartoonish. Am I the only one who was reminded last night of Howard Beale, the hysterical aging news anchor from the movie, Network? Here was a man who seemed lost in time. He wants to inherit the mantle of Ronald Reagan but last night McCain reminded me more of Abraham Simpson. Barack Obama’s performance was also somewhat disappointing. He seemed insistent on tamping down his normally inspirational language. A couple of the questions appeared to give him ideal opportunities to wax philosophical on the challenges facing the nation. Yet he returned to the same themes and principles of the failed Bush years and McCain’s links to the current president. In contrast with McCain, Obama almost seemed too cool. He chose his words carefully and remained calm. While his supporters may have wished he be more aggressive, I have to believe this was intentional and that undecided viewers will react favorably […]

The Last Refuge

It was a less than great weekend for sports fans in Wisconsin. The Badgers and Packers both lost and the Brewers ended their season though not before winning a playoff game at home on Saturday. So it’s time to return to more mundane topics like the economy and health care, national security and foreign relations. Yes, boys and girls, there still is an election a month away and the stakes couldn’t be higher. The wind appears to be at the back of the Democrats but, like a well-conditioned athlete, Barack Obama is wisely not letting his guard down. John McCain finds himself on the wrong side of the electorate on the war, has proven to be clueless on the economy and has, perhaps fatally, allied himself with the policies of an incredibly unpopular president. McCain may still wish to carry the brand of a “Straight Talker” but his words and actions show him to be a typically calculating, if inept, politician. McCain was a supporter of President Bush until he wasn’t a supporter of President Bush and his response to the economic crisis changed from day to day, revealing a candidate who seemed to feel that voters would be comforted by a strategy of “winging it.” So it comes to this. The McCain-Palin campaign has let it be known that “the gloves are off” which means that we can expect attacks on Obama’s vague and flimsy association with former Weatherman William Ayers. The whole thing is ridiculous. Obama has soundly criticized Ayers revolutionary activities from the 60s and 70s (when Obama was in grade school) and only has a tangential relationship with the university professor who happens to be his neighbor. McCain personally has taken pains to avoid this kind of guilt by association and we’re about to see why. It would have been nice if principle was involved but more likely it was because McCain is aware of the old axiom about people in glass houses. Remember Charles Keating? If not chances are good you’ll be hearing all about him soon. Keating was the Savings and Loan mogul who McCain went to bat for by improperly meeting with regulators to get them off his back in the ‘80s. And this wasn’t simply a matter of helping a friend. McCain’s record of opposing regulations is diametrically opposed with the needs of the nation at this moment in time. So go ahead Sen. McCain, bring on the smears. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, these kind of attacks are the last refuge of a scoundrel. Here in Wisconsin. we can vote early, beginning today. So go down to City Hall and take care of business. That way, you can avoid long lines and maybe even volunteer on election day. It’s the right thing to do.

Milwaukee celebrates

Holy cow, the Brewers are in the playoffs and their fans are ready to par-tey!!! Well, I’m glad. Truthfully, I would have liked the Mets and Brewers to have won yesterday to force a game between the two teams to decide which one moved on. You see, I’ve always been a Mets fan but that’s another story. But how can you not be happy for Brewers fans? The 26 year drought without an appearance in the playoffs is over!! Finally, the city can stop looking back nostalgically on a seventh game loss in the World Series. Big time thanks to Mark Attanasio, the kid from the Bronx who grew up rooting for the Yankees before making a fortune which allowed him to rescue this team from the cursed Seligs. This guy had the courage and commitment to open up his checkbook and bring CC Sabathia to town. Baseball fans can reasonably disagree about lots of things but there is no chance that the Brewers would have made the playoffs sans CC. How exciting it must have been to watch the Brewers win at Miller Park and then stay to cheer as the Mets fell to the Marlins. Me, I was home watching the Packers lose while on the phone with my brother who was providing me with a play-by-play of the Jets game. Clearly, this is not the day to talk football and relive the Brett soap opera but give me a break? Aaron Rodgers has played great and he may be the future of the team but if he misses a single game due to injury, boy will the Packer brain trust get an earful! So I will be totally and completely rooting for the Brewers against the Phillies and, hopefully, against the Cubs or the Dodgers, and, yes, against the Red Sox, Rays, Angels, Twins or White Sox in the World Series. Sure it’s a long shot but that’s why they play the games. Oh, and one last thing. Back in 2000 when I had just moved to Wisconsin I went nearly insane with excitement when the Mets and Yankees met in the first (and, so far, only) Subway Series of my life. Did anyone here care? Who cares about baseball, I was told. The Packers season has started! Well, folks, whaddya know? It’s October (almost) and baseball still matters in Milwaukee. Whoo Hoo!

Tragedy or Farce?

It couldn’t be any wackier if Paddy Chayefsky and Joseph Heller had collaborated on the script and Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman had done the directing. Let’s review. Those wild and crazy folks who are in charge of our federal government in Washington, DC continue to squander what little respect they have by appearing to be totally incapable of serious, mature behavior. The American economy has been the envy of the rest of the world because of one thing; its stability. Now the bedrock of the world’s financial infrastructure is in a state of collapse and those fine peeps responsible for righting this ship appear to be auditioning for a Three Stooges short. Who’s to blame? Where to start? Certainly evildoer #1 has to be President George Bush. His administration started a misguided and unnecessary war by manipulating Congress, the public and the world community. Thousands upon thousands of Americans and countless others have died or been maimed as a result and no evaluation of the current lame duck can avoid pointing that out. But let’s focus on the financial crisis. It is obvious that the Bush policies promoting deregulation and lax enforcement gave a green light to the lending practices that got us in our current situation. Bush may admire the presidency of Ronald “Mr. Teflon” Reagan but during this economic crisis he has appeared to be more deserving of the title Mr. Flypaper. And John McCain seems to think he can earn votes by competing with the President for Least Reassuring Performance of the Week. Sen. McCain continues to make light of his “Country First” slogan with his grandstanding behavior that appears to have blown up an apparent agreement on legislation to rescue the failing financial institutions. A cynical observer might conclude that McCain is so desperate to alter the perception that he is clueless on economic issues that he believes he must appear to be personally responsible for the bailout. Talk about a Messiah Complex! This prosposed legislation is so complicated that any delay may be a good thing if it gives members of Congress the opportunity to actually read and think about what they are voting on. But the world’s financial experts feel that the longer this takes, the worse things will be. The image of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen getting on his knees to plead with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t helping with that confidence thing. Who knows how this will end? Who knows if the debate will go on tonight? My advice? Rent Duck Soup or A Night at the Opera by the Marx Brothers and have a few laughs. But stay away from The Three Stooges. They behave too much like our political leaders to be a diversion.

The Scorecard

John McCain is not having a very good couple of weeks. His campaign has been in free fall ever since last week when he called the fundamentals of our economy strong, He quickly tried to reposition himself on all this economic stuff by insisting he was talking about the American Worker and Small Business owner and we were, in fact, facing a crisis. Nearly every day since has been an adventure as McCain has unleashed a barrage of prescriptions as if he was engaged in a very public focus group test. “Establish a bipartisan commission,” “Fire SEC Commission Chairman Christopher Cox,” “Hire Andrew Cuomo,” “Suspend the campaign and postpone the debate.” I don’t know about you but these rants do not inspire confidence. Don’t take my word for it, look at what George Will has to say. His decision to cancel his appearance on David Letterman may have seemed a good idea at the time but it may prove to be his most egregious error yet. By insisting that his time would be better spent returning to Washington to focus on the nation’s economy, McCain has invited the wrath of a man who controls five hours of network television a week. Letterman was hilarious and ruthless in his attack of McCain last night. And, it turns out, McCain didn’t rush down to the Capitol but merely headed over to another CBS studio which enabled Dave to share with his viewers the shot of McCain having makeup applied to his face across from Katie Couric. Ouch! Grade: F Meanwhile, the President’s remarks last night fell short in a number of respects. The people who cared enough to watch were looking for an explanation of why this is happening and how the proposed plan will help. The tone and rhetoric needed to convey urgency while demonstrating that the government’s primary concern was with the average American and not simply bailing out the wealthy. And it wouldn’t have hurt for him to accept some of the blame for the crisis. The real purpose of the speech was to apply pressure on Congress to move swiftly. A leader with the nation’s welfare at heart would have been willing to share responsibility in order to spur action. What I saw and heard was a man who was on automatic pilot. He placed blame on everyone but himself. Foreign money flooded our markets. Consumers bought homes they couldn’t afford. Some on Wall Street got greedy. And the solution wasn’t of his choosing but it’s what the experts say is necessary. And, by the way, Congress needs to act quickly or average Americans are going to be even more screwed. Did he really say that the rescue was important so people can buy new homes and cars? This are the concerns of the well off. What about the people worried about keeping their jobs, staying in their current homes and putting food on the table? This guy is so out of touch it’s incredible. Is there a […]

Sins of the Son

Remember the presidential election of 1992 when George H.W. Bush lost to that young governor from Arkansas despite complaints by the incumbent that the media were unfair? The Republicans even promoted the slogan “Annoy the Media, Vote for Bush.” That didn’t work and it’s been conventional wisdom ever since that campaigning against the media is a bad idea. Without getting too much into psycho-history, it’s pretty obvious that his father’s loss had a major impact on our current president. George W. Bush is a movement-style Republican who fancies himself modeled more on Ronald Reagan than Bush 41. According to Bob Woodward, Bush 43 said he consulted a higher father when asked if he ever consulted his father about whether to invade Iraq. Much has been written about how George W. Bush repudiated the advice of James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and other graybeards from his father’s inner circle when he decided to go after Saddam. A PBS documentary on Bush Senior’s term in office shows Baker and Colin Powell practically gloating at how smart 41’s decision not to send troops into Bagdad now appears. Now we have the near collapse of the financial markets on the watch of Dubya. The march to deregulation does predate his administration but the last eight years have seen it go into hyperdrive. Bush-Cheney turned over the keys to the kingdom to Big Business. Energy executives were allowed to draft the regulations that would govern them and market forces were given free rein to, according to the political philosophy of Gordon Gekko, unleash a greed that would lift all boats. So how’s that working for everyone? Bush Senior engineered a true international coalition to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. When that mission was accomplished he ended the war and brought our troops home (most of them anyway). When the nation’s budget deficit began spiraling out of control he negotiated a bipartisan compromise that included a tax increase. Since that conflicted with his campaign pledge of “No New Taxes” he was pilloried by his own party including one of the leading GOP members of the house who had participated in the negotiations. That GOP leader, of course, was Newt Gingrich. Okay, enough with the old news. But it seems fairly obvious that this proposal for a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street should not fly through unaltered. Just imagine. $700,000,000,000! I’m not an economist but my concerns begin with the unprecedented and unchecked powers that the bill would bestow on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Like most school kids studying history, I remember wondering how guys like Hitler managed to take over their formerly democratic countries. Well this is how. Remember when Hugo Chavez compared George W. Bush to the devil? The Bush administration vilified Chavez for nationalizing Venezuela’s oil industry. Now look who’s pushing a government bailout far larger than the entire economy of Venezuela? It’s simply incredible. The People’s Republic of Wall Street? * * * By the way, Maureen Dowd of the New York […]

The Elephant in the Room

Barack Obama responds to the question of whether race will be an issue on Nov. 4th with remarkable cool. On 60 Minutes last night, he said it would probably be a wash, with some people voting against him because of the color of his skin while others will vote for him for the same reason. He has nothing to gain from calling attention to the issue of race. He would appear defensive and maybe even angry and end up reinforcing some of the very same stereotypes that divide our nation. But the fact that, even in 2008, America is still populated by a significant number of people who aren’t comfortable voting for a black man and that race is still something that divides us is deeply disappointing. I know there is little to be gained by raising this. People are unlikely to be reflective about race. The days of overt racism are, mostly, over and few people would ever admit to questioning Obama’s merits based on his skin color. But the issue of race remains a factor whether we admit it or not. For example, comments from people who acknowledge apprehension or distrust of Obama raise a red flag with me and then there are the unmitigated swoons by some over Sarah Palin who, they say, is “Just like us.” How reassuring is that. Let’s elect someone who reminds us of our own dysfunctional lives. I know that people often vote for psychological reasons as much as, or more than, political reasons. A New York Times/CBS News poll released in July suggests that racial divides are still powerful in America. So what else is new? What I find particularly repugnant is when examples cross over from the implicit to the explicit. Was it just me who felt that the McCain ad that called Obama “disrespectful” for questioning Palin (by calling her “good looking”) was over-the-top? I found it gruesomely reminiscent of America’s unfortunate history of discrimination and miscegenation laws (eg story of Emmitt Till). Or how about when a Georgia congressman calls Obama “uppity?” Even here in Wisconsin, I was surprised to hear Republican state chairman Reince Priebus refer to Obama as “unelectable. “ What is it, Reince, that makes Sen. Obama, who is leading Sen. McCain in nearly every poll, so “unelectable?” Of course, we know that every vote counts, especially in battleground states like Wisconsin and it really doesn’t matter what reason, conscious or unconscious, causes a person to support one candidate or another. But if we don’t take this opportunity to at least admit that the issue of race remains pernicious, then it will be a shame.

Wineke and Priebus are all winks and jabs

Mike Gousha moderated a good-natured smackdown yesterday at Marquette University between Wisconsin’s political party chairmen, Republican Reince Priebus and Democrat Joe Wineke. The two partisan opponents were all smiles and slaps on the back as they reached into their bags of bon mots to attack each other’s candidates. Gousha once again proved to be superb in this role. At first, it seemed odd that Gousha positioned himself at the end, rather than in the middle, of the two, but it proved effective. Wineke and Priebus seemed genuinely friendly but when either one scored a point or threw a low blow you could almost feel the other wince. Both resorted to the usual talking points while analyzing the polls and the challenges Barack Obama and John McCain face winning Wisconsin. Probably the most substantive discussion focused on Attorney General J. D. Van Hollen’s attempt to force the state Government Accountability Board to check all voter registrations going back to January, 2006. Priebus insisted that Van Hollen was simply fulfilling his duty by calling on the GAB to enforce the federal election law while Wineke charged that Van Hollen, who serves as McCain’s campaign chairman for Wisconsin, was just carrying water for his candidate. But the zingers really started to fly when Gousha brought up Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Priebus called her a “rock star” that has energized the Republican base. Wineke pointed out that the “rock star” reference sounded like Priebus was calling Palin a celebrity, a term the McCain campaign has used to denigrate Obama. When Wineke poked fun at Palin’s assertion that her ability to see Russia from Alaska amounted to foreign policy experience, Priebus insisted that questions about Palin amounted to sexism. Perhaps the most controversial remarks of the forum came when someone in the audience questioned how Wineke could suggest that the Fox Valley was up for grabs when it is so predominately Catholic. Wineke insisted that the Catholic vote has never been “monolithic” and that Democrats felt very comfortable contesting the region. Priebus questioned how Catholics would feel about Obama’s support for “partial birth abortions” and Wineke responded that neither party was consistent with Catholic Church teachings on abortion and the death penalty. Very little was said about the economy which perhaps was for the best since neither Wineke or Priebus are qualified as economists. But it was telling that while Wineke challenged McCain’s assertion that he would strengthen regulations since his record is as a deregulator, Priebus insisted that the threat of world terrorism was the real crisis that would lead voters to support McCain. There are still six weeks to go but Republicans may be in trouble if they need to run away from the issue of the economy.

Crony Capitalism, Crony Government

While the news from Wall Street ain’t so hot, I’ll tell you what I wish I had stock in. I’m bullish on The Comedy Channel. The last week has been a windfall for Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and their writers on the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Just hilarious! But what’s not so funny is watching John McCain fine tune his populist message of outrage at Wall Street. His sudden determination to ride in on a white horse and challenge corporate excesses defies belief. His record of opposition to regulation and even his recent campaign rhetoric suggest that he has no interest in reining in greedy and irresponsible business practices. The mixed messages from McCain matched perfectly with the “No to bailout one day, Yes to bailout the next” Bush administration policy which is actually confusing Wall Street and leading financial experts to plead for consistency. Without rules to govern them, the capital markets are likely to go even crazier. The “case by case” strategy of the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve is like a massive game of Russian Roulette. The two things that seem to be protecting Wall Street from some of the horrible consequences of 1929 are the availablility of Prozac (and other SSRIs) and the inability of traders to open the windows in their high rise offices! But that’s not all. Sarah Palin’s record of putting friends in high places and funding pet projects in Alaska is so egregious that it’s hard to believe she will continue providing a boost to McCain much longer. Take a look at this report by Timothy Egan on The New York Times website. Haven’t we had enough of Halliburton, Michael Brown and this kind of cronyism in government?

Obama’s Straight Talk

We look to our leaders for substantive answers to the challenges of our time and we also look to our leaders for inspiration and confidence in the future. Barack Obama has been delivering on both of these criteria since he first declared his candidacy back in the winter of 2007. His speeches are rich in specifics and the protests by his opponents that he lacks detail can only appeal to people who have never listened to him. His ability to connect with his audiences while also discussing economics, health care, and foreign policy is really his defining appeal. John McCain has turned his campaign over to the people who know how to manipulate public opinion with lies and smears. They did it on George W. Bush’s behalf and defeated McCain in 2000. Democrats and Independents, many of whom liked and respected the Straight Talking McCain of 2000, are distraught over the cynical Atwater-Rove-Schmidt-style gameplan that has proven to be so successful. We’re in the home stretch of this campaign and Obama needs to continue delivering his message of Real Change and contrasting it with the flip flopping, deceptive words of his opponent. Obama demonstrates that he knows what he must do with a newly released two minute video that you will hopefully be seeing all over the airwaves, particularly in swing states like up-for-grabs Wisconsin. By contrast, McCain has jettisoned his brand of Straight Talking Maverick and embraced the dishonorable tactics that he has been a victim of in the past. McCain ought to know that when you lie down with pigs you only get muddy.

Reality Strikes

A funny thing happened while lots of people were wringing their hands over how the McCain campaign seemed in total control of the news cycles since naming Sarah Palin to the ticket. The real world intervened. One prestigious Wall Street firm, Lehman Brothers, collapsed and another one, Merrill Lynch, was bought out for a song by Bank of America and the world’s largest insurance company, AIG, is struggling to raise enough money to survive. The stock market dropped by more than 500 points and suddenly nobody’s talking about pigs and lipstick. McCain struggled all day to figure out what he should be saying about the bad financial news. At first, his talking points matched those of President Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulsen that the fundamentals of our economy remained strong. It didn’t take Obama long to jump all over that poor excuse of a change message and accuse McCain of failing to recognize the significance of the crisis. McCain’s attempts to rephrase his message sounded awkward and insincere. He insisted that what he meant in his earlier remarks was that he had confidence in how American workers and small businesses were fundamentally sound. Sure, John, and your history of supporting deregulation makes you just the right guy to reign in the excesses of Wall Street. Believe that and I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Alaska. John McCain’s inability to speak clearly about the economy provided an opening for Barack Obama and his campaign was ready. Within hours reporters were being emailed copies of a speech Obama gave in March on the importance of greater federal oversight of the capital markets. Meanwhile, McCain’s willingness to engage in lies and smears is getting greater attention. Not only is the mainstream media expressing disappointment in how changed their formerly straight talking darling is, but Youtube is filling up with lots of examples of McCain flipflops and misstatements. McCain’s appearance on The View last Friday was one of those “What Was He Thinking?” moments. If he thought he would reinforce his new appeal to women by going on the show and continuing to bask in Sarah’s glow, he was greatly mistaken. Check out how one observer nicely fillets McCain following his View appearance: You gotta love this guy named Cenk Uygur who is telling it like it is on his www.theyoungturks.com site. Check this one out too And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. How about the stuff coming out of bravenewfilms.org? It’s time for this stuff to go viral. We all know that the internet has transformed society and people getting news and communicating with each other in new and extraordinarily different ways than ever before. This is the test. For every uncommitted or independent voter who refuses to support Obama because they think he’s a Muslim (not that there’s anything wrong with that) or because they were told he wouldn’t put his hand on his heart during the national anthem, ten or twenty need to see this stuff and […]

Tit for Tat

Alright, boys and girls, it’s official. The gloves are off as the campaign that will choose our nation’s next president enters its high stakes final stages. Yep that means the silly season has begun when both candidates and their surrogates struggle to control the news cycle with messages targeting the dwindling number of undecided voters who will probably determine the election results. The challenge is that many of these undecided voters don’t feel strongly enough about the major issues of the day to have made up their minds based on the significant policy differences between Barack Obama and John McCain. Many Democrats are wringing their hands over how the McCain campaign has seized the moment with the ridiculous assertion that Obama slandered VP candidate Sarah Palin by using the “lipstick on a pig” cliché when referring to McCain’s claim to an agenda of reform. Reporters and most other observers know that Obama’s comment had nothing to do with Palin but no matter. The targeted audience isn’t interested in such details. McCain has cynically and shamelessly turned his campaign over to the talented hands of Steve Schmidt who played a major role in George W. Bush’s 2004 race. A straight talker no more, McCain has morphed his campaign into a well-disciplined Rovian-style machine which cares more about image and emotion then policies or facts. Many of McCain’s closest and longest serving confidants are dismayed by the direction his campaign has taken but they recognize that the Bush folks beat their pants off 8 years ago so this may be what it takes to win. Fortunately, Obama’s people are pretty smart too and they are not going to repeat John Kerry’s mistake of ceding this ground to the Bushies and their Swiftboating minions. Remember way back two or three weeks ago when the Obama folks made so much hay out of McCain’s inability to answer how many homes he has? In addition to supporting Obama’s message that McCain is out of touch with the challenges of the average American family, it also matched nicely with McCain’s Achilles heel, perpetuated by the Jay Leno and David Letterman circuit, that he is old and forgetful. Look for Obama supporters to point out McCain’s many flubs and malapropisms. A new Obama ad pokes fun at McCain’s admission that he doesn’t use a computer or send email. You can bet that campaign mavens from both sides will be struggling aggressively to control the messges of the day. And it’s still only September. The old military adage goes “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes” and both campaigns are obviously keeping much of their choicest ammo dry. This year’s election may very well come down to the last two weeks when our airwaves will most likely be chock full of references to Tony Rezko and Charles Keating. This is for all the marbles, my friends, so buckle up your seat belts. This ride is going to get bumpy.

The Semiotics of Lipstick

It was a great line in a great speech. “You know the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? Lipstick!” How you reacted to that line in Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention amounts to a litmus test of where you stand in relation to the dividing line between our two Americas. If you loved it, then chances are good that you’re a Republican-leaning voter who admired the themes of strong family values, love of country, and less government. If you hated it, then chances are good that you’re a Democratic-leaning voter who hated the themes of moral superiority, “Our Country, Right or Wrong,” and “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Yep, John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate was a brilliant move that reinvigorated his campaign. The Republican base is finally enthusiastically supporting this ticket now that one of its own is on board. And, yep, John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a desperate move designed to cynically appeal to women and young voters through the very identity politics that everyone pretends to abhor. So the race remains close. The final two month sprint will determine whether Barack Obama or John McCain will be our next president. The debates are likely to be the most watched and analyzed of all time, including the vice president debate which has almost never, ever meant much of anything. What a year! As incredible as it seems, this election will probably be determined by people who are still undecided yet will still vote. That means the unengaged masses who are either too busy or simply too apathetic to have taken the time to make up their minds (let’s call them the “Neanderthals”) are in control. Be scared, be very, very scared. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is a very, very terrible system but, hey, all the others suck worse. Which brings me to today’s odd development that Obama’s use of the “lipstick on a pig” cliché has been attacked by the McCain camp as sexist. Let me see if I’ve got this right, any reference to lipstick must refer to Palin, since she said it first and she’s a woman? And Obama is sexist? This hoopla around Sarah Palin is an amazing case study in how susceptible to manipulation our system is. You would think that Palin’s presence on the ticket would emphasize the differences on issues like the Iraq war and reproductive choice and the economy that make this election such a no-brainer. But there you have it. The Obama campaign finds itself having to reclaim the mantle of change and package it in a way that is appealing not threatening. Unfortunately, this is made more difficult since some of these undecided voters, may not be comfortable voting for an African American named Obama. It looks like turnout in the highly populous cities in battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania will be key. If Milwaukee residents (and residents of the densely […]

Brett the Jet

Okay, so it’s not the most original headline ever. And, you may be thinking, do we really need another column about the cataclysmic events of the last few months that resulted in Brett Favre starting today as the quarterback of the New York Jets? Well bare with me because this time, it’s personal. For, you see, I grew up in Queens, practically under the shadow of Shea Stadium, where the Jets played during my formative years. I first began paying attention to sports the year of Brett’s birth (that would be 1969). That was the year Joe Namath and the Jets shocked the football world by defeating the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in what is now called Super Bowl III. It was the same year when the Amazin’ Mets came from more than ten games behind the Cubs in August to win the East division, the National League and, most incredibly of all, the World Series 4-1. (Brewer fans take note.) And then May of 1970 was when the New York Knicks of Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere and Bill Bradley took the NBA championship by beating the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers. So my allegiance to those three teams was imprinted on my psyche at a tender age and I have enjoyed the highs and agonized over the lows common to most sports fans. Since moving to Wisconsin nine years ago I have developed a strong affection for our local teams, especially the Green Bay Packers. How could you not appreciate the incredible history of this storied franchise? Besides, Vince Lombardi was also a New York transplant and Brett Favre himself and I share a birthday (October 10th, as if you didn’t know). How could any football fan not love and admire Brett Favre? Sure the records are impressive but to simply watch him on the field epitomizes the thrill of competitive sports. The guy just loves to play and seems to give 100 percent every single minute he’s on the field. I learned early on that most Wisconsin sports fans care little about the teams that play elsewhere. I was still acclimating myself to the ways of the Dairy State when the Mets and the Yankees ended up in the first Subway Series of my life in 2000. Did anyone around here give a damn? Are you kidding me, it was Packer season for Chrissakes! Honestly, I didn’t want Brett Favre to leave the Packers. I didn’t believe it would happen. Sure the guy has jerked the team and its fans around every offseason this century. Weirdly, I loved how he seemed to be mentally and physically exhausted each year and needed time to recover before shaking off doubt and once again recommitting totally and completely to the gruelling regimen the game requires. I understand that the team wanted to avoid another offseason without knowing who its quarterback would be. The press conference when Favre announced his retirement was dramatic and painful. The season had been spectacular […]

Agents of Change?

Without question, the Republicans helped their cause this week. The Palin pick energized the base and McCain’s speech tried to make the case that the maverick war hero is the true agent of change. Both were smart moves to drive up enthusiasm among social conservatives and attract support from the narrow but critical minority of voters who, somehow, are still undecided. Of course, McCain’s pledge to shake things up did not match his agenda. His policies are right out of the same old Republican playbook. And McCain missed the opportunity to distance himself from any of George W. Bush flawed record (though his distaste for the guy seeps through). He paid tribute to Bush for leading the fight against terrorism then avoided mentioning his name for the rest of his speech. He said both parties were guilty of lapses in ethics and declared that he was a servant not of any party but of the American people. Talk about lofty but meaningless rhetoric! But anyone who sees McCain-Palin as agents of change is delusional. The “Drill, baby, Drill” chant, the opposition to a government role in health care, and, most scary of all, the commitment to continue, even expand, a confrontational approach to foreign policy makes it more than unlikely that these two will shake things up on any critical issue facing our nation and world. As expected, McCain’s personal story of suffering at the hands of interrogators as a POW during the Vietnam War was dramatic and compelling. But the maverick McCain should have used that story to criticize the use of torture by us as well as them. Notably he didn’t and other speakers in St. Paul tweaked the Democrats for suggesting that Gitmo prisoners had any rights. I don’t know how any independent observer could miss that odd dissonance. He vaguely referenced ethical excesses by both parties and pledged to seek common ground but failed to give a single example of an issue appropriate to compromise. His litany of priorities were lower taxes and less government, i.e. more of the same. My friends, Americans want change this year and Senator McCain realizes he needs to appeal to that zeitgeist. But Americans know what change looks like, what change feels like, what change sounds like. Sen. McCain, we know change and you ain’t it.

Country First?

John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate calls his judgment into serious question. Let’s start off by stipulating, as Barack Obama has, that family issues like her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy and her decision to give birth to a Down syndrome baby are personal and should not be open to analysis. And too much is often made of vice president choices. You have to go back to 1960, when JFK’s pick of LBJ provided the margin of victory by bringing along Texas (that and the shenanigans in Illinois allegedly employed at the behest of the elder Richard Daley). More often, even the lamest picks seem to have little effect on the outcome of the election (think Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle). But with both candidates competing for the narrow group of voters who somehow have managed to remain undecided their choices may have a more than usual effect this year. Barack Obama’s choice of Delaware’s Sen. Joe Biden leaves little to criticize. McCain backers are asserting that Biden’s long experience in Washington casts doubt on the Democratic ticket’s promise of change. But Obama has already so strongly linked his campaign to change that that dog won’t hunt. Plus Biden promises to bring valuable expertise on many issues, foreign and domestic, that can only give the Obama administration a greater chance of success. As for McCain’s choice, what can you say? Where do you start? He apparently wanted to choose his friend, and fellow Iraq War hawk, former Democrat and current Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut but all signs suggested that a messy floor fight, possibly even challenging McCain’s own nomination would ensue. So his fallback was to go with a “fresh face” who would appeal to the social conservative base of the party, never all that comfortable with McCain, and possibly appeal to disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters and other women. The idea that a pro-life, pro-oil industry, pro-NRA female would win over Hillary backers implies a radical feminist demographic that defies logic. Palin’s appeal is to people who weren’t going to vote for Obama anyway. What’s actually scary is the way this choice suggests that McCain relies on his gut instincts, a tendency that may not always lead to the best results in the Oval Office. Heck, he met Palin a mere two times. McCain’s slogan is “Country First” but this pick seems to put electoral considerations, however bizarre, ahead of governing priorities. Perhaps a better McCain slogan would be “WTF?”

Bruce and Barack Rock Milwaukee

What a weekend! If the roar of choppers wasn’t enough to get your blood bubbling then maybe the music blasting from stages all over town might do the trick. Miller Park, Milwaukee Street, North Avenue, MLK Drive and Locust Street were all bursting with music and, of course, the lakefront featured headliners Foo Fighters on Friday and the Boss himself, none other than Bruuuce Springsteen tonight. But the nation’s number one celebrity du jour, Barack Obama promises to outshine them all when he hits town on Monday. Republican candidate John McCain has poked fun that Obama’s popularity is nothing but a trend a la Britany or Paris. But anyone who has heard the man speak knows that there’s plenty of substance to the Illinois junior senator. So if you’re in town on Labor Day you will definitely want to check out Obama at the Marcus Amphitheater. How often do you get a chance to witness something truly historic?

A Good Week

Is it possible that the Democrats have actually pulled off a flawless convention and nominated a terrific team that offers passion, experience, vision and conviction? Each night seemed perfected choreographed to convey a particular message designed to unify the party and demonstrate to the nation that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the right choice on Election Day in November. And the news today that John McCain has chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a social conservative, apparently to bolster his support among the party’s base who have little love for the former maverick, adds piquancy to the strength of the Democratic ticket. The Ted Kennedy/Michelle Obama show on Monday, followed by Hillary’s terrific performance on Tuesday, and then Bill and Joe’s one-two punch on Wednesday were all impressive raising the stakes for the main event on Thursday. And Barack Obama did not disappoint. He hit all the right notes, delivering a great speech with all the poetry his supporters have grown accustomed to while also providing plenty of specifics that his critics have charged he has glossed over. Never mind that his standard stump speech has always been chock full of policy specifics that have been essential to his appeal. But most importantly, Obama took the fight directly to Sen. McCain, leaving no doubt that he is ready to take on the War Hero on the question of who has the ideas, the determination and the fortitude to deliver on the challenges facing our nation at this critical juncture. Even the roll call had a dramatic, cathartic and even entertaining quality to it. When the Illinois delegation ceded its time to the New York crowd allowing Sen. Hillary Clinton to call on the convention to nominate Obama by acclamation, policy wonks everywhere were breathless. Granted McCain deserves some credit for seizing the media’s attention by naming Palin, the little known, self-described former “hockey mom.” But after the buzz caused by the surprise announcement dies down independents and other undecided voters will most likely wonder why this choice should convince anyone that the nation’s future is best entrusted to this team. Wow. Whatta week. I’m still kinda breathless.

Hitting the Right Notes

My name is Ted and I’m a political junkie. There I was captivated by the television coverage of the Democratic National Convention even though I had bills to pay, dishes to wash, and good books to read. It was a gorgeous late summer evening and I knew I had better things to do. Heck, just leaving the house for a stroll would have been healthier for my body and soul

On Second Thought

Conventional Wisdom proved on the money yesterday when Barack Obama announced Joe Biden was his choice as the Democratic party’s candidate for vice president. Biden is a safe choice a) because as a two-time candidate for president he has been exhaustively vetted and his weaknesses are well-known, b) his thirty years as a Senator and foreign policy expert gives him a gravitas that many feel Obama lacks, and, perhaps most importantly, c) Biden is a proven counter-puncher who is not shy about engaging in the kind of attack that Obama has at least pretended to be above, so far. Once elected, God willing, there is also the potential for Biden to serve as the President’s consigliere, an indispensible role that can aid in the early success of the Obama administration. The most recent Democratic administrations of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton stumbled seriously out of the gate largely due to an inability (or unwillingness) to build coalitions with Congress. Earlier, I expressed the hope that Obama would make a bolder choice, such as Colin Powell, as a demonstration of his committment to a new kind of politics. But Biden may be the best of both worlds; a good partner during the election who will effectively balance the ticket as well as seerving as a savvy and experienced vice president after the inauguration who has Obama’s full faith and confidence. The polls are tightening but you have to feel good about the chances for the Democrats. First of all, people who would never vote for Obama, because of his politics, inexperience or color, most certainly have already made up their minds. The next seventy days are about reaching the undecideds (and getting your supporters motivated enough to actually vote). Biden is a good choice in this regard, reassuring to the Hillary Clinton supporters and undecideds. But the veep choice rarely makes much of a difference. It will still be Obama’s job to close the deal with the voters. As expected, the campaign has grown uglier this past week as McCain made some ill-advised comments regarding the definition of wealthy as $5 million and up and, of course, failing to have an answer to the quesstion of how many homes he owns. His camp has fired back that attacks on McCain’s wealth reflected a repudiation of the Obama pledge to run a clean campaign (though McCain has been questioning Obama’s patriotism and arguably started this mudslinging himself), declared the gloves are off and went after Obama for his “million dollar home’ purchased with the help of “convicted felon” Tony Rezko. But have no doubt that the Obama camp is comfortable in this arena. If the candidates are judged by their own words then McCain’s flubs and misstatements will only reinforce his own vulnerabilities. And it is only a matter of time before somebody brings up McCain’s connection to the Keating scandal in the 1980s. McCain was sanctioned for his ties to savings and loan mogul Charles Keating and his commitment to campaign […]

Only Hours Away

Barack Obama hasn’t publicly announced his choice for vice president yet. I know because his campaign has ensured me that I will be the first to hear. Me and the millions of others who have texted “VP” to 62262 (OBAMA). Chances are good that he will make the announcement in the next 18 hours since The World is expecting his choice to join him at a rally in Springfield, Illinois on Saturday. So this is my last chance to share my thoughts on the Big Choice. The conventional wisdom has lined up behind Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who has the Washington experience and foreign policy credentials that some say are holes in the Obama resume that need to be filled. Personally, I believe Biden would be a disappointing choice because he is too safe. Granted, he’s run for president twice so his negatives are well-known and manageable. But the trouble is that he doesn’t bring anything that would energize the campaign. Obama knows this choice will be analyzed and dissected more than anything he has said or done so far in the campaign. That includes his remarks about the bitterness of the working class and even his choice of pastor. His choice needs to affirm his campaign theme of change and I don’t think Biden fits the bill. I look for someone older and more experienced but not from the list of usual suspects. Here is my list of eye-openers, holy-cows, and who-would-have-thoughts: First of all, there’s Jim Webb, a first-term Senator from Virginia. CW has focused on the Commonwealth’s Gov. Tim Kaine as more likely but look at what Webb brings; decorated war hero (sound familiar?), experience at the Pentagon as an Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Army, and a Republican who switched sides to become one of the most-outspoken critics of George Bush. Obama could do worse. You have to believe that Obama is seriously considering a Republican or at least someone with a strong record of working across the aisle. While he has pledged to bring a bipartisan approach to his administration, many independents and Republicans don’t see very much to suggest that in his record. How do you think they’d feel if Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican who has served on the Armed Services, Finance and Intelligence committees? She has earned the respect of leaders of both parties by developing a keen ability to craft legislative compromise without sacrificing principle. But the 800 pound gorilla of long shots has got to be Colin Powell. Can you imagine? The incredibly highly regarded career military man was dissed big time by the Bush administration. He’s made no secret of his regret about taking cooked evidence to the United Nations to make the case for war. What better way to restore his reputation than as a member of the administration whose greatest challenge will be cleaning up the mess that occurred on his watch? Powell has said he’s not interested but come on. When a […]

Eye of the Beholder

Maybe you heard that Marie Claire magazine has opined that Milwaukee is one sexy city. Apparently, our rocking lakefront and neighborhood festivals suggest that we know how to have a good time. I won’t argue with that though the magazine didn’t bother to send anyone here to check it out. You gotta wonder if we’d have still merited the honor if a reporter had actually visited and seen the sweaty beer bellies hanging over the cutoff shorts and the hairy necks and backs. And I don’t even want to think about the guys. I kid, I kid! I love Milwaukee and today it’s a happening town. The reconstruction of the Marquette Interchange is officially declared completed today, under budget and ahead of schedule! To policy wonks like me, that’s sexy! And, of course, today is the long awaited unveiling of the Bronze Fonz sculpture along the riverfront (across from the Pabst Theater on Wells) intended to cash in on the nostalgia for Happy Days, the popular television show of the ‘70s. Henry Winkler (the Fonz), Anson Williams (Potsie), and Cindy Williams (Shirley of Laverne and Shirley) are expected to appear at the festivities. Visitors will be treated to a little harmless fun (not to mention free custard) and a good time should be had by all. There is no truth to the rumor that Mike Brenner has rented a plane to pull a banner declaring that “Milwaukee Has Jumped the Shark.” The diminutive sculpture may make you wonder what all the fuss has been about. Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of the summer, y’all. Middle of August and it hasn’t reached 90 yet. Now that’s sexy!

Scary Movie 3???

Well it’s the dog days of August but things are anything but slow in the world of politics. As many of you may be aware, there is a presidential election coming up in November and once again it’s time to exercise our constitutional right and have a say in what direction we want our country to go. And once again I believe the right choice is obvious. And once again I have that ominous feeling that our marvelous but sometimes wacky country could very easily elect the wrong guy and continue us on a path of boneheaded policies and misguided diplomatic and military high jinks that will lead to dangerous and deadly conflicts around the world, a worsening economy home and abroad, increased polarization between the haves and the have nots, and a continued diminishment of our personal freedoms ranging from reproductive choice to habeas corpus. There is, to coin a phrase, hope. Barack Obama is a superb candidate who is connecting with voters in ways we have not seen since the two Kennedy campaigns of the ‘60s. He draws unprecedented crowds everywhere he goes, not because he is a vacuous celebrity, but because he combines a command of the issues with the ability to present common sense solutions that connect with the average citizen. But, just like in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and other great struggles from history and literature, powerful forces are gathering to oppose the champion of the people. This may prove to be a nasty and difficult election with Obama’s opponents resorting to attacks and innuendoes that appeal to the baser sides of our hearts and minds. It may get ugly; very, very ugly. But don’t panic or despair. Organize and participate. Let’s not let this year’s election send the wrong person to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. What we need here in this country is nothing less than a People’s Revolution in which the disenfranchised rise up and assert themselves not through violence or conflict but by voting and participating in the electoral process. Barack Obama’s campaign is calling on the people of Wisconsin to stand up and be counted. A new office will be opened here in Milwaukee at 744 N. 4th Street (Wells) on August 20 beginning at 5 pm and everyone is invited. Wisconsin is in play and there is something wonderfully exciting and energizing about living in a so-called swing state. The McCain camp is not taking Wisconsin for granted either and if that’s the way you swing, then by all means go out and support your candidate. But as we’ve learned over and over the last eight years, Elections Matter. Register, Volunteer, Have Your Voice Heard, and above all, VOTE. It’s really, really important.

Calatrava’s Wings Get Clipped in NY

Santiago Calatrava’s design for the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Quadracci Pavilion (known to most locals as simply The Calatrava) has had an unquestionably transformative effect on our city’s urban landscape. This super-modern, sleek structure helped catapult Milwaukee into the new century. Though not of Milwaukee, Calatrava lent his brilliance, prestige and audacity to our city and we’ve embraced his design as the symbol of how we present ourselves to the world. It was only a matter of time before another high-profile Calatrava project usurped our unique relationship with the architect. His design for the new transit center at the site of the decimated World Trade Center promises to take Calatrava’s fame up a notch and supplant MAM’s position as the highest profile example of his work in this country. So perhaps Milwaukeeans will be excused for feeling a bit of schaudenfrade at the cost overruns and artistic compromises that the New York project is facing. These challenges will be familiar to those who have followed Calatrava’s career and the chances are good that the result will still be spectacular. Only time will tell, of course. But the guy sure knows how to get your attention. Avert your eyes at your own risk.

After the Deluge

The good news is that nobody appears to have died as a result of the cataclysmic amount of water that fell from the sky on Wisconsin since Friday. So it may be hyperbole to compare this weekend’s natural disaster with the horrible devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as well as the tsunami, the cyclone and the earthquake that took untold thousands of lives around the world in recent memory. But seeing homes collapse in a matter of seconds and hearing people weep that all of their worldly possessions were lost brought to mind the overwhelming force of nature that is common to all of these events. The other theme that connects these disasters is the important role that government plays to anticipate these catastrophes to the extent possible and move quickly and effectively to direct resources to help the people affected and to restore the services necessary to return lives to normal. In a perfect world politics would have no place following such disasters. Certainly, everyone can agree that this is a basic function of government regardless of party or political persuasion. But this is not a perfect world as the image broadcast by ABC World News Tonight last night of Gov. Jim Doyle speaking in Oak Creek with Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker by his side made perfectly clear. Walker’s commitment to shrinking government may be popular on election day but it doesn’t do much good when citizens are desperately in need of help. For Walker to nod in agreement as Doyle called attention to how the rains destroyed property from the Mississippi River to Lake Wisconsin took an amazing amount of gall. Walker has been an outspoken advocate of privatizing government services to the extent that he is open to the suggestion to transfer everything that the county does to local and state agencies and private contractors. Why don’t we just bring in the infamous Mike Brown to manage this cleanup? Brown, you will recall, was President Bush’s appointee to head the federal Emergency Management Agency which was such a phenomenal failure following Katrina. It is important to note that FEMA was an extraordinarily effective agency under President Clinton. Bush came into office pledging to restore dignity to The White House. If only. Under his leadership we have witnessed travesties foreign and domestic. While Republicans made much of Clinton’s personal peccadilloes and his propensity to let contributors bunk in the Lincoln Bedroom, who doesn’t pine for the days when our federal government took its responsibilities seriously? Just today a new report is out detailing how Bush officials bent over to accommodate uberlobbyist, and now convicted felon, Jack Abramoff. They say Wisconsin is a critical swing state and that both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama will be fighting tooth and nail for our 11 electoral votes. They say McCain will be struggling to distance himself from the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But what are we to think when he comes to town and Scott Walker […]

The Big Dog Proved to be an Albatross

It’s over. Sooner or later, Hillary Clinton will suspend her campaign and throw her support behind Barack Obama. And when she does, it will be fairly obvious that a major part of her campaign’s failure was due to our nation’s 42nd president. Certainly, Bill Clinton’s efforts on her behalf left room for improvement though few would have predicted it would be so. President Clinton is widely perceived as the Democratic Party’s most effective campaigner in recent history. But, his missteps and flubs in support of Hillary’s campaign suggest that he ain’t so hot at being second fiddle. It may infuriate Hillary supporters that Bill proved to be such a liability but the irony is indisputable. Some who knew her in college and law school saw a remarkable woman with the potential to rise to the highest level of leadership. She spent decades holding her personal ambitions in check while assisting with his exceptional rise to power and she redefined the role of a political spouse. His ultimate retirement from the White House gave her a unique platform to launch her own political career. Yet this path proved to have its downside. Bill Clinton left office extraordinarily popular at home and abroad. But his years as president are not remembered nostalgically by everyone. You have to go back to FDR to find a Democrat who angered Republicans to the extent that Bill Clinton did. And, of course, the personal failings that, rightly or wrongly, lead to his impeachment were an embarrassment and disappointment to many Americans regardless of party. Clinton loyalists will argue that it is unfair to hang his difficulties, real and perceived, on Hillary. But how could you not? One of George W. Bush’s first acts as president was to completely renovate the Oval Office. The implication was that the shenanigans of the previous occupant required a housecleaning of epic proportions. Unfortunately, his legacy left a metaphorical stain on his wife’s presidential aspirations that proved fatal. But this should not be viewed as Hillary Clinton’s obituary. She has twice won election as New York’s junior senator and she has proved to be an effective and accomplished legislator. With the Democrats in charge of Congress and, hopefully, occupying the White House, Hillary Clinton should play a critical role to enact the policies she believes in. Many of her supporters, craving a woman president, feel this may have been the last, best chance they are likely to see in their lifetimes. But there are many, many women in the leadership pipeline and the taboo of a president in a pantsuit has been broken. Nancy Pelosi and Condoleeza Rice are among the top officeholders to ascend to the presidency should something happen to Bush and Cheney and both presidential candidates are expected to consider women as running mates. Women who established their political careers, at least partly, in the wake of their husband’s success often have asterisks attached to their legacies. Hillary Clinton has already demonstrated her exceptional talents in government and […]

Les Paul, Mike Cudahy and the Rise of the Uber Geezers

The Wizard of Waukesha is bringing his act to Milwaukee’s Pabst Theatre in June! If you don’t know the significance of that sentence then you don’t know the history of rock and roll. Les Paul, who turns 93 on June 9th, grew up in Waukesha and is probably more responsible for the popular music of our time than anyone. He is credited with inventing the design of the modern electric guitar and introducing recording techniques that revolutionized the music industry. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when a group of Paul devotees came to Michael Cudahy with a plan to create a Paul tribute at Discovery World, the planets seemed to align. I started this column as a tribute to some extraordinary graybeards among us and this breaking news about Paul’s upcoming concert just gave me a new lede. While so many of us in Milwaukee pout about the leadership vacuum on our local scene, a handful of wealthy and accomplished elders are stepping up to the plate. First and foremost, idiosyncratic and irascible Michael Cudahy has been coming to the rescue of various struggling institutions in the city for years. Take a look at his profile in the March, 2007 issue of Milwaukee Magazine by Kurt Chandler. The man was born into one of this town’s most prestigious families but he dropped out of school and seemed destined to become the black sheep of the Cudahy clan. His story gives a 20th Century Midwestern twist to a legendary Shakespearean tale. This Prince Hal ne’er-do-well eventually launched a medical electronics firm that earned him a fortune. Ever since selling Marquette Electronics to GE, Cudahy has been dedicated to giving away millions. The Medical College of Wisconsin, MSOE, the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee all benefited from his largesse. But Cudahy isn’t the type to just write checks. He took over the Pabst Theater, brilliantly restored it and established it as the city’s most magnificent entertainment venue. Anyone who visits Discovery World, the city’s outstanding science museum, soon realizes what an impact Michael Cudahy has had. While the building’s glorious design resulted from a conflict between the philanthropist, the neighboring Milwaukee Art Museum and city planners, the spectacular facility is a living testament to Cudahy’s vision and commitment to this region. At 84, Cudahy isn’t the oldest benefactor on the local scene. That honor probably goes to Joseph Zilber a wealthy 90-year-old developer who is engaged on a spending spree to kickstart a Milwaukee Renaissance. He stepped up to the plate when the WE Energies-sponsored proposal to redevelop the Pabst City site was rejected by the Common Council. While that project is still very much a work-in-progress, Zilber has invited criticism by replacing the Pabst sign with one featuring his name and attaching a tacky video billboard to one of the buildings. But Zilber has also announced plans to bankroll a new initiative to address the poverty and other challenges facing Milwaukee to the […]

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing, Good god, y’all. Wouldn’t it be great if every president was required to listen to Edwin Starr’s nearly perfect anthem against War before committing troops to harms way? Especially before a needless and senseless military action like the one going on in Iraq. But you won’t hear me call it a war. The war ended in a matter of weeks when the so-called coalition forces steamrolled over Saddam Hussein’s undisciplined and overmatched defenses. What followed is nothing other than an open-ended occupation that just about perfectly fits the definition of a quagmire. The PBS American Experience series ran a two-part profile of George H. W. Bush last week and the contrast between his skillful orchestration of the first gulf war with the mess perpetuated on our nation and the world by his first born was overwhelming. Key players Colin Powell and James Baker were positively gloating with pride at how well managed and executed was the campaign to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The justification was undeniable, the international support was unquestionable, the force was overwhelming, and the victory was quick. Bush 41 chose to end hostilities once Kuwait was liberated. The objective was achieved and additional loss of life was spared. Some taunted the president, who served his country during World War II, for failing to continue the march to Baghdad but, as Powell and Baker pointed out, nobody is doing that anymore. I’ll leave it to historians and psychologists to explain what motivated Bush fils to handle things so differently from his pop. Thankfully, his days as president are numbered. Our nation has an important decision to make this November. John McCain has begun distancing himself from the current occupant of the White House on many things but not on Iraq. He insists that our military must remain in Iraq as long as necessary to support the new and fragile democracy. His claim that withdrawing our troops would amount to surrender is nonsense. We won the war and it is up to the Iraqis, with international support, to establish a self-sustaining government. The Iraqi people will only support a government of its own choosing and our unlimited presence prevents that from happening. Parents know that we fail our children if we don’t let them walk on their own two feet. By continuing our role as occupiers we are enabling corrupt sycophants who don’t have the moral suasion to appeal to their own people. Doesn’t the Iraqi army’s pathetic recent performance in Basra make that obvious? We have a role to play but not as occupying force. The next American president must restore our commitment to international law and the right of all nations to self-determination. The 9/11 attacks were not an excuse to turn our backs on these basic principles. Yes, the renegades who engage in terrorism need to be hunted down and punished and nations that harbor them should be held to account but within the framework of diplomacy and collaboration between allies. 41 […]

One Tough Filly

One thing you gotta say about Hillary Clinton; there’s nothing brittle about this filly. Sen. Clinton made a visit to the car racing capital of the world in the days leading up the Indiana primary but the Kentucky Derby was the most prestigious sports event of the week. The derby is called the most exciting two minutes in sports and this year it lived up to its reputation. The competitive race stayed close for most of the mile and a quarter though Big Brown closed strong and finished well ahead of Eight Belles, the filly who ran second. Unfortunately, tragedy struck soon after the race was over when the runner up’s two front legs buckled under her leaving the beautiful animal incapacitated. She was quickly euthanized and the resulting sadness contrasted sharply with the festive pageantry (not to mention excessive inebriation) associated with the derby. I’ll leave it to others who know more about the sport to wonder if horseracing is cruel and inhumane. The only time I ever actually visited a horse track, I witnessed the legendary battle between Affirmed and Alydar at Belmont when the two ran the entire distance nose-to-nose culminating in Affirmed’s narrow victory and the sport’s last Triple Crown. That was 30 years ago. Elections are often referred to as races but when they drag on and on it’s difficult to see any parallel with anything associated with speed. Even a marathon concludes in a few hours while this election seems interminable. But it’s clear that this nominating process is rounding the clubhouse turn and the finish line is in sight. Way back in March, following Hillary Clinton’s tepid performance on Super Tuesday, I wondered how long she would continue fighting for the Democratic Party’s nomination given how dramatically she was being outperformed by Barack Obama. I felt then, as I do now, that she was entitled to stay in the race as long as Obama was still short of the delegate count needed to secure the nomination. But it is becoming increasingly clear that her chances of winning are exceedingly small and that the longer the competition continues, the more likely it is that irreparable damage will be done to the Democrats chances of winning in the fall. None of this can be lost on Sen. Clinton who is unquestionably as smart as anyone on today’s political stage. She has made mistakes before, including the horrendously managed attempt to pass comprehensive health care reform in her husband’s first term and the overly cautious frontrunner campaign she ran leading up to her third place finish in Iowa way back in January. To her credit, however, she usually learns from her mistakes. Following the health care debacle, Clinton (and her husband) learned the importance of reaching out to build coalitions. And since Iowa, Clinton has appeared energized and combative, shedding her wonky nature for a more populist and confrontational style. Her support across the nation is wide and deep and it is important that this contest […]

Eye of the Beholder

When it comes to art, we’re all experts. To paraphrase a wise Supreme Court justice, good art is difficult to define but we know it when we see it. Here in Milwaukee, where we have an inferiority complex about so many things, nothing seems to incite a contentious debate more than the subject of public art. The most recent example of the incendiary nature of this topic is, of course, the Bronze Fonz. For those of you who don’t remember or weren’t paying attention, Visit Milwaukee, the quasi-public entity formally known as the Greater Milwaukee Convention and Visitors Bureau, has raised private funds to commission a life-sized sculpture of the Arthur Fonzarelli character from the Happy Days television show to be placed along the city’s Riverwalk. This ignited a firestorm of controversy throughout the Milwaukee art community. Some arts advocates were outraged that the project circumvented the formal approval process for public art in support of something politely described as schlock. Dave Fantle, the Visit Milwaukee impresario behind this undertaking, brushed aside these concerns and insisted that the intent of the sculpture was not to create art but to add an attraction that would draw tourists and other visitors who fondly remember the iconic Fonzie and might want to have their picture taken next to it. My unremarkable reaction to this debate, apparently consistent with my Libran nature, was to sympathize with both sides. What struck me as odd about the proposed sculpture was that it seemed to conflict with Visit Milwaukee’s oft-stated commitment to convince the world that our city had evolved beyond its “Laverne and Shirley” image. Both Fantle and Dean Amhaus, his colleague at Spirit of Milwaukee, another organization dedicated to promoting the city’s image, stressed upon me this goal when I first met them two or three years ago. I like Dave and Dean but I never felt that the image associated with the television show was entirely negative. If, however, you want to disassociate the city from its past, then it is best not to refer to it at all. I was amazed that at nearly every ribbon cutting or news conference announcing some forward looking endeavor, some official would proudly declare that the event proved that Milwaukee “had moved beyond its Laverne and Shirley image.” So that quote would invariably show up in the media coverage serving to keep the connection alive. I love nostalgia and it’s only a television comedy which, you gotta remember, almost always have goofball characters who don’t necessarily represent the essence of the city the show is set in. Do Joey of Friends or George, Elaine or Kramer of Seinfeld make you think that all New Yorkers are shallow and stupid? Or Horshack of Welcome Back, Kotter? Or Ralph and Norton of The Honeymooners? Come on! Fantle’s reaction is that the Fonz represents cool while Laverne and Shirley and their buddies Lennie and Squiggy are square and lame. Whatever. Milwaukee, of course, has been through debates about public art […]

In Praise of Mike Gousha

We are a polarized society on so many things but there is at least one thing that people of all political stripes can agree on; local television news is a vast wasteland. Chicago attorney Newton Minow used that term in reference to all of television way back during the Kennedy administration when he served as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Much has changed in the nearly half century since Minow chastised the broadcasters who were responsible for the thin gruel then beamed into America’s living rooms. We’ve seen highs and lows in most everything including network news, children’s programming, prime time comedy, drama, game shows, so-called reality shows, etc., etc. But when it comes to local news, broadcast television has been a remarkable disappointment, failing to live up to its potential to contribute to an informed, involved population so overwhelmingly and completely that there is really no argument. Let’s look at the evidence… Almost every day the average local news broadcast proves worthy of the phrase that critics use to demean and dismiss the field; “If it bleeds, it leads.” Correspondents and camera crews stand ready to respond anytime a local resident falls victim to violence leading to the obligatory live standup with the breathless reporter on the scene in front of the obligatory yellow police tape. That is, unless a weather event threatens to affect rush hour traffic, in which case the usually attractive “talent” (at least that’s how industry professionals refer to the folks who go in front of the camera) get to stand bundled up against the elements, often with affected traffic visible behind them. But let’s face it, coverage of crime and potentially serious weather events are dwarfed by the true raison d’etre of local television news here in Milwaukee and that’s keeping track of the Green Bay Packers. It’s probably unfair to refer to the extensive coverage of Brett Favre to describe this phenomenon since there is something truly extraordinary about his relationship with Wisconsin. The former Packer quarterback, and it pains even me to refer to him in the past tense, is like royalty and arguably many, probably most, of the viewing population in the Milwaukee media market feel a deep, personal connection with Favre that is something like family. “All Brett, All the Time” came to an apocalyptic crescendo recently when Favre announced that he would indeed retire. It happened to come on the day that cycling superstar and cancer advocate Lance Armstrong was traveling across Wisconsin with Gov. Doyle to support the proposed legislation to ban smoking in all workplaces including bars. Before Favre’s statement was released, inviting Armstrong seemed to be a stroke of brilliance. The biking icon’s popularity is quite high and his commitment to fighting cancer and promoting health issues is sincere and, well, strong. Not only were his personal appearances guaranteed to attract press attention but his appeal to male sports fans would draw the attention of a demographic not always sympathetic to health promotion issues. […]

Journal Sentinel Capable of Good Journalism

When the Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday and it was revealed that Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dave Umhoefer had won the Big Enchilada for local reporting, I was happy for Umhoefer and the rest of the Journal Sentinel staff who worked on this investigation of yet another excessive manipulation of the county pension system to grossly benefit county retirees. I have tremendous respect for the Pulitzer Prize and I know that this award should not be taken lightly. If you don’t remember this story from last July, it’s worth a read. It’s well-researched and well-written. The bottom line is that county leaders rigged the system to allow certain workers to pay for the privilege of extending their length of service in order to qualify for substantially greater annual benefits. More than 350 workers paid nearly $3 million in order to convert past summer jobs, internships and other seasonal work, normally ineligible to count towards pension benefits, in order to qualify for additional benefits totalling more than $50 million, in violation of federal tax code and county ordinances. As a result of the story, the county turned itself into the IRS in order to avoid a potential audit. This was a new wrinkle on the pension scandal that had first been broken by Bruce Murphy and posted on the milwaukeeworld.com web site back in 2001. When Murphy called attention to how the county had implemented new and extraordinarily generous benefits for thousands of county workers, it was seen as a black eye for the Journal Sentinel which not only had missed the story but apparently hadn’t even been sending reporters to cover the meetings where the “pension sweeteners” were discussed. Some critics, including Michael Horne who now writes for milwaukeeworld.com, fault the Journal Sentinel for not crediting Murphy and his original story with leading to this Pulitzer. Horne scoffs that JS editor Marty Kaiser claims this is the type of reporting that only a newspaper can do. Kaiser’s gratuitous boast appears disingenuous, if not totally dishonest, given how Murphy broke his story in 2001 writing for a web site. The competition between old-fashioned newspapers, printed on paper and distributed to front doors and driveways, and their online brethren, capable of being updated 24/7 is becoming increasingly moot. All providers of news need to realize that the internet represents the future. Newspapers, magazines, cable and broadcast television, etc. are simply content producers and consumers want to receive that product in the most convenient version possible. As traditional circulation drops, newspapers are struggling to figure out how to generate revenue online, not such an easy proposition, given that most people expect access to web sites to be free. Plus, Craigslist and other online classified sites have gutted one of the greatest sources of revenue for newspapers. This is not unique to the news industry, of course. The music business has been radically transformed by downloading and the iPod and that’s only one example. All news organizations are facing this challenge and resorting […]

We Must Cultivate Our Gardens

“Tawdry and Despicable” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel A “Tragedy” — Gov. Doyle “Unfit to be a judge or hold any public office — Bill Lueders Others have reflected on the awful campaign leading to the defeat of Justice Louis Butler by Burnett County Circuit Court Judge Michael Gableman in Tuesday’s election. My reaction was disappointment and anger. Justice Butler, a highly-respected, ethical and accomplished jurist was taken out by a truly mean-spirited, vicious and cynical campaign. But let’s stop putting the blame on how shady, anonymous third party groups manipulated the process. For one thing, the Gableman campaign itself was responsible for the most reprehensible ad. It was the one that flashed Butler’s picture on the screen next to the face of a child molester who Butler represented in his role as a public defender more than twenty years ago. Leaving aside the racist implications that led to comparisons with the Willie Horton ad of the 1988 Lee Atwater-George H.W. Bush campaign, Gableman’s ad crossed a clear line by suggesting that Butler was tainted for serving as a public defender offering competent defense to an indigent client. Gableman refused to withdraw the ad or apologize for it, insisting that he was simply drawing a distinction between his experience as a prosecutor and Butler’s experience as a defense attorney. A number of legal experts believe that this ad violated the prohibition of judges engaging in behavior detrimental to public confidence in the judicial system. Even many of his supporters, including the estimable Charlie Sykes, criticized the ad. So Gableman will join the court with an ethical cloud surrounding him much as Annette Ziegler did last year. But let no one be confused about those third party groups. They are neither anonymous nor obscure. Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business group, bellied up to the bar and opened its wallet to make sure that the balance of power on the Supreme Court swung in its favor. These greedy, Gordon Gecko-wannabes shouldn’t be given the cloak of invisibility or unaccountability. Take a look at the WMC board. These are the folks responsible for replacing Louis Butler with Michael Gableman. Each one probably considers him or herself a civic leader, with ties to the community and charitable causes they support. I’ll bet they love their mothers, are good parents and maybe even have really, really cute pets. Maybe you know one of them or more. I suggest you do what I did. Contact them and ask them if they were involved in the decision to conduct this campaign and, if so, why. I exchanged emails with John B. Torinus, Jr., Chairman of Serigraph, Inc. of West Bend. Mr. Torinus, who also pens a business column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, responded that he personally favors public financing of Supreme Court elections though he acknowledged that would be useless unless third party spending was reined in. We have no choice but to operate under the rules as they exist. So it seems somewhat […]

Vote As If Your Life Depended On It

Yes, we all have the right to stay home and not vote. That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Yes, elections are messy, aggravating, distasteful affairs. But the brains in our head (the gray matter, if you will) give us the capacity to evaluate the candidates and make an informed decision. Yes, there is an incredibly important presidential election this year that seems to be sucking the oxygen out of the multitude of local contests here in Wisconsin and elsewhere. But the truth is that your vote for Wisconsin Supreme Court justice may be the most important one you cast this year. Look, I know that the deluge of manipulative, offensive ads run by so-called independent third party groups make it difficult not to turn your back on the whole unseemly process and wish a pox on both of their houses. But there is a reason these organizations with deep pockets are spending so lavishly on this race. It really matters. Just imagine if we held a national vote to elect a justice to the Supreme Court of the United States. The airwaves would be bursting with provocative ads trying to convince us of the relative merit (or, more likely, the scandalous past) of one candidate or the other. Could you possibly decide to ignore the process and stay home on Election Day? So I urge you to approach Tuesday’s election as if your life depended on it. By that I mean you should do what you would do if you learned you have a serious illness and had an important decision to make about your care. You would go online and research your options. You would seek out experts with the knowledge and experience that could provide you with valuable information to help with the decision. And you would talk to your friends whose opinions you respect. Time is short. Do your due diligence and vote tomorrow. I think the choice is clear. Justice Louis Butler is an intelligent, accomplished, respected, ethical jurist who has the support of an overwhelming majority of his fellow judges. His opponent, Mike Gableman, has been a judge for a fraction of the time Justice Butler has and has engaged in the kind of sleazy campaign that is so antithetical to our notion of a respected and thoughtful judiciary. But don’t take my word for it. Visit the candidates’ own websites, see how the campaign has been covered by the state (and the nation’s) media, and talk to people. Can’t we all please agree that elections are important and that all of our votes matter? Do I need to remind you of that drawn out debacle 8 years ago in Florida when the term “hanging chad” entered our nation’s vernacular? So vote. I don’t want to hear any excuses.

Hey Milwaukee Bad Guys, There’s A New Maestro in Town!

When Edward Flynn was appointed Milwaukee’s new police chief, the community engaged in a group swoon. Flynn hit all the right notes as he met with the various key constituencies in town. Politicians, law enforcement officials, community activists and the business community all applauded the choice and Mayor Tom Barrett was praised for using the heft of his office to twist arms and influence this critical appointment (which, of course, was made by the Fire and Police Commission and not by the Mayor). Chief Flynn is closely associated with the philosophy of community policing and everyone seems to agree that this is a wonderful thing. But community policing is one of those generic terms, like democracy, good schools and market economies, which appeal to most everyone but are not always so easy to put into action. While it’s way too early to issue a judgment on the chief’s performance, you have to say that so far, so good. First of all, he has authorized (ordered?) his district captains to develop proposals for addressing the critical issues in their communities. He has held public meetings to announce and promote these initiatives. People have noticed and, by and large, have responded well. Second of all, he has expanded the presence of beat cops in busy neighborhoods. I’ve seen more police walking around in the last few weeks than I have in years. This is a key component of community policing. Beat cops walking around neighborhoods obviously isn’t a new idea; but it happens be incredibly effective. Who’d have thought? Yesterday, Chief Flynn held a news conference at the District 5 headquarters to call attention to an early, if modest, success. Police conducted a crackdown in the neighborhood around N. 19th Street and W. Nash where a gang known as the Nash Street Boys was believed to be dealing drugs and intimidating people. A group of law enforcement officers including Milwaukee police and FBI agents conducted arrests of 39 individuals suspected of gang involvement on Feb. 14th. In the month following the Valentine’s Day arrests, total criminal activity decreased by one third (24 incidents in the month before contrasted with 16 incidents since). Chief Flynn was joined at the news conference by Mayor Barrett, District Attorney John Chisholm, as well as a cross section of uniformed officers and appreciative residents. Chief Flynn pointed out that this was only the beginning but part of community policing is to focus on results and these positive results were worth noticing. But I found the most noteworthy aspect of the announcement were the broad smiles on the faces of the young police officers. Flynn remarked that they were smiling because successful police work is fun. But after the news conference, the officers made it clear that they enthusiastically support the chief’s program. “It’s taken away a lot of the red tape and lets us do our jobs,” said Officer Teresa Heidemann. “We get to be cops.” It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Chief Flynn. Somehow, his […]

Race, Politics and Easter

It’s Easter Sunday and the topic du jour is race. The old ad used to say “You don’t have to be Jewish to like Levy’s Rye Bread” (maybe it was a New York thing), so perhaps you don’t have to be Christian to appreciate the irony of the moment. Barack Obama was forced to deliver a speech on the subject of race because he has been buffeted by charges of poor judgment for maintaining a relationship with his preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Radio, television and YouTube listeners and viewers have been barraged by clips of Wright railing against the inequities of our white-dominated society and even asserting that our nation brought 9/11 on ourselves through our actions around the world. I thought Obama was faced with a “Sister Souljah” moment, similar to when Bill Clinton needed to repudiate one of his core constituencies in order to prove his independence and character. But once again Obama proved that he is possessed of a remarkable intelligence and sophisticated appreciation of the powerful tensions tearing at our divided nation. He delivered a speech in Philadelphia last Tuesday that rejected Wright’s words but placed them in the context of our nation’s great but imperfect history. We should not forget or ignore that history, he said, but neither should we be poisoned by it. It is a history that has left scars on many people of many colors, faiths and bckgrounds but it has also taught us that we have the means, through our system of government and the power it bestows on “We, the People,” to right wrongs and continue the process of constructing a “more perfect union.” Obama delivered a great and timely speech that brings to mind Lincoln’s Second Inaugural when the 16th president called on the nation to look beyond the Civil War and begin the process of healing and reconciliation. Of course, Lincoln did not live long enough to preside over a nation at peace, Reconstruction was marked by unfortunate abuses and racism persisted through the Jim Crow years of the 20th century and even in today’s post-Civil Rights era. It remains to be seen how this election year will play out. But once again former President Bill Clinton revealed himself to be more interested in exploiting race for political advantage than in serving as one of the nation’s and his party’s senior statesmen. His comment that he hoped the nation would have two candidates in the general election able to focus on important things and not be distracted by the ugly and divisive issue of race was a transparent and shameful attack on Obama. Obama went on to deliver speeches on the economy and foreign affairs but the Wright controversy continues to dog him. Conservative talk show hosts are gleeful that they have been provided with ammo to challenge Obama’s patriotism by associating him with Wright. It’s ridiculous and offensive but it’s a free country. Race has also made an unfortunate appearance in the campaign for Wisconsin Supreme […]

OMG Check Out This Bracket!

It’s March madness, baby! The competition leading up to the Final Four and the NCAA basketball championship has evolved into one of the most entertaining sports events of the year. And with Wisconsin and Marquette playing well and still alive as of this writing (Wisconsin has already advanced to the Sweet Sixteen while Marquette is battling tough with favored Stanford in the second half). But this being Wisconsin, ya gotta check out the bracket competition developed by the Washington Post. They started with 64 of the finest beers in the nation and are letting their discriminating readers decide which brews advance. I’ll drink to that. And while I’m raising a glass in tribute to the MSM’s WP, one of the twin titans of newsprint, let me also suggest that you have a look at the Post’s fact checker feature which examines the dubious claims of the various campaigns and grades them on a scale of Pinocchios for untruthfulness. Hillary Clinton’s assertion that she made a trip to Bosnia because it was too dangerous for Bill and that she dodged bullets at the airport earns the highest rating of four Pinocchios. Apparently, the comedian Sinbad was on the trip with her, as were print and broadcast reporters and they’ve called her on her whopper. Who knew Sen. Clinton had a Rambo complex?

Greed and the Wisconsin Supreme Court

If you’ve been in front of a television recently, you’ve probably seen those ads trying to influence the election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Incumbent Louis Butler is being challenged by Butler County Circuit Judge Mike Gableman. Gableman is the bobblehead who allegedly bought his seat on the bench and Butler is the alleged criminal coddler. For years and years candidates for state Supreme Court conducted low-key campaigns awash in decorum and highfalutin legal principles. But that was then and this is now. Over the last two contests, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business group has decided to spend an inordinately large amount of money to elect candidates to the state Supreme Court who are friendlier to business interests. Last year, the group spent big bucks to elect Annette Ziegler to the court, despite the ethical lapses that led to her being sanctioned for failing to disclose her ties to a bank that was involved in a case before her. Now it is throwing its girth into a campaign to unseat a respected incumbent on the court by attempting to portray Louis Butler as soft on crime. The business leaders who have signed off on this transparent effort to make the court more pliant to the state’s wealthy corporate interests should be ashamed. This isn’t about crime, this is about greed. Newsweek did a fairly comprehensive analysis of this race and cited “uncanny parallels” between the election in Wisconsin and the plot of John Grisham’s novel, “The Appeal,” where business interests fund attacks on an African-American member of the state Supreme Court in Mississippi. In both cases, the business groups falsely accuse the sitting justice of acting to release a convicted sexual predator. The Greater Wisconsin Committee, a liberal advocacy group, has responded to these horrid attacks with ads questioning the challenger’s record on crime. To his credit, Butler has called on all third party groups on both sides to “stand down” and allow the candidates to make their own cases. Unfortunately, challenger Gableman has engaged in his own outrageous attack campaign which is drawing fire from the state’s good government groups, including the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign , Wisconsin Judicial Integrity Campaign Committee, Common Cause and Citizen Action, for false statements and misrepresenting Butler’s record. But those fine, upstanding folks at the WMC definitely deserve a dubious achievement award for acting so selfishly and egregiously on behalf of the state’s wealthiest interests. Former Madison mayor and liberal blogger Paul Soglin is engaged in a personal campaign to call the members of the WMC to account for this greedy behavior. The members of the WMC board are ultimately responsible for this reprehensible slander of Justice Butler. These business executives probably support token good causes and are undoubtedly regarded as respected pillars in their communities. But they shouldn’t be able to hide behind the relative anonymity of the front group they control. How can we expect citizens to have faith in our government when the groups with the deepest pockets […]

A Stunning Fall

One of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies is when George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart’s character in Frank Capra’s great Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, pleads with a group of customers at the savings and loan not to withdraw all of their money. George says the money isn’t in the vault, it’s helping build their neighbors’ homes and start their businesses. He eventually persuades them to only take out what they need, thereby allowing the bank to remain open. But, for me, the “money shot” is when the sound of fire trucks or ambulances or police cars distracts the crowd and everyone moves to the window to see what’s going on. Our attention is riveted by the crisis in the bank but they can’t help but turn their gaze to the street. Which brings me to the news that uber-prosecutor turned New York governor, Eliot Spitzer, has been implicated in a sex-for-money scandal. Nothing sucks up the public’s attention more than a story that combines sex, scandal and celebrity. And when the celebrity in question is a stuffed shirt politician who has made a career out of prosecuting wealthy businessmen who were caught stealing, cheating or otherwise taking advantage of their high positions in society, well, the hypocrisy is stunning and overwhelming. While the story is unfortunate in that, once again, parents are having to explain terms like “prostitution” and “call girls” to their children who happen to be watching the news with them it brings some relief to those of us who have been overdosing on the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. After yesterday’s Mississippi primary, which was won decisively by Obama, the next contest isn’t until April 22 in Pennsylvania. There will continue to be news relating to the presidential contest, most notably the expected resolution of the imbroglio involving the Florida and Michigan delegation to the Democratic convention. But this amounts to something of a news blackout for six weeks. Six weeks! Of course, locally we have important elections coming up on April 1st including the Wisconsin Supreme Court race between incumbent Justice Louis Butler and challenger Mike Gableman. But the Spitzer story is filling a void with the overwhelming power of a raging tide (sorry, sorry, sorry!). Spitzer announced his resignation today. Some will say he should have stayed and defended himself since this is such a personal matter and, after all, Bill Clinton didn’t leave office after he was involved in a sex scandal. But Clinton’s Affaire Lewinsky did not break any law (though, of course, he was charged with perjury for denying the relationship in grand jury testimony) and the campaign to impeach Clinton was such a political witch hunt. Spitzer was caught in an investigation launched by the IRS and the FBI based on the unusual transfers of funds that he was using to funnel money to the “escort service.” Arguably, the investigators expected to find evidence of a bribe or other form of public corruption and were […]

Whose Supreme Court Is It?

April 1st is shaping up as an important election day for Wisconsin, perhaps rivaling the presidential primary of February 19th. Locally, we have State Sen. Lena Taylor challenging Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker. Walker was elected on a one-note platform of opposing new taxes and he has stuck to that mantra even as financial shortfalls and poor management have lead to cutbacks and fee increases in transit services and park programs. The Journal Sentinel has published exposes documenting gross lapses in the supervision of mental health patients resulting in some deaths and insufficient staffing of the county detention center leading to criminals escaping and committing heinous new crimes. Walker famously dismissed the announcement that regional leaders were creating the Milwaukee 7 initiative to improve the community’s profile as an attempt to “put lipstick on a pig.” Maybe it’s time for voters to elect someone who is more committed to making government work rather than making excuses for its failures. A number of city aldermanic and county supervisor seats are either open or being challenged. For example, Patrick Flaherty and Nic Kovac are engaged in a spirited race to fill Ald. Mike D’Amato’s open seat representing the city’s third district and, of course, imprisoned Alderman Michael McGee faces Milele Coggs. But perhaps no contest holds as much significance for the state of Wisconsin as the election to decide whether Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler should be returned to his seat. Once again the state’s largest business group, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, is preparing to spend millions of dollars in order to elect a justice more supportive of the state’s corporate interests. You may have already seen the attack ads run by the WMC and the Club for Growth, another pro-business organization. They resort to the time-honored tactic of charging Butler with being soft on criminals. The evidence? He voted along with a 4-3 majority to require a new trial for a convicted murderer since new analysis of DNA samples indicate it may not have been him. How could he! The truth is pretty transparent. Go to WMC’s web site and you see little mention of crime. Their stated priorities are “lower taxes, reduce regulation, and reform the legal system” and they go on to explain that government intervention and nuisance lawsuits interfere with an open business environment. Aren’t you glad they care about public safety? I mean they feature a quote from Milton Friedman, fer chrissakes! The Greater Wisconsin Committee, a liberal advocacy group isn’t taking this sitting down. They are running ads charging Butler’s opponent, Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman with buying his appointment from former Gov. Scott McCallum with campaign contributions. Check out the competing ads and judge for yourself. Gov. Jim Doyle appointed Butler to the Supreme Court following his 14 years of experience as a judge in Milwaukee. He has been endorsed by five major law enforcement organizations including the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the Wisconsin Troopers’ Association and the Milwaukee Police Association, more than 200 […]

Keep Your Hands to Yourself and Eat Your Own Food!

An editorial in The New York Times today makes the strongest case yet that the tight race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should be good for the country as long as the candidates keep the focus on the issues. Unfortunately, both have demonstrated that they are willing to pander to voters and attack their opponent which risks alienating he public and screwing up their party’s chances in the November election. Who would have thought that this contest not only wouldn’t be decided by now but that it could actually continue on to the convention in Denver in August! New York Times columnist Gail Collins has some fun dissecting what happened in Ohio and Texas. Can you imagine a better metaphor for this competition than an elementary school cafeteria? Keep your hands to yourself and eat your own food!

On to Pennsylvania … and Possibly Denver!!!

So Hillary Clinton did what she had to do. Her victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island gave her the justification she needed to keep this battle going. She still trails Barack Obama in pledged delegates and it does not appear likely that she can catch him. But Obama is unlikely to get to the 2025 delegates necessary to claim victory before the August convention in Denver. So what is the party to do? Well, just as President Bush remained officially neutral until John McCain won the requisite delegates to secure the nomination (though his father endorsed the Arizona senator weeks ago), the party big shots need to hold their fire, urge the two combatants to fight fair, and let the process play out. Yes, that means on to Pennsylvania on April 22 (seven weeks away!) and maybe even on to a contested convention. If that’s what it takes, so be it. What we have here is basically the same as a heavyweight title fight when neither of the two palookas has been able to land the knockout punch. When that happens the outcome is decided by a panel of judges who award points based on their expertise and judgment. That’s where the superdelegates come in. Folks who complain that letting these party insiders decide the nominee is undemocratic are missing the point. Former Congresswoman, and Vice Presidential nominee in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro said on NPR today that the role of the party leaders returns some fairness to the process since many states (including Wisconsin) allow independents and even Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary, possible interfering with the best interests of the party. The role of the superdelegates serves as a safety valve to insure that the nominee accurately reflects the best interests of the party. All hell would break out if they overturned the strong wishes of the voters. I say let’s see where this leads. One outstanding issue for the party leaders is what to do about Florida and Michigan. Both were banished from having their delegates seated at the convention because they dared hold their primaries before the party wanted them to. Those were the rules that all the candidates agreed to so the easiest thing would be to stick to that position. But Hillary Clinton won both states so her camp will push to seat both delegations. Holding new primaries or caucuses would be costly and impractical. There are no easy answers to this dilemma. In the meantime the candidates should continue making their best cases for support and avoid launching unnecessarily negative attacks on each other. Hillary Clinton already has dabbled in this area with her “kitchen sink strategy” and it finally appears to have worked. Party leaders may need to step in and warn her about low blows then tell them to come out from their corners. May the most worthy candidate win.

yes we can

If there’s one thing we owe to George W. Bush and his disgraceful presidency, it is thanks for the fact that we have reached a point where voters, even traditionally apathetic young people, are tuning in and turning out, paying attention and voting. It’s way too early to predict what will happen in November but, at least in the primaries and caucuses so far, folks are voting in droves, especially Democrats. The stars may be aligned for a historic turnout this fall and that’s a good thing. Let’s face it: the 21st century hasn’t been so good to the American brand of democracy, and it sure could use a shot in the arm. Who can forget the debacle of 2000, when the Supreme Court decided who would reside in the White House in a dubious 5-4 vote? On 9/11, the nation withstood the most violent attack on its soil since Pearl Harbor and, for a short time, grew more unified internally and garnered near-universal support internationally. But it didn’t take our president long to squander that goodwill through an ill-advised preemptive war and a host of unconscionable policies and practices – authorized torture, spying on Americans without a court order, a prison camp for detainees never charged with a crime. This administration’s ends-justify-the-means decision making and with-us-or-against-us foreign policy has decimated our standing in the world. Its willingness to coddle dictators in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere while spilling blood in Iraq doesn’t pass the smell test, and the no-bid contracts of Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies profiting from the war call the entire enterprise into question. In office, Bush and Cheney consistently fashioned themselves as freedom-loving, nation-building democracy exporters – but the world didn’t buy it. History has witnessed its share of shifty-eyed snake oil salesmen and these two will be judged among them. If our nation can agree on one thing, it’s that Inauguration Day 2009 can’t come soon enough. But as the cliché goes, elections aren’t about the past, they’re about the future – and thank goodness for that. One of the remarkable things about a democracy is how restorative and energizing an election can be. The nation is hungry for change and all of the candidates have positioned themselves as the most worthy agent of it. But there is certainly plenty to be cynical about, and even true believers can be forgiven for throwing up their hands in frustration at times. Look at what still lies ahead and what could go wrong: Democratic Party leaders apparently want to see a convenient deal worked out so that the party can unify behind a nominee before the August convention in Denver, lest the so-called superdelegates determine the victor and overrule, seemingly, the will of the people. I say, chill out. Give your Rules Committee and the process it created some credit. The idea was to empower voters with a majority of delegates assigned to candidates through the primaries. The uncommitted superdelegates would ensure that professional-class politicians would have […]

The Clintons and the Dallas Cowboys

While most of the universe has already reached the conclusion that Barack Obama will ultimately receive this year’s Democratic nomination for president, there are a few voices reminding us that it ain’t over until it’s over. Among them is Dan Schnur, a Republican consultant originally from Wisconsin, who presents his argument in terms all fans of the Green Bay Packers can relate to. He compares the Clintons to the dreaded Dallas Cowboys who could never be counted out while there was still time left on the clock. I also recall inspired come-from-behind victories by the Cowboys though mostly from an earlier era. Back in the ‘70s, I was often amazed by the Cowboys of Tom Landry and Roger Staubach who routinely scored two or three touchdowns in the closing minutes of key games. More recently, the Jimmy Johnson-Troy Aikman teams committed similar atrocities at the expense of the “green and gold.” Schnur draws a parallel between Dallas’s mojo and the times that the Clinton clan came back from certain death, during the 1992 New Hampshire primary, following the health care reform debacle (aka Hillarygate), the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 and the Lewinsky scandal of the late 1990s. For the most part, I don’t buy it. For Hillary Clinton to overcome Obama’s lead in delegates, she would not only have to win the remaining primaries in delegate-rich states of Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania but by extremely large margins. But it certainly is entertaining to imagine some Republicans shuddering at the thought of facing the Clinton machine. Surely, Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and George H. W. Bush wish they had a wooden stake they could bury in the heart of this family. It is true that in politics, as in sports, momentum can shift in a New York minute. So make sure you don’t get a sandwich or take a bathroom break until either Obama or Clinton have nailed down the nomination. You don’t want to miss this finish.

The Kitchen Sink Strategy

It’s about time that I set the record straight. Despite my vast experience and Mensa-worthy intelligence, the public seems enthralled by the soaring rhetoric and surface appeal of my rival bloggers. Since being raised modestly by working class parents, I have devoted my life to poking fun at the foibles and hypocrisies of the worlds of politics and government. Who can deny that I am best prepared for a career as an online political humorist? I attended the same high school as Art Buchwald and the same college as Dave Barry! My career in journalism and media relations has given me unparalleled insight into the compromises and petty struggles that are endemic malignancies on the authority figures and institutions of power of our time. Now that I am toiling away day and night to share my insights with the masses surely the world will recognize that I am entitled to my rightful place as blogger extraordinaire despite its apparent attraction to the pretty words of my clearly less deserving competition. So after careful consultation with my coterie of respected advisors, I have decided to launch my “kitchen sink” strategy to point out the flaws of these pretenders who dare challenge my blogger preeminence. Before I start, let me state clearly and unequivocally that I have the utmost respect for all of my peers in the blogosphere. They are all extremely accomplished and, if I wasn’t in this race, I would passionately and energetically support whichever one of them wins the endorsement of the public. But you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) not to recognize that I am the most qualified and therefore undeniably entitled to ascend to the throne of top blogger. For starters, let’s take a look at my distinguished colleague from Madison, Ed Garvey. I welcome Ed’s contribution to the public discourse; his liberal credentials and institutional memory are assets that we all should treasure. But surely I am not the only one to notice that Ed spent years working for one of those unions representing athletes. With all the controversy surrounding sports these days, is it really much of a stretch to imagine Ed sticking a syringe into the butt of Roger Clemens? Think about it? I hereby declare that I have never injected an athlete with performance enhancing chemicals. Et tu, Ed? Next, I call your attention to Bill Christofferson, a smart and talented former journalist and political operative who I have the utmost admiration for. Nobody gets under the skin of Wisconsin’s conservatives more than Bill. They blame him for every tactic undertaken by the state’s Democrats and assorted progressives ranging from creating 527 groups to masterminding Jim Doyle’s election as governor. But isn’t it time that we reject the politics of the past? Certainly nobody has ever compared me to Rasputin and I doubt Charlie Sykes or Mark Belling even know my name! Then there’s James Rowen, another worthy blogger whose contributions on politics […]

Hillary’s bipolar campaign

So which is it? Is Hillary Clinton choosing to go negative against Barack Obama, as in attacking him for “plagiarizing” the words of his friend and campaign co-chair, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts? Or is she taking the high road and praising her opponent as she did when she said how “proud” she is to be in the race with Obama? Clinton’s vitriolic attack on Obama yesterday for distributing fliers that dared to criticize her positions on health care and trade (“Shame on you, Barack Obama”), comparing his tactics to “Karl Rove and the Republicans,” suggests that she is willing to go nuclear in a desperate effort to salvage her campaign with victories in Texas and Ohio next week. It makes you long for the good old days, like last November and December, when she withstood barbs from her male opponents with class and humor, leaving it to her husband and other surrogates to call attention to how the guys were ganging up on the one woman in the race. Sen. Clinton’s mood swings create the appearance of a campaign off its medication. You would think after her “Xerox” line drew boos and her graceful “I’m so proud” comment generated her most enthusiastic response at last week’s debate in Texas, she would have learned a lesson. It’s certainly not unusual for people with political ambitions to lose touch with reality. By most accounts, Richard Nixon was one whacked-out dude. And then there was Ross Perot, who said there was some kind of conspiracy to interfere with his daughter’s wedding towards the end of his third party candidacy. Funny how we haven’t heard much from him since! Those close to Hillary always stress what a normal and decent person she is, remembering their birthdays and asking about their families. How sad to see her morph into the Captain Queeg of 2008. Saturday Night Live’s opening skit poked fun at Clinton’s increasingly bizarre rationalization of her string of losses. But the writing is on the wall. Even her husband has said that wins in Texas and Ohio were absolutely necessary for Clinton to continue. Let’s open our hearts to Hillary. May she find comfort in her strong family and close friends, when it comes time to step aside and endorse Obama for the good of her party and nation. At some point, however, it may be necessary for a good old fashioned intervention. I hear Dr. Phil is good at this sort of thing.

A Not So Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Elections, like sports, can be incredibly entertaining, especially when the outcome is in doubt. Both, however, require the proverbial “level playing field” which is why attempts to gain an unfair advantage or improperly influence the outcome of either are so infuriating. Whether it’s the use of steroids by overpaid athletes or misdeeds by overly-enthusiastic campaign supporters, it’s dishonest and it ain’t right. So when I heard a few conservative voters say that they had held their noses and voted for Hillary Clinton since she would be the easier candidate for the Republicans to defeat in November, I was troubled. Yesterday morning, I heard several callers to the morning talk show on WTMJ-AM say that they had voted for Clinton to undermine the Democratic primary and urged others, including host Charlie Sykes, to do the same. One recommended that Sykes should buy a bar of soap on the way to the polls so that he could take a shower after voting for Clinton since the very idea of doing so was so distasteful. Later, I noticed that Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Crocker Stephenson reported on the paper’s election blog that a Republican voter had told him that he had voted for Clinton to improve his party’s chances in the fall. Suddenly I began to suspect some curious right wing conspiracy was afloat to, of all things, benefit Hillary Clinton. An especially ironic development given that she once said such a conspiracy was responsible for the many investigations of her husband’s administration. Surely there weren’t too many voters who were engaging in this nefarious enterprise but if the election turned out to be as close as some suspected then, who knows, maybe these cranky Republicans would ultimately influence the selection of the Democratic candidate for president! We now know that I didn’t need to worry. Yesterday’s Wisconsin primary represented a stunning victory for Barack Obama. He won the state 58% to 41%. Not so shabby. He won by similar margins in Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay, all three of the major Democratic strongholds in the state. He won or held his own across demographic categories only ceding older women to Clinton. The last 36 hours of the campaign were not pretty. The Clinton side escalated its charges against Obama by attacking him for plagiarizing part of the speech he delivered to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s dinner on Saturday from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an Obama friend and supporter. Most acknowledge this incident is largely a tempest in a teapot but it recalls the ill-fated presidential campaign of Sen. Joe Biden in 1988 that collapsed following the disclosure that he had extensively borrowed language from a British politician. Obama’s wife Michelle didn’t do her husband much good when she said in Milwaukee on Monday that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” You can imagine the fun the Republicans will have with that. Likely Republican nominee John McCain was quick to have his wife […]

The Gloves Come off

They say politics ain’t beanbag (confused? think hackey sack) so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the gloves have come off in the Democratic race for President. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is running ads here in Wisconsin attacking Barack Obama for not agreeing to debate and for falling short of promising universal health care coverage for all Americans. The interesting thing is that she is basically correct on the merits but it doesn’t seem to matter. Obama deftly dismisses her criticisms as old-style politics and calls attention to her past support for NAFTA and bankruptcy reform which were not in the best interests of the poor and middle class. His rhetorical jujitsu is something to behold. He is such a natural politician, combining a remarkable personal history with an outstanding command of policy and a riveting speaking style that people are falling victim to the Obama swoon. At one time, Bill Clinton was the reigning practitioner of this art. As recently as fall, 2006, the former President had the touch. He filled the Milwaukee Theatre at a rally in support of Gov. Jim Doyle’s bid for reelection and he was in fine form. The place rocked as Bill segued from praising Doyle to critiquing President Bush and the crowd loved him (the Clinton swoon was in the air). Interestingly, Barack Obama also addressed a crowd here in support of Doyle’s reelection at Pere Marquette Park and his eloquence and ability to inspire was apparent. Shift back to the present and the bloom seems off the Clinton rose; a development nobody could have predicted mere weeks ago. Obama is the rock star at this point in time and Bill Clinton seems like yesterday’s news. Obama drew 18,000 to the Kohl Center in Madison, and thousands more in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Green Bay and everywhere he goes. President Clinton, the most popular Democrat since John F. Kennedy, has only been drawing much smaller crowds including 2-300 here in Milwaukee on Thursday. Arguably, Bill Clinton has only himself to blame with comments about Obama like the “fairy tale” remark in New Hampshire and the comparison to Jesse Jackson in South Carolina. Here in Wisconsin he’s been more careful. He gave a fine speech Thursday but he comes across as a link to the past and that’s not a formula for success this year. Obama still needs to finish strong and I know better than to count out the Clintons but there’s an undeniable feeling in the air that this Obama thing is the real deal. The ad wars are nicely documented here by the New York Times. If you want to dig further and try to make sense of the differences on health care reform check out http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/theyve_got_you_covered.html. Finally, Doyle’s appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews is worth watching. Wisconsin is the center of the political universe for a few days so enjoy the ride. Obama and Clinton are both scheduled to speak at tonight’s Democratic dinner at the Midwest Airlines Center. The […]

It Doesn’t Take a Weatherman

The deluge has begun. In case you haven’t noticed, Wisconsin’s primary is next Tuesday so our state is suddenly drawing attention from the candidates and the national media. On some levels the race for the Democratic nomination is too close to call and nobody expects either candidate to deliver a decisive blow for at least for a month or so until Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania have had their say. Those states, some say, are a firewall for Hillary Clinton and if she finishes strong she can still establish herself as the likely candidate prior to the convention in August. But that’s not how it looks from here in the dairy state on Valentines’ Day. The momentum of the Obama campaign is palpable in Wisconsin and the evidence that he will win here is everywhere. The crowds he is turning out across the state are amazing. The ads he is running are compelling. The money he is raising and the endorsements he is gathering are impressive. The groundswell of support for the first term senator from Illinois is dramatic and authentic. Clinton’s campaign is struggling to reinvent her as the underdog insurgent in this race. I like and respect Hillary but this is yet another sign that she is destined to finish second. Not only are the voters clamoring for change but, perhaps more significantly, they are seeking authenticity. Both candidates are incredibly bright, hardworking and accomplished but Clinton loses to Obama on the intangible of being in sync with the times. On Tuesday, Obama drew 18,000 to the Kohl Center in Madison with hundreds more in the Pavilion next door watching on two giant video screens. I drove from Milwaukee with my daughter and one of her friends and we ended up in the overflow. The two teenagers with me were impressed by Obama’s speech and were excited that we were able to squeeze into the main arena after he was finished so they could catch a glimpse of the politician. What better sign of his impact? He is truly the rock star candidate. Obama continued his march across the state on Wednesday with appearances in Janesville, Waukesha and Racine. I made it to the Waukesha Expo Center to see what effect he’d have on a smaller crowd in a largely Republican community. He delivered with flying colors. The nearly 2000 in the audience were treated to a tour d’ force speech combining detailed policy specifics with inspirational oratory. If people arrived with an open mind, the chances are good that he closed the deal. Former President Bill Clinton addressed a much smaller crowd this morning at Milwaukee’s Italian Community Center. I couldn’t stay away because I was curious to see what he would say and what impact he would have on his audience. Only part of the ballroom was filled, maybe two hundred. Many of those gathered appeared to be devoted supporters of Hillary Clinton and he gave a fine speech highlighting her accomplishments and pointing out her prescriptions […]

The Choice

Mitt Romney’s decision to drop out of the race appears to lock up the nomination for John McCain though it will be interesting to see how long Mike Huckabee stays in and makes McCain continue defending his conservative credentials. The Republicans, as usual, are playing by the standard rulebook by falling in line behind a nominee early. Conventional wisdom suggests that the earlier a party chooses its candidate, the better its chances are going into the November election. The less messy intraparty eye-gouging, the better and, besides, no sense squandering precious resources fighting your friends. But the subject du jour is the Obama-Clinton competition so let’s have at it, okay? Here we have a virtual tie between two obviously bright and politically savvy candidates both of whom would represent a historic first if elected. While many of us may feel that we’d be happy to support either one, our primary here in Wisconsin is a mere 11 days away so we can only duck the choice for so much longer. What follows is something of a cheat sheet on the differences between Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton which I thought I’d pull together as a kind of public service. Don’t feel you have to thank me but I welcome your adoring comments. The Issues: By most accounts, the two candidates are remarkably similar on the issues. The two issues that observers use to draw distinctions between them are the Iraq War and Health Care Reform. Even on these issues their differences can appear to some as hairsplitting since they virtually agree on what to do from this point forward in Iraq and they both support providing health care to everyone who wants it. As for Iraq, Obama has gotten a lot of mileage out of the fact that Clinton voted in favor of authorizing the Iraq War while he opposed the war from the beginning. While Clinton did vote in favor of the use of force, as did John Kerry, John Edwards and many other Democrats, she did forcefully urge President Bush to work with other countries to apply pressure on Saddam Hussein before resorting to war. Obviously, Clinton and many of her senate colleagues voted as they did as a political calculation that to do otherwise would brand them as weak, limb-wristed namby-pambies. So much for political calculations, especially when it comes to matters of war. But, as the Baker-Hamilton Commission concluded, the key issue is what to do from this day forward and here they agree. Let’s get out as soon as possible and bring other countries in to help ensure stability. On health care, Clinton’s experience is both her greatest asset and liability. She knows the issue better than anyone. She lead her husband’s Task Force on Health Care Reform and is largely credited with being responsible for that debacle by devising an overly complicated package and refusing to consider any compromise. Her current proposal is remarkably similar to a national version of the Massachusetts legislation that […]

The Day After

So Tsunami Tuesday has come and gone and life, as we know it, goes on. Little has changed following yesterday’s mega-primary when nearly half of the states held contests to choose each party’s nominee for president. Certainly the Clinton-Obama battle for the Democratic prize remains deadlocked. The two candidates divided up the states, the votes and, most importantly, the delegates almost evenly. Hillary Clinton is left still fighting for the nomination the day after the largest set of primaries that the nation has ever held which she hoped would drive a dagger into any opponent still standing in her way. And Barack Obama failed to leapfrog over the Clinton machine and assert himself as the new frontrunner. We’re left with two impressive combatants slogging on with the distinct possibility that it will take the party’s convention this summer to decide their fate. Partisans fear that such a lengthy process could do harm to the Democratic Party’s unity going into the fall campaign. But both candidates have apparently decided to stop throwing mud at each other and run reasonably respectful campaigns, at least for the time being. I, for one, think this is a marvelous development for our Republic. It gives schnooks like us in supposedly late primary states the opportunity to cast our votes in a meaningful way. And both candidates are being scrutinized in a way that can only help define them as better qualified than whoever the Republicans nominate. As for the Republicans, the outcome of their Super Tuesday contests provided the only real surprise in the strong showing of Mike Huckabee. As expected, John McCain ended up with the lion’s share of the states and the delegates. But Mitt Romney, who many hardline Republicans were hoping would draw support from the party’s most conservative voters, was overtaken by Huckabee who won several southern states. Prior to Tuesday’s voting, Romney enraged Huckabee by insinuating that the former Arkansas governor had little chance to be anything other than a spoiler. Early last evening, Huckabee appeared to gleefully throw those words back at Romney when he acknowledged that the race had narrowed to two candidates but he was one of them. McCain’s eventual nomination appears pretty close to a sure thing. Huckabee’s success seems to ensure that he will coast to the convention with political capital that may result in his selection as the vice presidential nominee. Romney, on the other hand, looks more and more like the Black Knight from Monty Python who insists he is getting stronger each time he gets one of his arms or legs lopped off. Get over it, Mitt. The people are just not that into you. But the Clinton-Obama contest is what has captured the attention of our nation and the world. Let’s face it, there’s an epidemic of Bush fatigue. Not even the Republicans are dumb enough to be linking themselves to the current occupant of the White House. The historymaking Obama and Clinton campaigns are engaged in an epic battle, neck […]

The McCain Surge

And then there were two. Two Democrats and Two Republicans, that is. With John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani dropping out of the presidential campaign, both contests now get really interesting. John McCain narrowly beat Mitt Romney in Florida’s Republican primary Tuesday but because the GOP winner gets all of the state’s delegates, McCain has now emerged as a solid favorite. Romney must be looking to next week’s Tsunami Tuesday to “Keep Hope Alive.” Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul are still actively campaigning but their chances are slim to none, particularly in winner take all states. On one level, Democrats should be salivating at having McCain as an opponent in November given the overwhelming unpopularity of the war. Not only has McCain been an outspoken supporter of the war but he was calling for a “surge” back when President George “The Decider” Bush was still endorsing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s “What, me worry?” approach. But McCain appeals to many independents and Dems would be wise not to underestimate the former Navy pilot and Vietnam POW. It is difficult to imagine a candidate winning on a platform of “full-speed ahead” in Iraq. Yet if McCain is nominated the Republicans will try to exploit the contrast between the war veteran and either Democrat on the issue of maintaining America’s strength in the world. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the Republicans will be far better at managing the war hero advantage in 2008 than the other side did in 2004. One of the sweeter ironies of McCain’s sudden emergence as the Republican frontrunner is how disliked he is by the party’s conservative base. His positions on immigration and campaign finance have infuriated the party faithful and have driven notorious rabble-rousers including Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay to distraction. Romney is now focusing on attacking the conservative credentials of McCain but his own moderate past makes this a difficult sell. So it appears that for the first time in anyone’s memory the Republicans will likely nominate someone not favored by the party’s elite. A strange year, indeed. Another factor that makes McCain an odd choice is the sense that the nation is clamoring for change. While it’s hard to imagine anyone perceiving a 71-year-old white male Washington insider who supports the Bush policy in Iraq as an agent of change, McCain may benefit from his reputation as a renegade. His image as a “straight talker,” supported by his congenial relationship with the national press, also enhances his popularity with moderates and independents. Conventional wisdom suggests that the electorate is depending less on the mainstream media for information in our internet age but the truth is many of the most popular news web sites are often recycling stories from the dreaded MSM. So far, McCain has also managed to control his legendary temper. I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone that someone who survived five years in a Viet Cong prison could avoid responding to the much milder indignities of […]

A Hungry Nation

The presidential campaign of Barack Obama received a stunning boost this week after scoring a huge victory in South Carolina’s primary Saturday followed by endorsements from Caroline Kennedy, Sen. Edward Kennedy, and other members of one of the royal families of the Democratic Party. Much has been made about the negative tone that has recently permeated the contest between Obama and Hilary Clinton with most of the blame falling on the Clinton camp. To his credit, Obama has tapped into a positive vein that seems to be surging throughout the country at just the right time for his campaign. His “Audacity of Hope” rhetoric and determination to run an inclusive campaign contrasts sharply with the image projected by Sen. Clinton, her former president husband and her many experienced surrogates. Her campaign is heavily invested in promoting her not only as more experienced at governing but also more skilled at defending herself from the negative attacks that the Republicans will direct at whichever candidate the Democrats nominate. At this point in the campaign, the Clinton machine appears seriously out of touch with the mood of the nation. While the candidate and her supporters deny introducing the issue of race, you have to scratch your head and wonder “What was he thinking?” when you hear Bill Clinton dismiss Obama’s success in South Carolina by comparing it to Jesse Jackson’s victory in 1988. Coupled with former Atlanta mayor and United Nations ambassador Andrew Young’s absurd remark that Bill Clinton is more “black” than Obama because he bedded more black women and former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s repeated references to “Barack Hussein Obama” calls into question the whole notion that the Clintons offer the benefits of a well-oiled election machine. Clearly, it’s too early to call this race over. Only a fraction of the delegates necessary for nomination have been chosen. Tsunami Tuesday is next week when more than 20 states hold primaries and about 40 percent of the number of delegates needed to win will be divided up. But unlike the Republicans, the Democrats divide states up proportionately so that it is very likely that neither Obama nor Clinton will be in a position to declare the race over anytime soon. With all due respect to John Edwards, his inablity to win any of the early contests has made it difficult to imagine a scenario where he can catch either of the frontrunners. When asked, voters generally complain that there is too little attention paid to substantive issues and too much on the horse race. At this point, that seems a bit beside the point, at least as far as the Democratic contest goes. For one thing, there are very few significant differences between the two. Policy wonks will note that Clinton’s health care proposal pledges to provide universal access, while Obama’s falls short of that standard, popular as it is among the party faithful. But on Iraq, the economy, and so many issues their differences are minimal. The key variable which may […]

Clearing the Air

A proposed ban on smoking in all workplaces in Wisconsin is stalled in the state legislature and that’s too bad. There’s no doubt that secondhand smoke is dangerous so it seems to me a no-brainer that no employee should be subjected to toxic air on the job. More than twenty states including New York, California, Illinois and Minnesota have passed smoke-free workplace measures and, as Gov. Doyle has pointed out, Wisconsin is in danger of becoming the ashtray of the Midwest. Even tobacco-addled countries like Ireland, Italy and France have enacted smoking bans, for heaven’s sake. Gov. Doyle reiterated his support for a ban on smoking in the workplace during last night’s State of the State address but it is unlikely to get very far this year. The Senate Public Health Committee passed a version of the ban earlier this month but Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker appears unwilling to bring the measure to a vote. He has called for supporters and opponents to work out a compromise which basically amounts to sweeping the bill under the rug. It’s a disappointing position for Decker to take since his rise to his leadership role was largely tied to his support for the Healthy Wisconsin proposal. Apparently, he wants Wisconsin residents to have access to health care as well as making sure they get exposed to air that can cause lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases so they need the coverage. I’d call that the “Full Employment for Healthcare Workers” platform. Most people recognize that the key stumbling block on this issue boils down to whether an exception should be allowed for bars and taverns. Opponents argue that the owners of places where people go to drink should be able to decide whether to permit smoking or not. Their customers, it is said, choose to spend their money there and are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like it. On the other hand, of course, bars and taverns are also workplaces and their employees are as entitled to clean air as everyone else. The bill passed by the Senate committee would give bars and taverns an extra year to comply with the ban but opponents apparently aren’t satisfied with that. The idea that waiters, waitresses and bartenders know that exposure to secondhand smoke comes with the job and could work elsewhere if they wanted to is bogus. I had a boss once who held meetings in his office where he smoked. They rest of us hated inhaling the smoke and we knew it wasn’t good for us. But it’s not that easy to find work or to tell a job supervisor you’d like them to be more sensitive to your needs. Newsrooms used to be as smoke-filled as any bar and that just doesn’t make it right. Interestingly, there appears to be widespread agreement on this issue. A variety of polls shows that more than two-thirds of people favor a ban on smoking in workplaces, including bars and taverns, and even […]

An Epic Loss

As we all know, it’s only a game. Yeah, sure, and Bill Gates is just a software salesman. With the nation in the throes of a presidential election clearly we should have more important things on our minds. During the week when we are supposed to pay attention to civil rights, social justice and other great issues associated with the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., it seems almost abhorrent to waste our breath and energy on a football game. But there you have it. Nothing unifies Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin more than our devotion to the Green Bay Packers. Our state may be divided between Democrats and Republicans, haves and have-nots, urban and rural, etc., but our identification with the Green and Gold is just about universal. So what transpired at Lambeau Field on Sunday has got to be Topic A this week, at least until we all process what happened, as best as possible, so we can move on to other things. First of all, I have something to put on the record. I grew up in New York but I was rooting for the Packers to advance to the Super Bowl and beat the Patriots. As a native of Queens, I have always considered myself a fan of the Mets, Jets and Knicks. All three teams won their respective championships within a year and a half of my tenth birthday. That kind of celestial alignment has a way of imprinting a lifelong connection between a boy and his teams. When I moved to Wisconsin eight years ago, I had been told that the state’s association with the Packers was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I was a bit skeptical since New York fans are pretty intense themselves. Also, I had lived in the Washington, DC area for 15 years and that community’s association with the Redskins is also remarkably monolithic. But there are many more transplants in the New York and DC areas so the percentage of devoted fans is much higher here so I can confirm that the devotion of Packer fans exceeds any team loyalty I have witnessed. I’ve grown to cheer for the Packers and their remarkable run this year was great fun if ultimately heartbreaking. The epic loss on Sunday was doubling disappointing because they were Favred to win, (excuse me), favored to win and they were playing in the welcoming surroundings of a home field. But following a closely fought contest that went into overtime, it will be the Giants who advance to the Super Bowl. Surely, there is no need to recount the details but it was an interception thrown by the great number 4 himself that gave the Giants kicker the opportunity to redeem himself for two earlier misses and score the winning field goal. Ouch. So now Packer nation must lick its wounds and breathlessly anticipate next season. The team is young and its future is bright. The big unknown, of course, is whether […]

Good for what ails ya’!

Are all politics local? If you are tired of the spinning and empty promises of our national leaders, have I got a cure for you. Anyone turned off by the state of politics today ought to attend a local candidate forum. Wednesday night’s forum for the race to fill Michael D’Amato’s seat on the Common Council was surprisingly entertaining. About 300 people packed into the Miramar Theater to listen to the eight aspirants for the Third District Alderman seat state their case. The evening provided more than the requisite drama, humor, and pathos befitting two hours at a theater and the audience left reasonably assured that at least some of the candidates offered the potential of representing the district competently. The February 19th primary will whittle the field down to two survivors who will run against each other on April 1st. It was obvious that two of the candidates do not deserve consideration for advancement. One, Dan Fouliard, got the evening off to an unusual start by squandering the two minutes he was given to introduce himself to explain the leadership process he defined as “asking, advocating and achieving.” His insistence on including that alliterative phrase in all of his responses left many in the crowd scratching their heads, suppressing giggles and then just plain feeling embarrassed for the guy. Another candidate, David Schroeder, also distinguished himself as another future also ran. Mr. Schroeder told the audience that he was motivated to run for the office when he discovered that contesting a parking ticket required him to personally appear at a downtown court. Clearly our local government needs someone like him to clean up its mess. To his credit, Schroeder did not waste much time giving detailed responses to many of the questions. In most cases, he simply tapped on the table and admitted that he hadn’t given much thought to the issue. Schroeder further endeared himself to the audience by declaring that rather than raising money for his campaign he was asking residents to contribute to other politicians they admire such as Sen. Russ Feingold. That suggestion generated his best reaction of the evening. While Fouliard and Schroeder earned the label of the evening’s “Not Ready for Primetime Players,” they did provide some not altogether unwelcome comic relief. The other panelists, however, made somewhat more compelling arguments for their candidacies. Sam McGovern-Rowen, a D’Amato aide, suggested that he had the most valuable experience since he has built relationships with the other aldermen and has answered the phone from residents and intimately knows their concerns. But he failed to communicate a vision and struggled awkwardly to avoid alienating voters who feel the current alderman has not been responsive enough to his constituents. He has his work cut out for him. As the only woman on the dais, Sura Faraj appeared to have a natural advantage. The current Common Council is an all-male institution and many feel that just ain’t right. She also latched on to the zeitgeist of the 2008 […]

Candidate Forum Tonight

Whose Side are You On? With all the hoopla surrounding the presidential sweepstakes, it’s easy to overlook the state and local races taking place this year. Adding to the confusion is Wisconsin’s odd tradition of holding so-called non-partisan elections in the Spring. Sometime back in our state’s history, our ancestors decided that certain offices, like Mayor and County Executive, shouldn’t be tainted by the unseemliness of political party competition. As a result, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a proud Democrat, and County Executive Scott Walker, an equally outspoken Republican, will be on the non-partisan ballot April 1. Just as our founders intended, eh? But wait, there’s more. If more than two candidates run for any of these non-partisan offices then a primary is held to whittle the field down. Which brings us to February 19, the date of Wisconsin’s primary. Most political prognosticators are predicting that our primary will be too late to have any meaning in this year’s heavily frontloaded race for the Democratic and Republican nomination. The oddsmakers are convinced that that the choice of both parties will be determined by February 5th, when more than 20 states, including delegate rich New York and California, will have their say. It’s looking more likely that at least two candidates from both parties will still be competitive when our primary comes along so brace yourselves for the quadrennial onslaught of the presidential wannabes and their national media entourages parading across the state sometime in the not too distant future. But don’t forget some of those pesky local races will also be on the Feb. 19th primary ballot so it’s time to roll up your sleeves and figure out who you support. For example, if you live in Milwaukee’s East Side or Riverwest neighborhood, currently represented on the Common Council by Michael D’Amato, who has chosen not to run for reelection, there’s a wide open race to replace him. And nothing stirs the juices of a political junkie more than the competitive ramifications of an open seat. A candidate forum will be held 7 pm tonight, Jan. 16th at the Miramar Theater (Oakland and Locust) and another is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 29th at Gordon Park Pavilion (Humboldt and Locust). The crowded field includes Sam McGovern-Rowen, a legislative aide to D’Amato who happens to be the grandson of George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic candidate for president. D’Amato could probably have cruised to reelection so McGovern-Rowen may be the presumptive favorite. But D’Amato has also drawn criticism for being too supportive of development so the activist district is unlikely to give McGovern-Rowen a bye. Sura Faraj, a co-founder of the Riverwest Food co-op and 2007 chair of the Riverwest Neighborhood Association; Nik Kovac, a journalist and member of the RNA and Matt Nelson, a member of the Milwaukee Transit Riders Union and the Milwaukee Police Accountability Coalition are among the other candidates for the third district alderman seat. So if you live in the Third District come to the one of the candidate […]

Hillary’s Moment

Hillary’s Moment… It goes without saying that this year’s presidential election is important. The American electorate will be making a choice that will have enormous implications for our nation and the world. But every so often during an election, a simple event sends a message about its times and becomes part of history for the ages. Of course, I’m talking about “Hillary’s moment” the day before the New Hampshire primary, when Sen. Clinton actually appeared to display an unscripted emotion. History will record that it was in response to an apparently sympathetic questioner, who asked how she managed to keep going (and who did her hair). She didn’t cry, of course, though her eyes definitely appeared to moisten. And she didn’t sob, but there certainly was a catch in her voice and, yes, an undeniable display of emotion. It became the major story of the day and most of the media coverage used the incident to support the conclusion that her campaign was imploding, that it was a repeat of Ed Muskie’s fatal tearing up in 1972. This was the logical conclusion, you see, given her loss to Barack Obama in Iowa and all of the polls were predicting another win for Obama in New Hampshire. Then the people of New Hampshire had their say. The media prognosticators and pundits ended up with egg on their collective faces when Clinton was declared the winner with 38 percent to Obama’s 35. Suddenly, Clinton was the victor in a stunning upset and this race was anything but over. It turns out the incident in the diner wasn’t a death knell but a declaration of sincerity that connected with female voters from Manchester to Nashua. It was like when Sally Field won the Oscar but Hillary was saying “I care about you; I really, really care about you!” Coupled with the moment in Saturday’s debate when Clinton responded to a question about how she felt about apparently not being well-liked by saying it hurt her feelings, her display of emotion was now seen as brilliant strategy. Hillary seized on the opportunity to reinvent herself by declaring in her victory speech that she “listened to (the voters of New Hampshire) and found my voice.” Well time will tell. But for now, I think we have witnessed a moment for the ages. And the message of this moment is … “We have totally lost our minds and gone stark raving mad!” Of course, there was plenty of evidence of our insanity in 2007. There was the focus on Hillary Clinton’s laugh, John Edwards’ hair, Mitt Romney’s religion, Rudy Giuliani’s wives and other matters of transcendent importance. So hold on to your hats. There will probably be lots more examples of zaniness and hilarity in the months ahead. I guess with the writers’ strike we ought to appreciate moments of mirth where we can get them. I, for one, prefer laughing to crying.

The road goes on forever

As work on the Marquette interchange reconstruction project nears completion, I find myself impressed by the enormity of the project as well as with the relative lack of inconvenience it’s caused. Sure, there were occasional delays, as well as closed exits and lanes that added minutes to commutes, but overall, the level of congestion and other problems never seemed to exceed tolerable levels. After all, if you choose to live in an urban area, a certain degree of crowding and waiting is part of life. In a way, it’s too bad. Anyone who feels that we are overreliant on the automobile knows that the only time most people will consider alternative options to driving is when there are significant costs associated with cars. In other words: no pain, no gain. Of course, Americans are notoriously attached to their cars. Even skyrocketing gas prices don’t seem to make a dent in our dependence on the automobile. Here in Milwaukee, we are fortunate to have it pretty easy when it comes to getting around. Driving from one side of town to the other rarely seems to take more than twenty minutes. The rush hour traffic reports usually sound like we live in some kind of Pleasantville with clear roads and minimal delays. People who grumble about traffic or the cost of parking clearly haven’t traveled much. Drivers in Chicago, New York and Boston face extreme traffic congestion, as well as expensive parking costs that encourage alternatives. Not surprisingly, all three cities have extensive subway systems. The one place where there is gridlock here in Southeastern Wisconsin is on the road to funding new or expanded mass transit options. The proposed extension of Chicago’s Metra system from its terminus in Kenosha to Racine and Milwaukee, known as the KRM line, gets a lot of support – that is, until the subject of dedicated local funding comes up. Under pressure The proposed increase in the tax on rental cars to support the KRM didn’t survive the state budget, leaving advocates for the line hoping they can build support for a referendum on a regional sales tax increase. Good luck with that. In addition, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and County Executive Scott Walker are at odds over proposals to improve the local transit system, continuing an impasse that goes back more than ten years and leaves about $100 million in federal funding on the table. Sigh. It’s yet another example of a pressing public issue crying out for leadership and regional cooperation. Which brings us back to the Marquette interchange project and the efficient, though costly, road construction program. Why is it that road construction barrels on while so many other needs struggle for funds? To adapt a popular bumper sticker, perhaps one day schools will have dedicated funding and road planners will hold bake sales. But that won’t happen anytime soon. With the Marquette project wrapping up, the state has ambitious plans to expand Interstate 94 down to the Illinois border at a cost […]

See kids? Isn’t this fun?

We are still a year away from next year’s presidential election but it’s already painfully obvious why so many people are so turned off by politics. The spectacle of the nominating process consists of each party’s candidates gouging eyes and pulling hair in a struggle to separate themselves from the pack. Despite such critical issues as an unnecessary war, a growing number of Americans without health insurance, a nonexistent energy policy, and a crumpling infrastructure, the circus we call an election appears to have all the dignity of a Beavis and Butthead Meet the Three Stooges feature film. This year, for once, the Republicans are acting even more childish than the Democrats. Rudy and Mitt, the laughably-named GOP frontrunner, are so busy pointing out each other’s spending outrages and liberal social policies that even Newt Gingrich has referred to the Republican candidates as a bunch of pygmies. You can almost hear the GOP base agonizing over the absurd notion that its standard bearer will come from such a bastion of conservatism as New York or Massachusetts. The leading Democrats struggled early to avoid speaking ill of one another, but that didn’t last long. Recently, Hillary Clinton’s opponents have started lobbing rhetorical grenades at her in a concerted effort to penetrate her veneer of inevitability. They cite her acceptance of campaign contributions from lobbyists, her refusal to apologize for her vote authorizing the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein and her failed attempt to reform health care early in her husband’s first administration as evidence that she is an unlikely agent of change. I guess it’s no surprise that by voting time, so many of us have tuned the whole distasteful enterprise out or simply hold our noses as we choose the least objectionable option. Yet I do not blog before you today to criticize politics. Truth is, I am hopelessly addicted to this stuff. After all, political campaigns offer many of the same attractions that draw people to such popular televised competitions as American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. Surely if we are held on the edge of our couches wondering who Donald Trump is going to fire, we ought to care at least a little about which candidate has a better plan for reforming health care or ending the quagmire in Iraq. Would it help if they added a witty panel of celebrity observers to critique responses at the debates, or required the candidates to eat a bug before answering a question? At the very least, couldn’t they do something imaginative with a giant tic-tac-toe board or carousel that spins them around? Apathy here in Wisconsin may partly be due to the widespread belief that the candidates will be chosen by the time our primary rolls around on February 19. Nearly every other state has elbowed its way in front of us in the fight to be relevant. With big states like New York, Florida and California set to cast their ballots ahead of us, conventional wisdom […]

Coming soon… Gray Matter

A new blog by Ted Bobrow… starting Nov 7th!

Jobs, jobs, jobs

When Tom Barrett won the 2004 mayoral election, he promised to focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Now that he’s gearing up for a reelection campaign next year, the time has come to ask whether he has delivered on his pledge. In office, Barrett declared Milwaukee “open for business” and pledged to work tirelessly to attract new jobs and retain existing ones. Right out of the gate, his personal involvement in discussions with South Milwaukee-based Bucyrus International contributed to the company’s decision in 2004 to locate a new plant in the city’s Bay View neighborhood. According to the mayor, other companies, including Direct Supply, Captel and Caleffi, are expanding in Milwaukee resulting in a total of nearly 11,000 new jobs to the city since he was elected. Another early initiative of Barrett’s was to declare that Milwaukee and her neighbors needed to work together more effectively. He played a vital role in 2005 in launching the Milwaukee 7 initiative whose focus is to enhance the economic viability of southeastern Wisconsin. The group has conducted an analysis of the region’s strengths and launched a website, choosemilwaukee.com, to attract new companies to the area. Some, including CEOs of major local businesses like Northwestern Mutual’s Ed Zore and Manpower’s Jeffrey Joerres, have expressed impatience with the slow pace of the Milwaukee 7’s work. Others feel the group lacks adequate involvement of organized labor and advocates for the poor. But Barrett’s support of a regional approach to economic development is widely praised as a welcome change from the confrontational style that was standard operating procedure during the administration of John O. Norquist. Another change from his predecessor is Barrett’s willingness to expand the use of tax incremental financing (TIF) to encourage development. Under this program, the city provides grants, tax breaks and other incentives to get projects built that are expected to return the investment by adding to the value of the city’s property tax base. The TIF program has been cited by some as an example of how the city relies too heavily on real estate development at the expense of other investments more likely to generate jobs. Last year, the Public Policy Forum (PPF), a local nonprofit think tank, issued a scathing report faulting the city for an overemphasis on construction and for lacking a comprehensive economic plan. The report charged that Milwaukee spends more than $100 million a year on projects related to economic development but “absent a plan or guiding vision, the city invests in its economy in an ad-hoc fashion.” It states: “In the cutthroat game of big-city economic development, Milwaukee has wagered millions on real estate development and community development to boost the city’s tax base and stimulate investment in poor neighborhoods. In placing this bet, the city has largely neglected business and workforce development expenditures that aim to bolster personal incomes, create jobs and grow a skilled labor pool.” According to the PPF report, the city’s TIF program provides a useful example of how difficult it is to […]

BUDGETMANIA!

THE ANGLE In this corner, we have the Senate Democrats, who took control of the legislature’s upper chamber after last year’s election. Flexing their muscles, the Senate Dems passed a $66.1 billion version of the 2007-2009 budget, featuring a controversial $15.2 billion universal health care program. The Senate’s “Healthy Wisconsin” plan for universal coverage would provide all Wisconsin residents with the same coverage members of the legislature have. It would be paid for by a new payroll tax on businesses and workers. And in the other corner, we have the Assembly Republicans, who retain control of the lower chamber and have rallied around their commitment to oppose any new taxes. They passed a $56.3 billion two-year budget rejecting any expansion of health care coverage but also sharply reducing the state’s support for local governments and for the University of Wisconsin System. Among the dubious provisions slipped into the budget by the Assembly Republicans is a sales tax break for people who buy gold bullion and the elimination of funding for the University of Wisconsin’s law school. That latter proposal came courtesy of Representative Frank Lasee (R-Green Bay), who last time we heard from him wanted Wisconsin to arm its teachers to prevent violence in schools. He feels we have too many lawyers, which is pretty ironic coming from someone in government. It is shaping up to be quite a fight, as Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson’s (D—15th Sentate District) “Health Care for All” Progressives take on Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch’s (R—9th Assembly District) “No New Taxes” Conservatives in a brutal, no-holds barred, match to the death. THE BOOKER In the wonderful and wacky world of wrestling, it is the booker who decides the outcome of the match. Without ever stepping into the ring, the booker writes the storylines for the feuds that drive the ratings, deciding who wins and loses, who gets promoted and who falls down through the ranks. Occasionally popular opinion can sway the booker, but smart money is almost always on who he or she favors. After all, the booker works for the wrestling company and holds the heavy responsibility of making sure the money comes in and everything comes off without a hitch. Wisconsin’s constitution gives a very special role in influencing the budget to its governor, who is said to hold the broadest veto power of any governor in the United States so chances are good that the “No New Taxes” hardliners on the Assembly side can’t be very happy that their old nemesis, Governor Jim Doyle, is the current occupant of the Capitol’s East Wing. With a strong re-election under his belt and his fellow Democrats in control of the Senate, Doyle is hardly a neutral spectator in the budget process. Both the Senate and Assembly budgets were reactions to Gov. Doyle’s initial $58.2 billion budget submitted last February. Doyle’s budget proposes expanding state support for education and local government. In addition, his “BadgerCare Plus” proposal would extend health coverage to 98 percent of […]

All the king’s horses

When local business leader and big-time philanthropist Sheldon Lubar received the Headliner Award from the Milwaukee Press Club this past spring, he made some scathing observations about the challenges facing Milwaukee to a room full of 300 of the region’s leading journalists. It’s a topic on which he is well-qualified to speak. The founder of Lubar Investments and namesake of UWM’s Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, Lubar has spent much of the last year serving as co-chair of two committees charged with studying Milwaukee County finances, one set up by Governor Doyle and the other a standing committee of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, both of which have published their reports in the last several months to disappointingly little fanfare in the press. Lubar has spent much of the last year serving as co-chair of two committees charged with studying Milwaukee County finances, one set up by Governor Doyle and the other a standing committee of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, both of which have published their reports in the last several months to disappointingly little fanfare in the press. “I would expect that you are all familiar with what we found: generous under-funded pensions, generous and under-funded health care, outdated management systems, elected officials that barely communicate with one another, duplication of services and, perhaps most serious, multiple non-elected boards and commissions with taxing authority,” he said in his acceptance speech. Lubar also noted that many public schools are not adequately educating our young people and that, despite the shift from agriculture and manufacturing to “knowledge industries,” Wisconsin has been scaling back its support for the University of Wisconsin. In addition, Lubar called attention to the fact that, despite having relatively high taxes, our city, county and state are unable to balance their budgets, asserting that our government has “some very big time systemic problems that need to be addressed. “Sadly, I can tell you that the well-intentioned leaders I worked with [on the reports] are as frustrated as you and I, but feel powerless to change the system,” said Lubar bluntly. Not a pretty picture, to be sure, and one that we’ve been hearing about fairly regularly recently. But Lubar’s candid description of the failure of our leaders to respond to these challenges was refreshing and his proposed solution was so radical in nature that it snapped me to attention. Lubar believes nothing short of a dramatic restructuring of the way our public institutions are organized and operate is necessary to address what he called, during a telephone interview, the region’s “dysfunctional governance.” According to both reports (and some would say the naked eye), the duplication of services and lack of accountability between Milwaukee County and City and 17 other municipalities, as well as MPS, MMSC, MATC, the Wisconsin Center District and other semi-autonomous, quasi-governmental entities leads to a daunting amount of waste and inefficiency. The final report of the Greater Milwaukee Committee’s Task Force on Milwaukee County, issued last fall, point to a number of examples: To find […]

Fixing MPS

The Greek myth of Sisyphus tells the story of a man condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down each time, forcing him to repeat the task over and over again for eternity. Some might argue that Sisyphus is the perfect metaphor for the vexing problem of education reform, particularly in Milwaukee. The performance of many urban public schools has been abysmal for decades. And it seems that every few years a new set of reforms are announced with great fanfare. But the results have generally been the same or worse. Same as it ever was. So it was with a good deal of skepticism that I attended an announcement last fall of a new initiative designed to finally address the problems facing Milwaukee Public Schools. I showed up at the news conference prepared to hear the latest school reform flavor of the month. Would it be smaller classes and more teachers, a revamped curriculum, a new set of high stakes tests or a combination of all of the above? I was wrong on all counts. What was unveiled that day wasn’t a plan, but a new process for involving the entire community in developing a strategic plan for MPS. “For the first time ever,” the news release trumpeted, “leaders from Milwaukee Public Schools, the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association and the Greater Milwaukee Committee have joined together to focus the community’s attention on higher expectations for student achievement in MPS.” Better late than never Sister Joel Read, former president of Alverno College and chair of the GMC’s education committee, said the announcement represented “a turning point for MPS, for the children of Milwaukee and the entire community.” This is a sad statement, though true. MPS leadership, the teachers union and civic and business organizations have indeed failed previously to successfully come together to sort through the problems of the school district, whose concerns they all inherently share. In a combined statement, the groups said “MPS’ current student achievement results are unacceptable. MPS can and must do a better job educating students and preparing them for college and career.” Since that day last fall, nearly 20 public hearings were scheduled to solicit input from parents and other members of the community. An organization called Focus on Results was brought in, with support from local businesses, to assist in the development of a new strategic plan for MPS. The result is a “draft action plan” organized around a set of principles so basic as to be inarguable, which was unveiled in May. Sister Joel said the collaboration between MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos and WTEA Executive Director Sam Carmen was unprecedented, and called the 35 page document a “good first step.” I must admit that I didn’t feel like breaking out in a chorus of “Kumbaya” when the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools and the leader of the teachers union reached an agreement on a set of […]

Up in smoke

When Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York following 9/11, there was concern that the terrorist attack would harm the city’s economy. Bloomberg and the New York City Council, with help from the state and federal governments, enacted a wide variety of tax incentives and other programs designed to support businesses and save jobs. But Mayor Bloomberg also pursued another policy that some regarded as anti-business. Bloomberg was relentless in his support of a ban on smoking in all public areas and workplaces including restaurants and bars. This was just plain common sense, Bloomberg, a Republican, said. The evidence was overwhelming that secondhand smoke is a public health hazard and one of government’s key functions was protecting the health of its citizens. Despite the objections of some business owners who feared customers would stop frequenting restaurants and bars if they could no longer smoke, the policy passed and the impact on the hospitality industry has been negligible. Few businesses closed, net revenue grew and the policy has been replicated in many other places. The entire state of New York soon followed the city’s lead and other states including California, Connecticut and Georgia and cities ranging from Chicago, Madison and Appleton have gone smoke-free. Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Spain and New Zealand are among the countries that have enacted smoke-free workplace legislation nationwide. The war at home If we shift our lens to Milwaukee we see a different picture. Early in the administration of Mayor Tom Barrett, his newly appointed health commissioner, Bevan Baker, was quoted in an article on the proliferation of smoking bans in support of them. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of saying what he believed before checking with his boss. Barrett distanced himself from Baker’s position and dropped the hot potato into the lap of the Common Council. The Mayor stated that he would sign a bill banning smoking in workplaces if the council passed it, but he felt a ban probably should include an exemption for bars and taverns, where people expect to be able to smoke. When Alderman Joe Davis introduced a comprehensive workplace smoking ban for Milwaukee, he urged his colleagues to support it as a public health imperative. The proposal was assigned to the council’s Public Safety Committee, chaired by Ald. Bob Donovan, a smoker and outspoken opponent of restrictions on tobacco use. The hearing attracted hundreds of people who spoke passionately on both sides. It got off to a contentious start when Donovan restricted Davis to the same three-minute limit placed on all members of the public who wished to speak. Davis objected that the customary practice was to permit a bill’s sponsor to speak at greater length, but Donovan stuck to his guns and Davis left angrily. Health advocates, students, people with asthma and other chronic conditions were among the bill’s supporters while bar and tavern owners and their customers argued passage would drive customers to establishments in West Allis, Cudahy, South Milwaukee and other communities. Donovan’s committee eventually tabled the […]