Voting is underway in Wisconsin. That’s all I know, but if there are any cheese-eating, beer-swilling brat chompers who want to chime in with some local color, or if the rest of you just want to speculate, here’s an open thread, by request.
On Wisconsin
by $8 blue check mistermix| 82 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
dan
Do I look fat in these pants?
PurpleGirl
I went over to First Draft and Scout Prime put up a post last night about the elections but no one there has started posting this morning.
ETA: First Draft had a lot of posting on the protests there, so I figure it’s a good place to start looking for information.
PaulW
To all Wisconsin citizens:
Please for the love of God, do NOT vote Republican.
Please. Help us.
Signed:
America
Butch
There are some predictions that turnout may rise above 80 percent.
Sad Iron
I’m voting for Nancy Nusbaum momentarily and then holding my breath the rest of the day. I actually got a robocall from Scott Walker–that alone makes me want to recall him.
BGinCHI
I can almost see WI from my house.
And if I look in the fridge, I can definitely see WI cheese and beer.
Nothing else to report.
Omnes??
AliceBlue
@PaulW:
This. But I’m bracing myself for disappointment.
Gin & Tonic
DJIA up 2%, NASDAQ up 3%, S&P 500 up 2.5%. Buy, buy, buy, before it’s too late!
Interesting theory that much of yesterday’s drop was due to a large hedge fund getting margin calls.
General Stuck
Now here is a topic that is worthwhile. Go Cheesehead libs!!
Nate
I’ll be casting a vote for Pasch (Dist 8) tonight. Yesterday was the first day in a month I didn’t receive political ads in the mail. The TV commercials have swayed to overwhelmingly negative vs. Pasch in the past week; it was fairly even before that.
Linnaeus
As far as I’m concerned, defeating even one GOP state senator is a start. I say that because if the Dems don’t get the three (is a magic number) seats they need for state senate control, I fear we’re going to get a lot of negativity that isn’t warranted. Unseating incumbents is hard. The gain for the Democrats is the mobilization as much as it is the result. Keep that going even after the elections, and they’ll eventually do better.
Bostondreams
Just wanted to see if this had happened to anyone else, because I cannot believe it. Totally legal, apparently, but utter BS all the same.
My wife called her credit card company today, BoA I believe, to ask for a higher line of credit, as we have some moving expenses coming up and wanted to make sure we could cover them. Instead of giving her the higher line of credit, they LOWERED it…by 10 grand! What really stinks is that my wife made a point of mentioning that she wanted to make sure she kept a good debt to credit ratio since we would be applying for a mortgage soon! So now we look like we ran up the card, with only 700 dollars left as a balance. We paid more than the minimum every month and never had a bad report.
If we had never called them to ask for the increase….ugh.
jwb
@Bostondreams: That’s the kind of behavior that as soon as you can you take your business elsewhere. Of course, I would never touch BoA with a ten-foot pole in the first place.
dpCap
This bears repeating.
Bostondreams
@jwb:
She has had the card since before BoA bought Nationsbank, so it was an automatic switchover. Honestly, I am now very worried. Looking online, this sort of thing tends to snowball into other banks and creditors suddenly slicing credit limits because the debt utilization percentage goes too high..but it goes too high because of the credit limit decrease. And these pikers gave my wife NO explanation for why her limit was reduced. It literally took ten minutes from hanging up with them after the call to raise the limit for them to reduce the line of credit. Almost stunned.
chopper
as a FIB, let me tell the people of wisconsin: don’t fuck this up.
Jude
Hey hey hey, BJers. I’m a First Draftista, and there’s nothing up yet because, well, there’s not really any information just yet. You know how it goes early on election days.
But keep checking back. We’ll have a live chat this evening; feel free to drop in.
Carbon Dated
Relax. Absentee voters have until the 11th to vote. ‘Americans for Prosperity’ told me so in a mailer.
Go (Fudge) Packers!
Rheinhard
… as long as those “brat chompers” aren’t chomping on Johnsonville “brats”.
Speaking as someone raised in a family of entirely German origin, who has had bratwurst from a very early age and who didn’t realize that most real Murkans don’t in fact make potato salad with oil and vinegar until he was in college, I can attest that Johnsonville “brats” are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike bratwurst.
Catsy
@dpCap: Thirded on the admonition to never touch BoA with a ten-foot anything. They’ve sucked since they were SeaFirst in the 90’s, and have only gotten worse since.
Having them reject my auto loan application six years ago was the best thing they’ve ever done for me; I ended up getting the loan through a credit union, moved all my accounts there, and have never looked back except to raise two middle fingers.
On WI, I got nothin’–except to exhort all our friends in cheese country to please, please, for all that you love your state and country, please go out and vote today if you haven’t already, and toss the Koch-Walker-GOP crime syndicate out of office on their heads. Preferably at high velocity.
David W.
Hi, I voted for Shelly Moore, the Democratic challenger in Senate District #10 this morning and there were a LOT of other voters in line before and behind me. So I’m hopeful, but given that the Republican incumbent won the district in 2008 when Democrats won big elsewhere in the state I’m also realistic.
Thymezone
Today I am downgrading Scott Walker from AAAsshole to AAsshole.
chris
@Rheinhard:
I quit buying them back in January when I found out they were helping bankroll Walker. Fuck Johnsonville. Down here in ReaLAMErica (NC) my only other choice is usually the groc store brand…but fuck Johnsonville anyway.
Judas Escargot
The poll data I saw yesterday was depressing. Except for that one seat leaning Dem, it’s too close to call.
Seriously? The GOP loudly, brazenly shits in the mouth of anyone who’s not a multi-millionaire, and nearly half of the voters are still with them? WTF is wrong with people?
Here’s hoping for high youth turnout.
AlphaLiberal
Well we have a had a lot of volunteers turn out for doors and phone calls. The Rs thought they were being cute by delaying the generals with their fraudulent primary Dem candidates. Well, they just gave extra time for Dems to build momentum and ID voters.
The comment I have heard the most on the doors is “wow there sure are a lot of commercials out there!” Yeah, there are.
And some people are complaining about contacts which means the campaign is doing it’s job! I tell them “well, not everyone pays as close attention as you do, so it’s needed to reach out often.”
We’re on pins and needles. But we’ll know something before going to bed and there will be beer.
Damn, I went to work and have been ranting online! Ga!
Three-nineteen
I have to wait another *#&$^#@& week before I can vote. That means another 37 trees will die to send me mailers for a guy I was always going to vote for.
TooManyJens
@Thymezone: Seriously? That guy can be absolutely relied upon to be an asshole. He’s the safest possible investment in assholishness.
kay
Well, I’m a wreck.
I’m afraid if there is anything but an overwhelming victory the soul-dead ghouls are going to line up at the mike to announce labor is dead as a political force. Labor, along with “fairness”, and “workers”, and “collective bargaining” and “employee rights”…
The stakes are very high, because in Ohio, anyway, we’re framing this in very broad terms. I think that’s the right thing to do, but it also makes it BIG.
I think they (we) have to win.
Linnaeus
@kay:
Yeah, it’s a big election, but we have to be prepared for the possibility that the results may not go our way. If that happens, we need to get up, dust ourselves off, and keep trying. What else can you do?
WaterGirl
@Bostondreams: I can think of nothing constructive to say.
Fuckers.
That was my first thought after reading your first post, and it’s all I can think of after reading your second. I am so sorry.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: When I look in the fridge, I see no beer, but three kinds of WI-made cheese from Saturday’s farmers’ market. Could be time to lay off the milkfat.
shortstop
@chopper: what is a FIB?
WaterGirl
@kay: Kay, I share your feelings completely. I was just thinking this morning that WE HAVE TO WIN the 3 seats today in wisconsin. So much bad stuff will come from a loss in wisconsin that I simply feel like we have to win.
That said, if it’s so important to me, why the hell didn’t I do more than make several contributions? It’s like there is so much going on that it’s hard to keep your eye on the prize. it seems like wisconsin just fell off my radar with the whole debt ceiling thing.
Wily Jalapeño
@shortstop:
Fucking Illinois Bastard
Jesus Christ Wisconsin, do not fuck this up.
Thymezone
#27 — I am not questioning his ability, I am downgrading him because the politics there may get in the way of his ability to deliver quality assholishness. Like S&P’s, this is a political downgrade.
shortstop
@Wily Jalapeño: How did I not know this? Last I heard, we were the innocuously labeled Flatlanders.
I forgive you, Wisconsin, and am pulling for you.
kay
@Linnaeus:
One of the things that polling revealed in Ohio is Ohians still understand and respect the concept of collective bargaining. That’s why unions went forward. Ohians had that. They didn’t have to be persuaded that there is a skewed playing field that leans “management” or “owners”. I think that’s because they have a long labor history that they have somehow preserved. If they (we) lose on that, we lose something big and valuable. A broad concept that simply no longer exists in some other places in the country.
Not that we shouldn’t try, but I just want to acknowledge the extent of the risk. These are concepts rather than candidates. That’s how it feels, talking to people in Ohio, to me, anyway. There’s the people that “get it” and the people that don’t.
So I have to indulge my anxiety and subject the whole place to it, right? :)
Yes! Yes I do!
WaterGirl
@Linnaeus: Before Obama won the nomination, I worked my butt off, went to Iowa, went to Colorado, went to Michigan, went to Indiana, etc (for weeks) because I wanted to do absolutely everything I could to get him elected. Hell, I even sold my silk rug so I could donate another 500.00 to the campaign.
No regrets. That’s all I could think of. I believed he would win, but if he lost, I didn’t want any regrets. I didn’t want to have to think “if only I had…”
I get the feeling that a whole lot of folks in Wisconsin have put it all on the table, like I did in the primaries for Barack Obama. If this doesn’t go our way, and I pray that it does, at least those folks won’t have to wonder if they worked hard enough. No regrets.
People like me, however, will have a lot of regrets if we don’t win. Making a few donations just isn’t enough in these times. Even though it is discouraging, we have to work our butts off.
Thymezone
@Linnaeus:
It’s the times. It took 60 years to get healthcare reform, and once we got a president who was willing to put his presidency on the line for it, and we got it, we started bashing him every day for not delivering the rest of the progressive wish list too. He’s weak, he’s cold, he doesn’t lead, he caves, he isn’t FDR. Except now we know that FDR was’t FDR either ….
kay
@WaterGirl:
I don’t even know about contributions. It feels a little like Ohio in 2004, w/Bush v Kerry, looking from the outside, as I am.
There was just a barrage of endless professionally-produced screeching, and IMO, people entirely tuned it out by August. They became resistant, almost as a defensive measure.
I still think the best way to reach someone is to talk to them like a human being. I know all of marketing contradicts my half-ass “human” theory, but I’m clinging to it :)
Linda Featheringill
@WaterGirl:
#38
Good for you.
Someday, you’ll have another pretty floor.
And you’re right about the folks in Wisconsin. A number of them are really sticking their necks out there. Hope they win.
trollhattan
On, Wisconsin! I’m adopting an SPCA badger in your honor (yes, a crazy nastyass honey badger).
Meanwhile in America’s idiot belt(tm) Freedom(tm) rings out, one round at a time.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/08/09/national/a073650D12.DTL&tsp=1
Linnaeus
@kay:
Trust me, I get the risk. I’m not trying to sugarcoat any possible setbacks. Losses in Wisconsin and Ohio will be tough. But I think we can take some heart in the fact that ideas don’t die after one election or even many elections.
@WaterGirl:
Right. I’m actually encouraged by the recalls in of themselves; I didn’t think they would actually go forward. That is in of itself an achievement to build on.
WaterGirl
@kay:
I’m not sure what you meant by that. Maybe that you’re not even sure contributions helped, because they just ended up as one more glossy brochure that went in the garbage?
SiubhanDuinne
@chopper: What’s an FIB?
Never mind, just saw your earlier answer. I guess as an Oak Park native I am a kinda sorta FIB too!
Dollared
@Linnaeus: This. Especially with all the negative ads against the Dems, and the deep Catholicism in the eastern Wisconsin recall areas.
This is a five year project, not the 24 weeks since the budget was unveiled.
Linnaeus
@Thymezone:
Yeah, I would have liked to see a different health care bill than what eventually passed, but I understand that there are limitations to what you can get in the current political environment. The key is to change the environment, and that’s going to take a long time.
McWaffle
@SiubhanDuinne: Fucking Illinois Bastard. Also known as Flatlanders.
Dollared
@shortstop: In Wisconsin, FIBs should be honored. They singlehandedly fund the state patrol. Every time I land in O’hare, I beg the rentacar guys for any license plate but Illinois.
PurpleGirl
@Jude: In case you pass by here again… thanks for the comment. I often drop by First Draft several times a day. I’m thinking of all the good work you and the others do there.
ETA: I hope you didn’t think I was criticizing First Draft. It was more in the line of “I’ve gone looking at one place I know will write about the elections and….” as a status report.
WaterGirl
@McWaffle: Apparently we who live in Illinois are the last to know.
askew
I am very worried about these elections for the same reason kay is. Labor bet heavily on these recalls and failure by the Dems to take the State Senate back would be a body blow.
WaterGirl
@PurpleGirl: Never heard of First Draft until this morning. I see two wisconsin posts and one london post – is this a political blog I have never heard of?
kay
@WaterGirl:
I think there is almost a circling of the wagons, because people feel (somewhat) under assault by “outsiders”.
So, yeah. Both sides are claiming Big Outside Money because that works. I think the most “local” is the most effective.
In Bush v Kerry I used to identify myself with my full name and town, because people were to the point where they hung up on “outsiders”.
We had a House candidate here, a Republican who ran against Grover Norquist’s candidate in a primary, based solely on Grover Norquist being in DC. He won. That was his whole campaign, in the primary. Outsiders are telling you who to vote for. I’m not a Republican, so it didn’t matter to me (I’m not voting in their primary) but it was interesting to watch.
chopper
@WaterGirl:
well, to be honest, knowing what cheeseheads call us illinoisians would mean actually paying attention to what cheeseheads say. which we generally don’t do, because, well, it’s fucking wisconsin.
tho madison is a fine town.
askew
@Dollared:
Minnesota drivers fund at least 1/2 of WI’s state patrol. I have the WI tickets to prove it.
shortstop
@chopper: Well, I have to part from you there, since in addition to loving Madison (and enjoying Milwaukee), I make free and happy use of Wisconsin’s state parks, rivers and other excellent outdoor venues. I am sure that Scott Koch Walker is plotting their total eradication right now.
ETA: But I am glad to claim you as a costater; you’re one of the funniest people here.
HCE
Speaking of FIBs…
Quick question: I’ve lived in Wisconsin all my life and have only heard native Wisconsinites refer to FIBs as FIPs (Fucking Illinois People), while our neighbors to the south consistently call themselves FIBs when sarcastically mocking us.
Anyone else noticed this or am I just off my rocker?
I know this is a microscopic issue, but it’s one of those linguistic mysteries that’s fricking bothered me forever.
Jinxtigr
@Linnaeus:
Riot.
Why do people assume Republicans can wreck our society and nothing will happen? They should PRAY they lose all their current battles and roll back to say Nixon levels of conservatism.
Is it because right-wing-controlled media tells you that nothing will happen and the real grassroots energy is six teabaggers shot from a low angle so they look like a crowd?
James E. Powell
Today’s word is trepidation. If the recalls do not win three seats, it will be hailed across the nation as a defeat for Democrats, unions, etc. Things won’t get worse; they are already very bad. But things not getting better will be a problem for the state Democratic organizations going into 2012.
On the other hand, if the recalls do gain the three seats, the national media will do thirty seconds on it and move onto the next big story.
Southern Beale
First Draft has been following this story closely, here are some pics of the election-day “War Room”…
Triassic Sands
@PaulW:
The importance of defeating Republicans at all levels goes well beyond state and national boundaries. The GOP represents an existential threat to the planet and all its people. For example, state legislators affect districting for the national legislature, which means they affect federal legislation. Federal legislation (or the lack of federal legislation — see, for example, climate change) has global significance. No Republican is too insignificant to deserve defeat and/or removal from office.
My sister lives in Wisconsin and she is mortified at the changes that have taken place there recently. I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for returns to come in. Failing to recall at least three Republicans will be very demoralizing. Success today (and next Tuesday) may have a major influence on whether or not Governor Walker is recalled next year. The future of Wisconsin — arguably the birthplaces of progressivism in America — hangs in the balance.
C’mon Cheeseheads!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Wily Jalapeño: I understand the sentiment, but if it doesn’t go as planned, we have to figure out what to do next, not sit around blaming people again. Unless we’re blaming the Republicans. That’s OK.
dpCap
@Jinxtigr:
Can’t we do something a little more organized than rioting? It’s not like the riots in England are doing anything to promote social change. It’s just a bunch of thugs looting and robbing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gex_ya4-Oo
WaterGirl
@chopper: i had no idea that Illinois had a rivalry with Wisconsin. (Maybe it’s a sports thing?)
I have nothing but fond memories of camp in Wisconsin, friends who had a house on a lake in wisconsin, really good friends from college who came from wisconsin. But if they want to call us FIPs or FIBs, that’s okay. I still love their state.
I am hoping that the polling is wrong and that we unseat several of these bastards!
Linnaeus
I’ll be honest. I don’t think the Democrats will win the three seats. One, maybe two. The polling’s too close to call, yeah, but I think that’s a break for incumbents. So we have to brace ourselves for the message of “defeat for the Democrats and labor” and find a way to forge ahead.
Danny
If we only pick up one seat then keeping spirits up for the two remaining dem recalls is imperative. It’s hard to keep fighting after failing to reach the goal we wanted but if we loose focus then republicans may pick up seats and that would be really bad. But I’m an optimist; I say we end up +4.
shortstop
@Linnaeus: I’m willing to suspend disbelief on the strength of our having no solid polling model for this kind of thing. It really will be all about GOTV. It remains to be seen whether tonight’s triumphant will be the very highly motivated Dems or the teabaggers who put most of the affected incumbents in just two years ago and whose own incentive is thus very fresh.
Hoping for good news and preparing for bad.
Linnaeus
I could be wrong in my feelings about this election. I hope I am; maybe I’m too quick to assume a setback.
shortstop
@Linnaeus: It’s just conditioning. ;)
Peggy
Stopped by Kos for election news.
Update 12:10 pm Central—Turnout could be near Presidential levels
Various clerks in the recall districts reported steady turnout so far with some projecting numbers that will rival a presidential election.
geg6
This is the only story I plan to pay attention to today.
Okay, scratch that. This is the only domestic story to which I plan to pay attention. Gotta keep an eye on the Beeb to see if any of my Brit relatives are being burned out of their homes. Nothing on Facebook, yet, so I assume all is good.
Oh, and my high school alma mater was sung to the tune of “On Wisconsin.” I have decided to take that as a positive sign.
Elie
@WaterGirl:
Girl, its the Green Bay Packers vs Chicago Bears rivalry — the oldest in the NFL… its a golden competition that we just love…
Linnaeus
@Peggy:
I like to think that high turnout is a good sign.
Lefty Lefty
As a FIB and grad of the great UW-Madtown, I can report that we were called FIBs in Madison. Also pennyheads, flatlanders, and Illies.
me
I’ve been getting tons of anti-Steitz mail and little anti-Wirch. Either I’m only on the Democratic mailing lists (which I doubt for various reasons), Steitz is spending most of his money in the county (bad idea if he actually wants to win), or Wirch and allies are outspending him by a very large margin.
WaterGirl
@Elie: Is that the sport where they run down a field with the odd sized ball? :-)
Actually, I am not quite that bad… I do know about the Bears and Green Bay Rivalry but I had no idea that it went beyond football. Thanks for letting me know the score.
Peggy
@Butch: Turnout is high; I keep checking Kos.
Turnout was 30% by 1:30pm.
mutt
i lived in Madison for about 8 years, 80’s-90’s. An interesting tribe. For instance- we’d go to Lake Menona, a nice park, on the weekend to watch a rather uniquely Wisconsin “sport”- very large bubba types would eat brat after brat, and drink beer after beer, for hours, then stagger down to the lake, jump in, get tangeled in the weeds, and drown. Some Nordski gotterdammerung thing. “Wheres Finn?….yo, Finn? Anybody see Finn?” “Last I saw, he was out swimming”…..like clockwork. Other than that, they appears fairly normal…..
Mousebumples
I live in Wisconsin, but I don’t have a recall election to vote in today. (My State Senator was on the ballot last fall, so he wasn’t eligible for recall.) I’ll be watching the returns tho – and I should probably make a FB bleg to remind my friends to vote if they have a recall election going on today.
I will agree with those who are impressed that enough signatures were collected to *have* the recall on so many State Senators. My parents’ State Senator (and my “hometown” State Senator – although I don’t live in his district anymore) is – in the words of my mom yesterday, “off his rocker,” but they couldn’t gather enough signatures to do the recall. Of course, given the solid conservative flavor of district 20, I suppose I shouldn’t be _that_ surprised …
Gus
I’ll be happy not to see Sheila Harsdorf’s annoying mug on my TV any more. Some of the cheesiest “my most important job is being a mom” happy horseshit ads you’ll ever see.
Mousebumples
538 post on the Wisconsin Recall Elections: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/reading-the-wisconsin-recall-vote/