Posted on 11/01/2004 11:38:10 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WAUSAU, Wis. - OK, Bucky, the presidential election is down to the final hours. What's that, you say? Months of presidential campaigning in Oregon have left you feeling like a pounded slab of Swiss steak? Hey, someone else always has it worse. If you lived here in Wisconsin, you'd feel like hamburger.
Three weeks ago, I drove here to stay through Election Day. I wanted to discover what life is like in one of the hottest battleground states. I found a cacophony of TV and radio ads, a locust-like invasion by the candidates, their families, and celebrities, stakeouts by street corner voter registrars, and endless calls to homes to persuade Wisconsinites to vote on Tuesday.
In the last two weeks, president has visited the state three times, Laura Bush once, and John Kerry three times (once for four days). John Edwards has been through here twice and Dick Cheney once. Caroline Kennedy and Wes Clark stumped Wausau and Stevens Point, and the Democrats sent a busload of prominent women across the state. Calling themselves "Women on the Move," the bus was filled with Kennedy, a retired Army general, several members of the U.S. women's Olympic soccer team, the Democratic governor's wife, and several entertainment celebrities.
I wander through a shopping mall and find voters counting the days until this rhubarb ends and that supreme northern Wisconsin cultural event - deer hunting season - mercifully begins on Nov. 20.
A columnist for the Green Bay paper described the presidential battle for this state in this way: "So here we are, Wisconsin, caught like baited deer in the crossfire of vote-starved political sharpshooters. Perched in the ideological tree stands at different ends of the woods, they share one goal - to bring our electoral carcasses home."
But tired as they are of electioneering, Wisconsinites I've observed are highly motivated to vote. They are expected at the polls in record numbers, and there are few undecided voters left. National polls show that 70 percent of voters are highly motivated this year; in 2000, it was just over 40 percent. From every indication, this besieged state is following the national pattern.
The National Rifle Association ran TV ads here last week falsely warning that Kerry will confiscate members' guns. The group also has mailed heavily to its extensive mailing list. But in this gun-loving state, the NRA's biggest presence is on the ground. You can't see it, but you know it's there. This may be one reason that it has been hard for Kerry to move the needle in a state that Al Gore won by only 5,708 votes in 2000. (A recent Zogby International Poll, however, gave the Democrat a nominal lead - if any poll can be believed.)
As with Oregon, Wisconsin is actually two political states. Highway 29, the major east-west corridor, is the state's political equator, a kind of Mason-Dixon line. North of Highway 29 people are anti-union, conservative, decidedly Republican and ardently pro-gun. This is where the NRA and Bush surrogates have been working hardest. Kerry has thrown assets into the area, too, not to win, but to keep the margin there as close as possible so that his strength in the south - Madison, Milwaukee and environs - will give him the state and its 10 electoral votes.
Ten electoral votes that could decide whether Kerry or Bush will be the next leader of the free world.
Former congressman Les AuCoin, an Ashland columnist and radio commentator, is a retired professor of political science.
Um, no. One candidate is using a tree stand - the other is crawling through the woods on his belly while wearing a camouflage suit designed in Paris.
Should have worn orange and stayed out of the gutter...
Aucoin is a damned liar. What else do you expect from a democrat former congressman?
That is exactly what Senator Kerry (and the author, former anti-gun Congressman AuCoin) plans to do; Senator Kerry has earned his "F" from the NRA by consistently voting against gun-ownership.
He had to get in a little last minute campaigning (lying) for Kerry.
Old Les has been gone too long. It's islands of insanity (Madistan, Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, La Crosse and Superior) surrounded by fields of dreams.
That's the kind of crackerjack writing that shouldn't even make it into a junior high school newspaper. :-)
Absolutely and very well put.
Les totally ignores the counties W of Madistan and E & S of La Crosse. The entire south is NOT pro-Kerry.
I also think the suburbs and smaller towns around Milwaukee and Madistan are hardly Kerry country.
Les also ignores far southern Milwaukee County (not so coincidentally, the only parts of the county growing; Franklin and Oak Creek). Less than 2 years after the Republicans took the Assembly seat in Oak Creek/South Milwaukee for the first time in 80 years, the DemonRATs didn't even put up a challenger.
Don't forget that Scott Walker is a star and hated by the Ds. I hear he may make a run against Doyle in 2006. I will vote for Scott, but I am burned out on volunteering and am not sure I will work officially for anyone.
I am organizing some nascent conservative groups out here. Hopefuly, we will have a pool of young activists in the next elections.
What is the support for Tim Michels down your way? He has a chance here and Finegold, as usual, has been MIA except for a private home event and his radio ads (gack).
Haven't heard much from Michels (besides radio ads) until yesterday, when I first found out that he was closing on Slimeroad in the polls. If he does win, it's good-night-Gracie (and no amount of "provisional ballots" will save Ketchup Boy).
This Jerk just had to throw this little bomb into his cockamamie story....
If he were an honest writer...he would not have thrown in this propaganda...the truth is that 'taking away peoples guns and their right to hunt and keep their own firearms at home for protection of self and loved ones'...is EXACTLY WHAT KERRY INTENDS ON DOING
John Kerry, Kennedy, Feinstein, Schummer have proposed exactly this...it is their stated goal to get rid of all firearms out of the hands of Americans (just the peasants though as Kerry says he has an AK at home and Feinstein has a CCW permit for her little 380 she carries in her purse)
He is also wrong on his other statements....he sure writes like a liberal college prof
His statement of the Hwy 29 divider is wrong...half the people north of 29 are from Illinois and liberal southern WI...they all have summer homes, cabins and land...lots of land...if you spent your life there or just summers you'd know...
Fly over northern lake country sometime....you would be surprised at what is hidden on the ground with pine tree fences..
There are many Christian conservative who are indigenous to the area...so technically you can say the same thing about Hwys 10 or Hwy 21 and there are large pockets of conservative leaners all over...
If you want to describe WI political demographics...you need to isolate out the larger liberal cities like Madison Milwaukee and then the college towns...you don't graduate out of a WI state Univ. without a thorough Marxist indoctrination unless you are a math or hard science major.
Central WI. used to be conservative even among the paper mill union workers...Mel Laird was the R Congressman for many years....till David Obey took over and has held the office even longer..
Even Obey tries to play conservative at least to the folks when he is stumping around Wausau Marshfield, Point, and Rapids. If he were the metrosexual Kerry type or a whiny homosexual abortionist anti gun type...he would not be in office today....though he does defy the Catholic Church on abortion and they don't seem to stand up to him...which in Polish Catholic Stevens Point is kinda surprising..but Point is one of the most liberal central WI towns.
Nearly all the local papers are Gannet owned and throughly propagandized as are Channels 7 and 9...most people have cable or sat dishes anyway and so are subject to the exact same liberal screed as folks everywhere else
Wisconsinites at least in north central and northern WI tend to be moderate social conservatives...most definitely more liberal than 40 yrs ago....but fiscally they are more moderately liberal
Wisconsinites are also pro military...and least from the rural areas..If they break for Kerry it is because they believe the dems lies...and haven't been able to separate Kerry from his lies
I live in farm country and many here love Pres Bush and see him as a regular guy...a real person not afraid to get his hands dirty...or work alongside regular folks..
Kerry cannot and did not connect with folks the way W does...it simply isn't in him to and he cant fake it...nor can he surround himself with enough props or wear his 'magic barn coat' 24/7 ...Kerry did not convince folks that he is a man of the people..not even close.
We will know today how much more work we will have to do..to let the folks see the real John Kerry...
Even after Kerry is defeated...his defeat wont be complete until he is exposed for what he is a liar and a traitor...The Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for the truth aren't going to stop...
Neither are the other thousands of Veterans Kerry has wronged...
Until he is completely exposed to the world...and the blood of US troops and our SE Asian allies and friends you have on your hands are shown to world and you are run out of America on a rail..and tarred and feathered...Vietnam combat vets will not be vindicated and their will not be justice to the MIAs and POWs and their loved ones...
No, Mr. Kerry regardless of what happens today...this ain't over by a long shot...
IMO
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