Posted on 01/02/2006 5:46:01 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
(Vicki McKenna relishes being a conservative voice in a liberal city)
Vicki McKenna - "a voice of reason in a city of chaos" - really likes that city, which is, of course, Madison, WI.
McKenna, the host of "Upfront" on WIBA radio, says it's more fun doing her conservative talk show in a liberal town.
"I've always had this kind of appreciation for the underdog," she said in a leisurely interview last week. "I think it has a chance to have more impact because of the nature of Madison."
But she added that after her first radio stint in a tiny station in Harvard, Ill., she didn't look for a job in Chicago or Rockford or Milwaukee.
"I thought it would be kind of cool to live in Madison. I used to come here when I was at Beloit College and I thought it was a neat town. I still do. I wouldn't live in Madison if I didn't like Madison. Why would I be here so long if it hated it?" said McKenna, 37, who has been on air with "Upfront" since 2003 and worked on other local radio stations for years before that.
"I think Madison can tolerate a counterbalance to the politics in this city, although you'd swear to God some people can't. They think, 'How dare she!' Sometimes I check out the blogs and I think, 'I'm one person, bless your heart for flattering me and thinking I started a movement.' "
Her colorful, often angry salvos against liberal attitudes and proposals do raise occasional negative responses from local liberals.
Local broadcaster Stuart Levitan, who has worked with McKenna, said, "She advocates for indefensible positions very aggressively. I only wish her politics were as good as her radio skills, but I'd love to debate her any place any time."
But McKenna's car gets more negative reaction than she does.
"During the election it was intense. I have stickers on my car. I had one very verbally assaultive conversation with a woman. My car was keyed. I get rude gestures on the Beltline. I just wave," she said.
"People are raised not to get in your face at a restaurant. Occasionally they will in a bar."
How it began: McKenna was born in Rockford, Ill., and moved to nearby Roscoe with her family when she was in sixth grade. They lived on the edge of town on five acres.
"It was blissfully quiet. I've not found such quiet since," she recalled.
After high school in Rockton, she got a sociology degree at Beloit College and then headed to Denver to get a master's degree at the University of Denver.
"I quit in a crisis of philosophy," she recalled.
"My professor was explaining something in my social theory class. I don't remember exactly what he was explaining but I do remember saying to myself, 'You just leapt logically where you couldn't go, you can't do that.' I asked him, 'Where is the middle, what is the connecting part?'"
He said, "Ah, it's a leap of faith."
"We were studying Marxism at the time so I said, 'You can't have a leap of faith if there is no God.' He just chortled. I became instantly less interested, because I had a professor who admitted there was no way to get from A to B."
Disillusioned, she quit grad school and took a variety of jobs - waitress, retail clerk, mascot for Smucker's and the California Avocado Association in Denver.
She was in a rebellious phase - veering toward agnosticism or atheism - until an incident occurred on an icy highway in Colorado.
"I was driving on I-76. It was snow-covered and icy. I had front-wheel drive and lost control of my car. It was spinning and a semi-truck was coming. My car somehow lurched out of the way and the guy just missed me. I was convinced that God did it."
She came back to Beloit and bartended, but a friend suggested she consider radio.
"She arranged a demo tape at a little station in Harvard, Ill. This guy at the station was helping us put together the demo. I had gotten old wire copy from the little station in Beloit and I listened to WBBM and mimicked the way the people read the news. The three of us started at about 8 p.m. It took six hours. It was very late, and we had been drinking. We were listening back and trying to figure out if it sounded normal," McKenna recalled.
"A month goes by and I sent him a thank you note, and it hit him that he needed someone he could pay very little, so he hired me. It was a dinky little station, 500 watts full power, 18 at night, in the corn fields."
She started by writing a newsletter, but the staff was so small that everybody did everything.
"There was a time when we needed someone on air so they threw me in. I was awful, but I was cheap. That must have been in 1994," McKenna recalled.
She stayed at the station a little more than a year and then drove up to Madison with a bunch of tapes and dropped them off.
"My first job was assistant news director at WTDY. I lasted about six months. Then I did a morning show at Z104. I talked the general manager into giving me a shot. I stayed a little over four years. It was fun," McKenna said.
She worked for a while at WMAD and then briefly for an advertising agency.
Looking for a job after the ad account paying her salary abruptly ended, she found that WIBA needed a Republican for a talk show.
"Upfront": McKenna was a conservative who tended to vote Republican. After a bout of youthful liberalism, she began to change "when I started getting paychecks with the taxes taken out." The conversion was completed by former Congressman Mark Neumann when she was working in Harvard and the Republican was campaigning nearby in southern Wisconsin.
McKenna began doing the "Upfront" show opposite liberals John Peterson and Levitan, but later became the lone host in a program now on from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday on 1310-AM.
The lead-in "voice of reason in a city of chaos" came from producer Dave McCann, but McKenna loved it because "it was funny and it would make them mad."
"I do like being on my own, because I can drive the bus. I'm delighted I can share my opinions without somebody second-guessing - decide for yourself what you're going to talk about and how you're going to talk about it," McKenna said.
Moreover, she added, "If I was ever going to have any longevity in the business, I would have to figure out how to do it alone."
Her favorite program was one with Lt. Col. Mark Smith, who was serving in the Marines in Iraq.
"He had written amazing letters home. I tracked him down on his cell phone and he agreed to come on. I just let him talk. He had a natural ability to tell a story. They had secured the election process," McKenna said.
Her biggest coup was Vice President Dick Cheney in autumn 2004.
She sometimes gives a story tip to Milwaukee conservative talk show hosts Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling.
"The two big conservatives over there are pretty reasonable guys," McKenna said..
By contrast, she said, Madison is a very competitive radio market and sometimes meanness and nastiness can creep in.
But she definitely wants to stay here, and would like to someday have a syndicated program that would be broadcast around the country.
"I do not fancy going from market to market. I want to do what I'm doing in syndication. It would be nice to work from here," McKenna said. "I know people who chase jobs all around the country. I'm single but they're uprooting their whole families."
Spare time: So what does a conservative talk show host do for fun?
McKenna rides her Yamaha motorcycle, snowshoes and takes care of her multitude of pets.
Not just any old pets.
She has five snakes - a Brazilian rainbow boa, two green tree pythons, a ball python and an albino corn snake.
"The snakes are very docile and just beautiful," she said. "Two of them got out of their cages once, but I always keep the reptile room closed. They are not hanging from trees."
She also has fish, assorted lizards, ferrets and a Siberian husky named Clarice.
"They're my hobby," she said.
"I received the ball python from my boyfriend. It was a Christmas gift. He has had snakes and lizards his whole life. I started reading about snakes and finding them and I go to reptile shows."
Vicki McKenna Ping!
http://www.wiba.com
Maybe libs just can't handle media without pictures.
Vicki is clearly the voice of reason to Blue State America, as Saint Paul was to Nero's Rome.
Hopefully, she will not meet the same fate that Paul did.
Thanks for this post, Diana, I enjoyed reading it.
We need many more Vicki McKennas and Melanie Morgans (SF CA) in this world!
Does she wear body armor...???
I don't drive through Madistan very often anymore, and I'm just out of range from most of the TV/Radio networks. Most of the time when I do get them, they're overshadowed by Milwaukee stations that are nearby on the dial.
Thus I ended up usually listening to Belling on the ride home from work--when I had my car.
Keep me posted if anything happens worth noting... http://fantalkback2talkhosts.myfreeforum.org
Is this the same station where Chris Krok was the morning guy before he came to Minneapolis? I know he was a conservative in MadTown that got hammered on a regular basis but held his own against the immoral majority.
The name Chris Krok doesn't sound familiar at all.
I've been listening to Vicki for years. She totally knocked both Stu (Sour Grapes) Levitan and John Peterson (especially John Peterson) OUT of the ballpark. It was really amusing to listen to a logical, conservative woman speaking FACTS when those two doorknobs were all about "their feelings." LOL!
I kind of miss it, but Vicki more than makes up for it. And really, she's never, EVER mean or rude to the libs that call in to disagree or harrass her...she just lets them babble on and hang themselves. *Smirk*
Thanks.
Sorry for being lazy. He was at WTDY AM for two and a half years. I'm not familiar with that one. You?
more discussion from this AM
Air America is on AM 1200 in the Boston area -- that is, IF it's still on the air. I haven't checked for several weeks. I occasionally listen in for a few good laughs.
My liberal brother and sister-in-law live in Madison and think it is too conservative there!
I live about 4 blocks for Beloit Collage. I'll have to tune in after Rush tomorrow, if I can get it.
There is now a an mp3 like device for recording liberal talk radio. It's called an Iputz.
Thanks!
May God give her a large following.
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