Free Republic

State Rep. Duey Stroebel (R-Town of Cedarburg) announced Saturday he will run for the congressional seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Tom Petri (R-Neenah), who announced Friday he is stepping down. Stroebel becomes the second declared candidate for the seat of Petri, who has been in Congress since 1979.

The research for today's catch-all column required a number of phone calls and emails. So I assume the National Security Agency already knows what the article will say. For the rest of you non-snoops, read on. Frog has legs: What's with Cedarburg and people's inability there to keep their hands off oversized mascots? First, the Famous Racing Italian Sausage was abducted and forced to go on a pub crawl. Now, we find out that someone swiped itsa frog (that is its apostrophe-challenged and lower-case name, itsa frog) from the bench in front of Partnership Bank. Before you send out an...

The McCain Street USA rally in Cedarburg started early for me because I was determined to wear just the right shirt. DollyCali helped me get a logo ready, and I made shirts using my computer, my printer, my iron, and an iron-on transfer. This is the logo I chose: The reason I did them myself is that we had such short notice about this Cedarburg rally that there was just no time to get shirts from the usual sources -- even with overnight delivery. So, the 2 days prior to the event were spent finding just the right base shirts...

In a sweep through the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin, Mr McCain was met by the kind of near-hysterical crowds previously seen only at campaign events for his Democratic rival, Barack Obama. More than 6,000 exultant supporters turned out on Friday night in Sterling Heights, a town in Michigan's Macomb County, home of the Reagan-Democrats, the small town blue collar voters who propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House in the 1980s and hold the key to victory this year. Where he once played to a few hundred people, Mr McCain was greeted by an electrified crowd chanting "Sa-rah,...

If there was any doubt that John McCain's surprise pick of Sarah Palin has grabbed the attention of many Republicans, Barbara Falk, a retiree born and raised in this quaint small town, put it to rest yesterday: "I came out to see her." So did Falk's friend Pat Mantel, who said, "I do enjoy that vice president that McCain picked." And so did Mantel's sister Carol Eberhardt, a retired lab worker and single mother of three, who said, "She speaks my language." A day after McCain gave what many critics panned as a flat acceptance speech, Palin proved to be...

Later yesterday, the two traveled to Macomb County, the suburban Detroit turf where the "Reagan Democrat" demographic was first identified by pollster Stan Greenberg. Palin appeared to earn more applause than McCain when she was introduced, and an unsolicited chant of "Sarah! Sarah!" rose from the crowd of several thousand. She delivered an appeal to those socially conservative, working-class voters on the basis of patriotism, not class. "Our opponents have been going on recently about how they fight for you," Palin said. "Since Senator McCain won't say this on his behalf, let me say it: There's only one man in...

At a packed street rally here this morning, Republican John McCain used his first post-convention stop to promise a war on special-interest influence and excessive partisanship in Washington, D.C. "We're going to start to work for the people of this country," McCain shouted. "It's over for the special interests. It's over!" The Arizona senator joined Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, his vice presidential pick, in front of an ice cream shop on a well-preserved main street the city says is virtually unchanged since 1900. Without mentioning specifics in a brief address downtown, McCain said the duo would visit small towns across...