The Rematch

That was the headline.  Is anyone else wondering how this will play out when the number of people who voted for Scott Walker who ran against a Lafollette/ Teddy Roosevelt Republican got almost as many votes as all of the Democrats combined?  Assuming most of the Republicans stayed home because they knew Walker would easily win, where were the Democrats?  Some Republicans might of voted because of fear that the Democrats would have crossed over.  This is baseless, the Democrats needed to select a strong candidate.  There was simply no reason to vote in the Republican primary if you were a Democrat.  In normal times I would have voted for a Republican who quotes Fighting Bob and Roosevelt but these aren't normal times.  So in the end Barrett wins convincingly.  This is like saying there was a mistake we need a do over.  This is a candidate who the last time ran a bad campaign.  He didn't lose to Walker because of the wave election he lost because he was a bad campaigner.  He did a poor job articulating what he wanted to do.  He did a poor job exposing Scott Walkers record to the rest of the State.  I always hear from people that the Gov. didn't campaign on this stuff.  The truth is that he at one time or another mentioned everything that was contained in Act 10 and for the most part it was reported.  You just had to pay attention.  Plus there was his record of dealing with his employees in Milwaukee County.  His record was known.  Maybe the Barrett supporters feel that he can run a lackluster campaign and get away with it because everyone now knows about the Governor.  Barrett's challenge this time will be fighting off distortions and half truths about his record as Mayor of Milwaukee.  These are charges that can't be defended in a 30 second commercial but they play well to the public and they will be heard in saturation on radio and TV.  He has his work cut out and based on the number of voters who went to the polls yesterday he'll need to inspire people to come out and vote because for sure the Governor's supporters will vote.

Fake Democrats

Lets start this out by saying this is wrong and the election board decision is wrong. If you are going to run as a partisan you should be a member of that party otherwise run as an independent. What Republicans are saying is that if the races aren't contested we need to make sure that there is a primary. If we want to go that way why don't we go to a system where all of names are on the primary ballot and the top 2 vote getters go on to the general election unless there are only 2 candidates where the winner wins. This would of course mean that you could have general elections where both candidates maybe from the same party. Think of the Governor race or the race for US Senate. It could easily be Falk versus Barrett in the Governor race and it could be Thompson versus Neumann in the Senate race.

WI Gevernor's Race

I was reading Wisconsin Outdoor News from 10/15/10 and there was a Q&A with Scott Walker and Tom Barrett.  I encourage everyone to read this.  Talk about pandering to a group of people.  Walker didn't even look over his responses to avoid the contradictions!  Scott Walker talks about how sportsmen (license holders) need to be in charge of the Natural Resources Board and the DNR, but then discusses how he will appoint the secretary and what background that person will have.  Neither one of them talk about the non wildlife management part of the DNR and how maybe someone with a science background should be the secretary.  They talk of the need to get a better count of deer with Barrett saying that the DNR needs to work to get that number even higher.  I wonder then if they both are in favor of helping Wisconsinite with their high auto insurance rates?  Maybe they could promise every eligible hunter a free license.  They differ predictably on who they would appoint to the board, with Walker saying people with hunting, fishing, or trapping licenses and farmers.  Barrett mentions the non-hunting groups that use our natural environment.  These people who spend money in the State and help to create jobs don't matter to Walker.