Do You Feel Smarter As Result Of Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate Campaign Spending?

Anyone who breathes in Wisconsin knows how good we all will feel the morning after the election.  Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. Senate race there will be no more campaign commercials.  No more relentless negative ads that rip, smear, tear, and demean.  Both parties are responsible for the political wreckage that is the accepted way of speaking to voters in 2012.

I can not think of another campaign election that has been so horrible as that which is taking place for the senate iseat in Wisconsin.

What makes me upset is that no one is smarter as a result of this campaign.  No one can speak to the issues that either candidate has tried to use as the basis for their election.  The only thing that anyone sees or hears is “you’re damn right” or the god-awful photos of the ex-governor.

But given the amount of cash that has been spent on the race every voter should be brimming with facts and data to make an informed choice.  But that would take creative use of the money that was donated.  No, it was easier for both Tammy Baldwin and Tommy Thompson to engage in the lowest common denominator style of running for office.

No one wins as a result.

Republican Tommy Thompson and Democrat Tammy Baldwin the most expensive U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin history.

The price tag: $40 million in spending, according to the latest figures.

The cost of the election is sure to rise even higher between now and Nov. 6.

The largest share of the money has come from independent groups – both liberal and conservative, with most of the dollars used to oppose a candidate. So far, outside groups have spent $27.7 million in Wisconsin, according to the Federal Election Commission. That’s second only to $31.7 million in another close Senate race in Virginia.

In Wisconsin, the figures include $11.6 million to oppose Thompson and $9.2 million to oppose Baldwin, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Bob Schieffer’s Blue Socks, Red And Yellow Tie, And Purple Binder At Presidential Debate

I love when men embrace color, and are not tied to some old-fashioned constraints about what color they can wear. 

Tonight the nation saw Bob Schieffer bring a purple binder to the debate stage while wearing blue socks, and a red and yellow tie.  It was a statement of being comfortable in his own skin, and living life on his terms.

Too often people live in a sea-foam world that only varies when someone throws in some beige.  How brave!

I love when people make a statement with color, and tonight Bob Schieffer did when he showed men can choose from a wide color palate when making clothing decisions,

The Best Line Was From President Obama During Debate, Aimed At Mitt Romney’s Lack Of Understanding The Military

Mitt Romney yearns for an increase in the number of naval ships for the United States.  One can never have too many expensive toys when courting defense contractors.

It was then that President Obama pounced and landed the line of the night.

Looking directly at Mr. Romney, Mr. Obama scoffed at the Romney line of thinking.

“We also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed.  We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines.”

There is no reason to underscore that Romney’s desire for increased naval ships is short-sighted and not in the long-term interests of the military.

Then in conclusion on this matter Obama landed the final statement with “So the question is not a game of Battleship where we are counting ships, it’s what are our capabilities?”

Racial Politics Displayed In Waushara County Against President Obama

This past week the Waushara County Argus had a most disturbing Letter To The Editor that I must say embarrassed me as it happened in the county where I was raised.

There has been a continuing strain of racial politics played in this country over the past four years, and it nauseates me.  That it has happened in the county I grew up in pains me.  Pisses me off might be more blunt and accurate.

I have nothing but pure contempt for those who have used the birth certificate issue over the years, or work to undermine and question the scholastic foundation of President Obama, making it seem that he had special treatment in his studies.  I am not pleased when Mitt Romney tries to define President Obama as ‘foreign’.  Note to the racists, President Obama is an American, just classier than those who try to smear him.  His blackness is no more important to his abilities than the hat size of Harry Truman was for his leadership in the 1940’s.

And so what I read in the Argus about a racist sign turned my stomach.

Celine Pitzen writes from Redgranite that a sign in her community has been placed on Highway 21, a very visible and highly traveled by-way.  Pitzen is rightly troubled and upset over the sign.

She writes that the sign which measures roughly 5 feet square has a yellow background, a large black picture of a gallows with a hanging noose next to a white block with the words “HANG IN THERE OBAMA”.    The words “HANG” and “OBAMA” are painted in black and the words “IN” and “THERE” are painted red.

If I were living there I would call the Secret Service and inform them of a possible threat to the president.  It is not only offensive, but most likely crosses the line from free speech to a possible threat.

Failing that I would just paint the sign over at midnight and end this racist garbage once and for all.

I am not in any mood to rationalize with bigots, or allow them an inch.

That crap needed to have ended decades ago.

If some knuckle-draggers can not get with the bulk of society who have moved away from racism then they just really need to shut the hell up ,and move back under the rock from where they came.

No one should abide this racism anymore.

I appreciate and support Pitzen for calling attention to the racism, and calling it out for what it is.  I know that Redgranite is better than the moron who placed the sign up.  But it is now time for the good folks in Redgranite to bring the sign down!

Oldest Auschwitz Survivor Dies, Antoni Dobrowolski Was 108

Hat Tip to James.

One amazing life.

The oldest known survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp – a teacher who gave lessons in defiance of his native Poland’s Nazi occupiers – has died at the age of 108, an official said Monday.

Antoni Dobrowolski died Sunday in the northwestern Polish town of Debno, according to Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum.

After invading Poland in 1939, sparking World War II, the Germans banned anything beyond four years of elementary education in a bid to crush Polish culture and the country’s intelligentsia. The Germans considered the Poles inferior beings, and the education policy was part of a plan to use Poles as a “slave race.”

An underground effort by Poles to continue to teach children immediately emerged, with those caught punished by being sent to concentration camps or prisons. Dobrowolski was among the Poles engaged in the underground effort, and he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz in June 1942.

“Auschwitz was worse than Dante’s hell,” he recalled in a video made when he was 103.

Dobrowolski, who was born Oct. 8, 1904 in Wolborz, Poland, was later moved to the concentration camps of Gross-Rosen and Sachsenhausen, according to the Auschwitz memorial museum in southern Poland.

After the war, he moved to Debno, where he worked as a Polish-language teacher and as principal at an elementary school and later at a high school for many years.

He will be buried in Debno on Wednesday.

The New Yorker Endorses President Obama For Election

From a truly remarkable endorsement comes this paragraph.

One quality that so many voters admired in Obama in 2008 was his unusual  temperament: inspirational, yet formal, cool, hyper-rational. He promised to be  the least crazy of Presidents, the least erratic and unpredictable. The triumph  of that temperament was in evidence on a spring night in 2011, as he performed  his duties, with a standup’s precision and preternatural élan, at the White  House Correspondents’ Dinner, all the while knowing that he had, with no  guarantee of success, dispatched Navy SEAL Team  Six to kill bin Laden. In the modern era, we have had Presidents who were known  to seduce interns (Kennedy and Clinton), talk to paintings (Nixon), and confuse  movies with reality (Reagan). Obama’s restraint has largely served him, and the  country, well. 

Former GOP State Senator Randy Hopper Spent Night In Jail

The only thing I can grant Randy Hopper is his antics are pure magic for local newspaper reporters.

First there was his Chicky-Poo–while he was married.

Then his arrest for drunk driving.

Now the latest……

Randy Hopper, executive director of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corp. and former Republican senator from Fond du Lac, was arrested in Fond du Lac following a report of a fight late Sunday at his ex-wife’s home.

Hopper, 46, of Fond du Lac, was cited for drunken driving and taken into custody on charges of disorderly conduct — domestic abuse, criminal trespass to dwelling and unlawful use of telephone, according to a Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office press release. 

Hopper posted a $500 cash bond and was released from the Fond du Lac County Jail at 11 a.m. today. 

Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to W5192 Rienzi Drive about 10:15 p.m. Sunday for a report of two men in a physical fight, according to the sheriff’s dispatch log.

The Problem With Our Politics

Former Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz writes a very compelling article for Isthmus about the nature of today’s politics.

When having an opprotunity to chat with a candidate I always remark in spite of the heat of a race not to fail at having some fun.

Politics, after all, can be fun.  Should be fun.

But there seems nothing fun for any of those running for office this fall, and that is harmful to the process, both in terms of the candidates who put their name on the ballot to the voters who need to endure the slugfest.

What’s missing from these debates is any sense of the fun of politics, the clash of ideas, the mixing it up with your opponent over honest disagreement on the issues. The jab followed by a gleam in one candidate’s eye as if to say, I can take as good as I get, so give me your best shot. A debate between intelligent people who have a sense of humor and love the fight can be enlightening and even entertaining.

We don’t have to hate each other when we disagree about issues.