"The Metro Madison School District has no budget for the next school year because the Board of Education was not allowed to get to its agenda."

"This Monday night (10-29-18) about 60 cop-hating, race-obsessed social justice warriors shut down the school board meeting," writes David Blaska.

Freedom Inc., International Socialists, and Progressive Dane flooded the zone with speaker after speaker F-bombing the school board, cops, Racist America, and white people in general. They mocked board president Mary Burke for mispronouncing difficult Hmong names scrawled on the speaker slips...

Mary Burke. You remember Mary Burke. 4 years ago she was the Democratic Party's nominee for Wisconsin governor.

The school board recessed in a futile attempt to restore order but after reconvening the Far-Left mob accelerated its tactics, marching down to the proscenium at the seven members (the eighth, a non-voting student rep), its superintendent and district counsel. They unfurled their banners, shouted their chants, and pounded their fists.

"When Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin throws his leg across his beloved Harley-Davidson Road King for a celebration of motorcycles and Iowa pork on Saturday, the political symbolism will be as thick as the smoke from the roasting pits."

Really intense first sentence of a NYT article titled "Scott Walker Riding With Joni Ernst in Iowa as Rivals Give Chase," which Drudge is linking with the teaser "Leader of the Pack."

This post gets an epic trio of tags: meat, metaphor, motorcycle.

ADDED: The WaPo headline is: "Scott Walker is the only potential presidential candidate who can go to a biker rally and mean it."

This makes me think about a decisive moment in the debate last fall between Scott Walker and his Democratic opponent Mary Burke. As I observed it:

There was one "fun" question, asking them what they'd do if they had to go a day without campaigning and would surely take to their preferred 2-wheeler, Burke on a Trek bike and Walker on a Harley.

Burke's family founded the Trek bicycle company and Burke's campaign relied heavily on her experience as a Trek exec.

Where, exactly, would they go, and who would they go with? Walker gave the precise route, complete with route numbers and turns, and said he'd go with his usual "buddies" who motorcycle with him. Burke seemed nervous and said "um" a few times as she claimed she'd go back to her hometown and spend time with members of her family. Meade was heckling, saying that everyone knows that Mary Burke isn't much of a cyclist. Ah, but what was she supposed to do? The questioner imposed the assumption that if she had time off, of course, she'd bicycle. It would be awkward to refute that! Just because my family is in the bicycle business doesn't mean that when I get some time, what I want to do is bike. If her family were in the dairy business, would they assume that in her spare time, what she likes to do is drink milk?

Bobby Jindal all but announced he's running for President on "Meet the Press" yesterday.

Did anyone notice? 

CHUCK TODD: All right. I'm going to ask you about your own presidential ambitions. A majority in Louisiana disapprove of your job as governor. Why is that a launching pad to Iowa and New Hampshire?

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL: Chuck, I don't care at all about poll numbers. I never have. The reality is, I was elected in Louisiana to make generational changes. Look at what we've done in Louisiana. So now, we've cut our state budget 26%, cut the number of state employees 34%. We've got the best private-sector economy in a generation. Our economy has grown twice as fast as the national economy. More people working than ever before at a higher income than ever before. We transformed the charity house [?]. That's, like, the third rail in Louisiana politics. Statewide school choice, so our children have the opportunity to get a great education. If I were to run, and I haven't made that decision, if I were to run for president, it's because I believe in our country. The American dream is at jeopardy. This president has defined the American dream as more dependence on the government. We need to restore the American dream. So it's more about opportunity and growth and not redistribution.

That was — it seemed to me — a carefully prepared sound bite, complete with campaign theme: restore the American dream.

The line "Our economy has grown twice as fast as the national economy" jumped out at me, because in the just-concluded gubernatorial election in Wisconsin, Scott Walker's Democratic Party opponent Mary Burke continually referred to the national average:

“If our state economy in Wisconsin had grown at just the national average over the last three years while Gov. Walker is in office, our state’s economy would be $4 billion a year bigger.  4 billion,” said Burke.

I heard her say words to that effect repeatedly. I assume America is looking for a governor as the next President. What must Jindal do to rise within the group? Well, it seems he can point to accomplishments, and some of this material puts him distinctly ahead of Walker.

There's not only that economic growth, but also statewide school choice. By the way, I took Jindal's quote from the linked MTP transcript, but I also checked it against my DVR recording, and corrected the phrase "school of choice" to "school choice." Jindal tends to speak quickly and garble words as he speeds along. It's great to have so many achievements that it's hard to squeeze them into the time Chuck Todd will allot you, but it can be wearying to the point where the listener just gives up.

I wondered if phrase "the charity house" was correct and took the trouble to listen to the recording about 10 times. I couldn't figure out anything it could have been but "charity house." What's "the charity house"?  It's "like, the third rail in Louisiana politics"? So... some weird thing about Louisiana politics... one always hears about that... Huey Long... whatever... I forget... How else is a normal person supposed to hear and process material like that.

Now, I am taking the trouble this morning to Google key words, and I feel sure Jindal was trying to say "the charity hospital." The transformation of the charity hospitals seems to be a great achievement of Jindal's, yet in his effort to launch himself as a presidential candidate, he left us utterly puzzled.

Sharpen up, Bobby. You may be the best candidate, but if you don't slow down and articulate, no one will notice.

Mary Burke says she got "dragged through the mud" in the Wisconsin governor's race.

What mud? Hers was the campaign using swastikas. Scott Walker was doggedly positive. What is she talking about? The Wisconsin State Journal bolsters her assertion with this paragraph:

Critics accused her of copying campaign materials after parts of her jobs plan and other proposals included segments that were identical to those other Democratic candidates. And just days before the election, a pair of former Trek employees with conservative ties alleged that she had been fired from her family’s company, which was founded by her father.

That's mud? Trying to figure out the source of her jobs plan — upon which she relied heavily — and seeking to understand a gap in her professional résumé — the primary qualification she presented?

The man who got Mary Burke into that "plagiarism" trouble comes forward one with of the most ludicrous exercises in self-justification I have ever read.

Published in that venerable journal, The Atlantic, it's Eric Schnurer. He kept quiet during the campaign, after he got fired, which happened after he advised Burke's people that they should fire him, because, you know, they needed him for ideas, for that jobs plan and then for what to do when the jobs plan looked like a lame cut-and-paste job. And now he has this new idea to blame others for the blame he carried only exactly as long as there was a political stake in shifting the blame onto him. He's got a career to rebuild, after all. 

You can read the whole thing. I'm just highlighting what I struck me as ludicrous:

[Mary Burke's] opposition spent a good deal of time attacking her for not “having a plan” until she issued the obligatory document. It was to be expected, however, that whatever she released would be subjected to merciless and unfair attack, because that’s how we conduct campaigns nowadays. 

So, presumably, that's what you're doing now, since that's what we do nowadays. It's all always "merciless and unfair," according to you.

Burke faced the competing demands of putting together a “plan” as quickly as possible and making it as perfect as possible. That’s where I came in....

You, with your reputation for speed and approximate perfection. By the way, why was this person running for governor without a plan? Why did this emergency exist in the first place? 

Reading the subsequent coverage of what occurred, you’d get the impression that my staff and I lazily cut-and-pasted our way through the project. In fact, the Burke jobs plan went through at least a dozen drafts and near-endless rewrites.... This was no cut-and-paste job. The Burke jobs plan went through at least a dozen drafts....

But if they had only rewritten the verbatim material from other sources, there would never have been a Buzzfeed exposé.

We knew better than simply to mail in work we’d completed elsewhere, acutely aware of the kind of cheap shots a candidate would incur if we did. 

You didn't know better than to make the plan a target for a Buzzfeed journalist. It wasn't a "cheap shot" from Scott Walker. It was a journalist, Andrew Kaczynski, doing his job. And it wasn't "cheap." Hypocritically, you are taking a cheap shot.

I guess Mary Burke will enjoy her service on the school board now.

"It makes me want to fight ever more on a local level."

AND: Is "ever more" a typo for "even more"? I don't know...

And Scott Walker, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Walker, Governor — ever more!

Myth busted: It all depends on turnout.

"Highest turnout for mid-term in Wisconsin in at least 64 years."

Rand Paul has the smartest post-election spin and the best social-media presentation of it.

#HillarysLosers.



Interestingly, Mary Burke was not one of "Hillary's losers." She had high-level surrogates here in Wisconsin, shoring up her losing battle against Scott Walker. Michelle Obama (twice), Barack Obama, and even that other Clinton, Bill. But not Hillary. I don't know what the thinking was there, but we didn't get Hillary, and thus Mary Burke didn't make Rand Paul's gallery of #HillarysLosers.

Mary Burke's use of the swastika in her ad does the very thing defenders of the ad will say she's accusing her antagonist of doing.

"Mary Burke hits Scott Walker in ad with swastika imagery," says the headline at the Washington Post.

Democrat Mary Burke released a new ad Friday accusing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) of using a Republican county chairman's "lies to attack" her. The ad includes images of swastikas, it says, the county chair posted to his Facebook page.

Burke's ad seeks to tie Walker to Gary Ellerman, the Jefferson County Republican Party chairman and a former human resources director at Trek Bicycle, the Burke family company where the Democrat used to work.

Ellerman was quoted in a report on the conservative Web site Wisconsin Reporter that cited sources saying Burke was fired from the company. In the report, Ellerman said, “She was not performing. She was (in) so far over her head. She didn’t understand the bike business." Burke denies being fired.

You can watch the whole ad at the link, but here's a screen shot of the part where swastikas float across the screen and have whatever subliminal effect they're supposed to have:



There's writing on the screen, but are we supposed to read it or just have feelings that something awful is going on? If you're watching it on line, you can freeze it and read it, and if you do, you'll find swastikas used against Obama in exactly the same way swastikas were used against Scott Walker back in the 2011 protests, to say that a politician you oppose is like the Nazis.

Burke seems to be saying that Ellerman is bad because he used the swastika, and since Ellerman asserted something about Burke that could help Walker, Walker is connected to Ellerman, and Ellerman's form of expression should be attributed to Walker, making Walker bad.

If we had the time to read the words on the screen, it would be clear that Ellerman's use of the swastika is not pro- but anti-Nazi, but the ad doesn't give us that time, and in fact, the words on the graphic on the left never fully appear appear on screen. The most you ever see — and I had to freeze the frame to read this — is "cordance with the/Order, all Christian/-ches must hand over/-rmons regarding/-sexuality and gender/state so that we may/or and "correct" any/-rsive speech that/-dicts our Manifesto," a quote attributed to "-ton's Democrat Mayor, Annise Parker." The words "-sexuality and gender" line up with the eyes of the unfamiliar woman who is smirking and has her hands in what could be called the I-have-an-evil-plan position.

What subliminal effect does that have? One might, in so little time, subliminally read the "evil" woman as Mary Burke. And it is Mary Burke who is wafting swastikas in front of our eyes. I've seen anti-Walker protesters holding signs that put a swastika on Walker, so a casual viewer might think that's what Burke is doing here, even though she wants to say that's the kind of thing that Ellerman does. But most of us don't know or care about Ellerman any more than we know or care about Parker, so I think the subliminal effect — probably intended — was to make us think of Walker as a Nazi. That's something that Burke herself cannot say as a mainstream candidate, but it is something Walker-haters have been expressing for years.

At the 2011 protests, we saw many, many signs comparing Walker to Hitler. Meade and I frequently approached people who were holding these signs. Asked to explain, they always defended the comparison. Here's of photo of mine from February 2011:



I asked that woman behind the sign if she thought Scott Walker was like Hitler, and she said "Yes." So I followed up with: "Are you saying that you think fascism could come to America?" And she said, "It's what's happening." 

And then there was this woman, also from February 2011:



The expression on her face and the tone of her voice when she said "like Hitler" is something Meade and I have never forgotten. (Watch how quickly she otherizes Meade.)

Here's an "Adolf Walker" sign with a swastika.



Here's a young woman with a sign that says "Walker is a dictator" and has an image of Walker with a Hitler mustache. She says she "definitely" thinks Walker is like Hitler. Why? "He doesn't do nice things. He's not a nice person."



Meade follows up: "So, anyone who's not nice is like Hitler?" She tries again: "Well, no. He doesn't do what he should, doesn't do the right thing, and he's doing something that might ruin a lot of things for people. He's pretty much ruining, like, our future."

Meade offers: "You don't think that's over the top, that you're comparing him to Adolf Hitler?" She responds: "It might be a little over the top." Meade: "Just a little?" She makes the concession that might be perhaps what Gary Ellerman would say about Obama: "Just a little, but we kind of need to be dramatic in something like this."

An older woman cuts in and says: "It brings the point across." Meade: "And the point is?" Woman: "The point is this is a democracy, not a dictatorship." Meade asks whether there was something undemocratic about the election back in November, and she says: "Nothing. But what he's doing now is undemocratic." The woman continues, admitting that she didn't vote for Walker, but it's undemocratic because he's not "willing to compromise and negotiate... and that's what democracy is." That's what a lot of people thought about about Obama — quite aptly — when he said "I won" and foisted Obamacare on us when clearly there wasn't majoritarian support for it.

Now, you can see that the young and the older woman are nice people, not extremists, but aggrieved by the policies of the candidate who won the last election, and that they are appropriating a vivid graphic symbol for dramatic effect. Personally, I would not display a swastika as a way to make an exaggerated point about an American politician, but others do — on the right and on the left.

Obviously, I don't refrain from showing you that others are using a swastika in their form of expression, and you might say, that's exactly what Mary Burke is doing in her new ad.

But I am showing you things carefully, so you can study them, and to slow things down so there is no subliminal effect, no irrational roiling of the emotions. And that's exactly what Mary Burke is not doing. Her ad begins with a picture of Walker standing with "a Walker campaign worker and donor who puts pictures like this on his Facebook page." The image — my screen shot, above — slips by in 3 seconds, obliterating any hope of figuring out that Ellerman is not a Nazi fan and that he's just another Wisconsinite using dramatic imagery to get his point across.

Ironically, Burke's use of the swastika works exactly like Ellerman's, and she's doing the very thing defenders of the ad will say she's trying to criticize Ellerman for doing. Arguably, it's worse, because it's not a still image that you can gaze at until you understand. It means to creep in by the backdoor to your mind.

AND: From February 20, 2011: "Do you think Scott Walker deserves to be compared to the Nazis?"/"Yes, I do":



ALSO: I'd written "Annie Parker," but it's Annise Parker. Here's the story the swastika graphic was about:

The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.

"The most important single election next Tuesday is for governor of Wisconsin."

Writes James Taranto:

The incumbent, Scott Walker, was elected in the Republican wave of 2010 and embarked in 2011 on a serious, substantive program of reform. He succeeded in his effort to eliminate “collective bargaining” for most government employees, a boon to the state fisc and a blow to politicians, mostly Democrats, who benefit from public-sector electioneering at taxpayer expense.

Taranto delves into the did-Trek-fire-Mary-Burke controversy that we've been discussing on this blog and wonders why Burke relied so heavily on the "biographical campaign" that makes her vulnerable to an attack like that.

Why isn’t Burke running a substantive campaign? As Collin Roth... observed in February: “Mary Burke has been largely incoherent on Act 10,” the collective-bargaining reform law. “Sometimes she opposes, sometimes she likes the healthcare and pension provisions, sometimes she wants to reinstate collective bargaining rights, and sometimes she simply didn’t like that the law was divisive.”

One possible answer is that she doesn’t think a full-throated campaign of opposition would win the election.... Yet even if Walker’s reforms are secure, a loss for him next Tuesday would be a huge victory for Big Labor—a show of union power that would discourage other governors from undertaking similar reforms by sending the message that success is politically fatal. 

I don't see how refraining from full-throated opposition means Walker's reforms are secure. We've often seen moderation in a campaign followed by something much more skewed after the election is won. I know back in 2011, many Wisconsinites felt Scott Walker did too much, too harshly when he got elected.

I'll resist ranting about how terribly Barack Obama disappointed those who, back in 2008, believed he was offering a transcendent new and beautiful politics that would bring us peace and good... brotherhood....

Now, Meade is telling me that we're just playing and we didn't even have a snow bet this year, that I'm remembering a bet we made last year...

... as we argue about what the standard for "snow" really was, and he hews to the theory that it was about whether the sidewalks needed at least a sweeping if not a shoveling, and I say it had to do with noticeable sticking on the ground, at least a dusting. Dusting, sweeping... all that is broomed away by the realization that perhaps we did not even have a snow bet this year.

But one thing is certain. We have a bet on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, and that's a bet we put in writing the day we made it. Want to see the writing?

How to think about the question "Was Mary Burke fired from Trek?"

Christian Schneider offers 4 pointers:

1.  The debate seems to be largely one of semantics...

If your father and brother decided they wanted to remove you from your position in the family company, they wouldn't label you "fired." They'd probably do what they could to shield you.

2.  When asked for sales number from Burke’s European days by the Associated Press, John Burke said that he “did not have detailed financial records from that far back, but there was one year where the company had a loss.” The idea that a multimillion dollar corporation that operates around the world doesn’t keep financial records from 20 years ago is preposterous.  If there are no records, then where does Mary Burke get the numbers that she raised sales from $3 million to $50 million? Further, how is it that Trek has enough institutional memory to trash its ex-employees who are named in the initial story, but can’t seem to remember why Mary Burke left the company?...

These are Schneider's substantive points. Point 3 is just tweaking liberals for treating this one secretive big corporation differently from others. Point 4 refers to the assertion made (by whom?) that Burke "moved Trek’s European offices from Frankfurt, Germany to Amsterdam because she 'didn’t care for the German people' and because Amsterdam 'better reflected her lifestyle.'" I don't see what that has to do with whether Burke was fired, and Schneider seems to be repeating what he admits is "entirely hearsay" because it might offend the many people of German extraction who live in Milwaukee, "the most German city in America."

Anyway, that hearsay, even if true, is paraphrase. A preference for Amsterdam as a base for an American bike company might be quite sound, and who knows what casual things one might say explaining that decision to confidantes?

ADDED: Another former Trek employee comes forward, this time in defense of Mary Burke: "As Mary does everything, she put her heart and soul into the task," Denise DeMarb wrote. "Did she make mistakes, probably. Was she under pressure, certainly. Did she perform a huge feat — yes she did." DeMarb is president pro tem of the Madison city council.

Wisconsin State Journal runs the Trek-fired-Burke story.

The article "Former Trek executive says Mary Burke was forced out in mid-1990s" went up about a half hour ago. Yesterday, we saw this story on a clearly conservative website, and I think it's significant that it has now passed through the journalistic filters of this mainstream newspaper. (For reference: the Wisconsin State Journal endorsed Obama in 2008 and Romney in 2012. It endorsed Walker in 2010.)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke was forced out of her job at her family’s company, Trek Bicycle, in 1993, a top-ranking company executive at the time said Wednesday. However, Trek CEO John Burke rejected that assertion, saying his sister left on her own and that allegations she was fired are “a highly orchestrated move by Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign.”

What's the evidence of orchestration by the Walker campaign? It's strange to lob an allegation like that as you're trying to cast doubt on another allegation. I haven't seen anything tying the Trek-fired-Burke story to Walker, and considering the years of harassment Walker has received from the John Doe investigation, it's hard to understand why he'd risk engaging in some "highly orchestrated move."

Anyway, the story that appeared in the Wisconsin Reporter was based on allegations from Gary Ellerman, who is the Jefferson County Republican Party chairman and who himself seems to have been fired from Trek. The Wisconsin Reporter has received a $190,000 grant from the Bradley Foundation and the foundations president is Walker’s campaign chairman.

But the Wisconsin State Journal story is based on the statements of Thomas Albers, who worked at Trek from 1982 to 1997 and was chief operating officer and president in the last 4 years of that stint. Albers was responding to questions asked by reporters who were apparently checking out the truth of what Ellerman had said:

“We were losing a significant amount of money,” Albers said. “A lot of the people that reported to her in Europe were threatening to leave because of her management style. She wanted things done her way and people said that she wasn’t listening to them, that she didn’t value their input.”...

Albers, who oversaw finances and manufacturing, said Richard Burke sent him to Europe to evaluate Mary Burke’s performance after John Burke had determined that a change was needed. Albers said he later organized a meeting in Waterloo at which Burke had to explain the company’s poor performance to about 35 executives....

John Burke purports not to remember that meeting, though Albers says he was there. Do Mary and John Burke want to say that Albers is lying? Albers has contributed to Republican candidates, including a paltry $50 to Walker. He left Trek, we're told "on good terms in 1997 to become CEO of Specialized Bicycle Components," and he had something nice to say about Mary Burke: "I’ve always thought she was very bright. She has an outstanding education." But "I just don’t think she was ready for that job in Europe."

ADDED: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had the Trek-fired-Burke story up last night with the headline "Ex-Trek execs with conservative ties say Mary Burke was forced out." The Journal Sentinel ties the story to criticism of Mary Burke's 2-year service as commerce secretary in the Doyle administration. (Jim Doyle, a Democrat, was governor just before Walker.)

Scott Walker opens up a big lead against Mary Burke in the new Marquette University poll.

Suddenly — after tying in the last poll — it's 50% Walker, 43% Burke.

In the new poll, Walker enjoys a significant lead among independents, who have bounced around more than partisan voters in this race. Among likely voters, Walker leads among independents 52% to 37%.

One other shift in the new poll: Burke's personal ratings have worsened, while Walker's haven't changed much.

Among registered voters, 38% view Burke favorably while 45% view her unfavorably. Among likely voters, 39% view her favorably while 49% view her unfavorably.

"It's the first time we've seen her that far upside down or under water on favorability ratings," said poll director Charles Franklin.

What has changed? Well, there were 2 debates. Burke seemed able to stand with equal weight next to Walker. She tended to attack him and call him not good enough, perhaps without explaining what she could do better, and he tended to speak optimistically about accomplishments. Maybe that made a difference. The other thing that changed is that Burke has identified herself strongly with the Obama administration with 2 big appearances alongside Michelle Obama.

It's post-poll, but worth mentioning here that President Obama himself appeared with her yesterday [CORRECTION: I originally thought the appearance was today.]

The event was at North Division High School, in a ward where Obama outpolled Republican Mitt Romney 843 to 5 in the 2012 presidential election, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The somewhat risky bet that Burke is making is that Obama, polarizing as he is, will help turn out Wisconsin’s urban Democratic base for her next Tuesday....

Burke is one of the very few candidates to welcome Obama, whose unpopularity in the polls has made him somewhat of a pariah amongst vulnerable Democrats in tight races. But Wisconsin’s labor-heavy, populist base hasn’t always loved Burke, a millionaire former executive at her family’s company, Trek Bicycle. Thus the gamble with Obama, whose presence risks putting off independent and suburban voters....

“I think it reflects the fact that she’s the candidate of Washington. We’re not bringing Washington surrogates in,” Walker told reporters after an event Tuesday in Wausau.

And I'm a little skeptical of October surprises — why are we getting this one week before the election? — but I feel compelled to acknowledge this new item in Wisconsin Reporter by M.D. Kittle, "Trek sources: Mary Burke’s family fired her for incompetence."

The [European sales staff] threatened to quit if Burke was not removed from her position as director of European Operations, according to Gary Ellerman, who served as Trek’s human resources director for 12 years. His account was confirmed by three other former employees....

A former employee with the company told Wisconsin Reporter that John Burke, Mary’s brother and current Trek president, had to let his sister go. The former employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal from the Burke family, said Mary Burke was made to return to Wisconsin and apologize to a group of about 35 Trek executives for her treatment of employees and for the plummeting European bottom line.

Managers in Europe used to call Burke “pit bull on crack” or “Attila the Hun,” one source said.

You know, she could spin that in her favor. Some of us might like a "pit bull on crack" or "Attila the Hun" standing up to the entrenched interest groups here in Wisconsin.

“There is a dark side to Mary that the people at Trek have seen … She can explode on people. She can be the most cruel person you ever met,” said Ellerman, who started a consulting business after he was “asked to leave” Trek in 2004 over a difference in hiring philosophy.

Come on! "She can be the most cruel person you ever met"... that could be a great political slogan.

Anyway, read it yourself and decide what to make of it. I tend to think Walker doesn't need or even want this kind of help. He's avoided attacking Mary, perhaps because he doesn't want to be thought of as the cruelest person, even though many Wisconsinites have wanted to portray him that way. Here's a picture I took during the protests of 2011:



ADDED: Finally, here's the link to the Marquette page. Additional information of interest:

"President Barack Obama is making a rare appearance on the campaign trail just one week before Election Day in an effort to help a Democratic challenger oust Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office."

"Obama will appear at a high school in Milwaukee, the state's largest city and a Democratic stronghold," AP reports.

[Mary] Burke must win big there and in similarly liberal Madison to counter Walker's support among Republicans in the conservative Milwaukee suburbs and in rural areas....

"They're trying to drive up turnout figuring they're not having much impact of convincing any more persuadable independent voters and it's more about turnout," Walker said. Walker, who launched a bus tour Saturday for the final 10 days of the race, said he was trying to compete for undecided voters all across the state.

And here's a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article where the money has come from. Excerpt:

"We have a score to settle with Scott Walker," AFSCME President Lee Saunders told The Washington Post on Sept. 10... Eight days later... AFSCME dumped $1.1 million into the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund, a liberal Madison-based, tax-exempt outfit that has been pummeling Walker with TV ads this year, according to newly released federal records.

The D.C. union was not alone. New state records show Greater Wisconsin's political action committee received just under $1.3 million from the Wisconsin Education Association Council — the state teachers union — in early August. WEAC has, in general, kept a low profile so far in this election....

Can anyone explain the profound loserosity of Martha Coakley?

The Democratic Party's candidate for governor in the famously liberal state of Massachusetts weirdly lost a Senate race to a Republican in 2010, and now she's not just losing to her Republican opponent, she's 9 points behind in the new Boston Globe poll. Is this lady poison? Come on! It's just plain mean to be so rejecting of this poor woman. What's going on?

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, 2 new polls came out yesterday, one putting the Democrat Mary Burke a point ahead and the other putting the Republican Scott Walker a point ahead. That's a good way to make everybody feel respected. Good work, Wisconsin. Everybody is a winner. Of course, in the end, one or the other candidate must win. But it's basically a crap shoot, right? It means nothing. Just a tie, out here in the land of peace, love and understanding.

Unlike Massachusetts, where there's some mysterious anti-Coakleyism raging. That poor woman...

"If the appeal of Mr. Walker, who is the son of a preacher and left college without graduating, is his earnest, regular-guy ability to win a room..."

"... Ms. Burke’s is her résumé: Georgetown, Harvard Business School and time in the private sector, including at the Trek Bicycle company her father founded," writes Monica Davey, as The New York Times pays some attention to the Wisconsin gubernatorial race. There's nothing that we in Wisconsin haven't seen many times, and for presentation to NYT readers, the emphasis is on Walker's need to win this close race if he is to be a presidential candidate in '16.

Another Scott Walker/Mary Burke debate — BUMPED!

Tonight, at 7 Central, streaming here. Get ready. You have 3 hours and 20 minutes to get into the mood for a Wisconsin debate.

ADDED: I've moved this post up to the top of the blog, so you can watch and comment. I'm not going to live-blog, because that would be boring. For me. I'm going to lock in and watch straight through, maybe take some handwritten notes, and say whatever I have to say, about an hour from now.

POST-DEBATE UPDATE: A numbered list of observations, in no significant order:

1. The set is atrocious and endlessly distracting, with curving red-white-and-blue fabric behind them  that Meade said made them look like they were about to take off in hot-air balloons. And what was meant to evoke the American flag — as the minutes wore on — looked to me more like Confederate flags. The lecterns were strangely stumpy, making the candidates look absurdly short.

2. When the debate ended, the candidates walked away, and we could see that Mary Burke was wearing delicate high heels. These had made the candidates appear to be the same height, but poor Mary was stuck standing in those things for an hour, during which we never saw her feet. After the debate, she stalked off quickly, and I guessed it was to get out of those shoes. Scott Walker lingered and hung out with the panelists, remaining on camera, looking personable for a couple minutes while the jaunty dah-dah-DAH debate music played. We were a little giddy here at Meadhouse by then, and Meade was singing along with the pointless music.

3. My strongest overall observation is that Walker painted an optimistic, energetic picture, and Burke harped on negativity and kept telling us that what Walker has done is not good enough and we need to do better. This not-good-enough-need-to-do-better theme was repeated so often that we began to feel like kids getting chewed out by a teacher. Now, clearly, Burke is the one who must say a change is needed, but I don't think she gave change that lilt and lift it needs to not sound like scolding, and that left us primed to hear the good news from Walker. And Burke continually attacked Walker, telling him he hadn't done enough. He didn't return the attacks. He just launched into his version of how well things were going and how we need to keep up the good work.

4. The strongest distinction between the two came on drinking and driving. Wisconsin lets you off with just a ticket the first time you get caught, and Walker — while expressing his concern about drunk driving and his interest in punishing repeat offenders — made it clear that he'd keep all the Wisconsinites who haven't yet been caught in the golden zone of immunity where we only need to fear getting a ticket the first time we are stopped. If you want a misdemeanor charge for those who get stopped the first time, that's Mary Burke's position. I wouldn't vote for governor on this point alone, but Walker sent out the signal of leniency to the many, many Wisconsinites who've been going out drinking and making it home okay without incident.

5. On the question of a casino in Kenosha, the candidates were invited to open up about their moral feelings about gaming. Neither did.

6. There was one "fun" question, asking them what they'd do if they had to go a day without campaigning and would surely take to their preferred 2-wheeler, Burke on a Trek bike and Walker on a Harley. Where, exactly, would they go, and who would they go with? Walker gave the precise route, complete with route numbers and turns, and said he'd go with his usual "buddies" who motorcycle with him. Burke seemed nervous and said "um" a few times as she claimed she'd go back to her hometown and spend time with members of her family. Meade was heckling, saying that everyone knows that Mary Burke isn't much of a cyclist. Ah, but what was she supposed to do? The questioner imposed the assumption that if she had time off, of course, she'd bicycle. It would be awkward to refute that! Just because my family is in the bicycle business doesn't mean that when I get some time, what I want to do is bike. If her family were in the dairy business, would they assume that in her spare time, what she likes to do is drink milk?

7. They never talked about ebola! What the hell?!!

8. Some weird thing happened with the clock when Walker was answering his first question, suddenly lopping off a minute (or something). He had to spend time talking about that clock business. So: clockgate. Think about it.

"The gender gap, which was exceptionally strong in the previous poll, has all but vanished in this poll."

"Among likely voters, men favor [Scott] Walker by a 48-46 percentage-point margin while women favor [Mary] Burke 48-47. Among all registered voters, men prefer Walker 49-43 and women are evenly split at 47 percent for each candidate. Since July, Walker’s advantage among men has varied between 11 and 28 percentage points, while Burke’s advantage among women has ranged from 6 to 18 percentage points."

The mystifying new Marquette poll in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race. Just 2 weeks ago Marquette had this:

A large gender gap is present in voting for both governor and attorney general. Among likely voters, Walker leads among men with 62 percent to 34 percent for Burke. Among women, Burke leads with 54 percent to Walker’s 40 percent. With registered voters, Walker leads among men 54-39 percent while Burke leads among women 50-40 percent.

What could account for that change? Among men and women viewed in one undifferentiated lump, Burke has gained ground and Walker lost in these 2 weeks. Now, both candidates have 47%, but 2 weeks ago, Walker had 50% and Burke 45%. That's a shift toward Burke, though entirely within the margin of error. (That's likely voters.) What could explain a huge gender gap turning into almost nothing?

There was that "plagiarism" business (about Burke's jobs plan containing material from Democratic candidates for governor in other states), which was peaking when the older poll was taken. Conceivably, more women empathized with the beleaguered candidate and more men reacted with starchy rectitude. I'm assuming issue has melted into the background as the newsfolk direct our thought to ebola and ISIS and other things that, unlike plagiarism, could kill us. Or maybe with more time to contemplate plagiarism, women were troubled while men warmed up to the take-good-ideas-wherever-you-find-them defense. 

There was also a debate last Friday, and not much happened except that Burke was able to stand next to the incumbent governor for an hour and seem reasonably equally weighted. But there was that moment when both candidates were asked to say something nice about the other. Walker easily expressed admiration for Burke's philanthropy, while Burke "began with a long 'uh' and a shake of the head." Maybe that's the kind of thing that attracts the men and alienates the women. Ha ha, she hates him versus If you can't say one thing nice about somebody, what does that say about you?

There's another debate tomorrow. Does anyone really watch these things live? I mean, I will, but I think these things are mainly raw footage for attack ads. Which would explain the dullness. Avoid mistakes. Anyway, I will watch, but I'm not going to question-by-question live-blog this time. I think I'll lock in, stare at the damned thing straight through, then give a summary of impressions, more like a normal person. 

"A week's worth of Wisconsin 2014 political ads, from best to worst."

There are 5 ads ranked (at Isthmus). I gravitate to the worst one:



That's from the AFL-CIO.

Second worst is one we already talked about in a post called "'What’s eleven dollars buy you in Wisconsin? Well, Scott Walker thinks eleven dollars buys your vote.'"

Isthmus rates one of Scott Walker's ads the second best of the week, but kicks it with "Everything Walker says here is a lie, but he says it very well."

The #1 best ad of the week is about how Scott Walker is poisoning children and wrecking the earthscape of northern Wisconsin.