My latest article in the Isthmus this week discusses how tarnishing the Supreme Court became good business for Mike McCabe and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign once a conservative majority took over.
On this week’s podcast, we discuss our favorite-ever song intros, bemoan the death of Lilith Fair, and review the new album by Stars, “The Five Ghosts.”
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Some of the song intros I listed:
Smashing Pumpkins – Cherub Rock:
Fugazi – Waiting Room:
Velocity Girl – Sorry Again:
Nine Inch Nails – Head Like a Hole (although this is different than the album version):
Flaming Lips – The Gash:
Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name:
(Incidentally, I stole a bunch of these off this post I did a couple years ago, when I was prompted by Dan Walsh to come up with a list.)
On this week’s podcast, we picked our favorite singers and reviewed the new album from Woods, “At Echo Lake.”
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For reference purposes, here’s “Shimmer” by Throwing Muses:
A few weeknights ago, I was sitting comfortably at home, enjoying some commercials for the A-Team movie, which were occasionally interrupted by some NBA playoff basketball. The phone rang, and I do what I normally do – swear for 30 seconds, then I got off the couch to answer it. (It is never for me.)
At the other end of the line was a pleasant young Indian woman telling me she was conducting a poll. For some reason, I’m on a giant master polling list, because I get calls like these at least once a week. I asked her who commissioned the poll, and she said if she told me, she’d have to cancel the call, as it would bias the results.
Seeing as how our group does polling for a living, I decided to go through with it, to see if I could guess who was conducting the poll. Plus, whenever I answer a telephone poll, I feel like I’m doing my civic duty. Like I should receive some sort of cash award. (Now that I mention it, public, you owe me $13.24 for my time. An invoice is on the way.)
But here’s the thing about polls – often times, complicated issues are boiled down to “yes” or “no” answers – and I feel an obligation to give an answer, so I might be a little more… shall we say… forthcoming in my answers. It’s for science, right?
For example, one of the questions in this poll was, “Do you support or oppose gay marriage?” This is an issue on which I’m genuinely conflicted. I don’t buy that gay and lesbian couples getting married affects my own marriage in any way. (In fact, the 6 month-long NBA playoffs has done far more damage to my marriage than “the gays” ever will. If Kobe Bryant married another man, I might have to get divorced on the spot.)
But this wasn’t the only question I was supposed to boil down into a one word answer. Imagine getting a question like, “do you support deporting all the illegal immigrants in America?” Obviously, it’s a complicated issue. And answering either “yes” or “no” can’t possibly reflect any complicated underlying issues.
About halfway in, I was asked some questions about my congressional representative, Tammy Baldwin. “Do you think Tammy Baldwin spends too much time on gay and lesbian issues?” was one of them. “Do you think Tammy Baldwin has done enough to keep and create jobs in America?” was another.
It was at this point that I realized it was Baldwin’s campaign that was conducting the poll. (And don’t think the irony was lost on me that a woman on a headset in India, hired by the Tammy Baldwin campaign, was asking me if Baldwin has done enough to keep jobs in America.)
Conservative candidates don’t waste valuable poll questions asking about gay and lesbian issues – generally, because they’re not really a vote mover. (In 2006, the constitutional amendment passed 60-40, but Republicans were trounced in elections all across Wisconsin.) It’s only a liberal fantasy that conservative voters sit around their house, wringing their hands about the gay conspiracy taking over the world. We’re actually too busy going to work and watching Glenn Beck.
But then it occurred to me – here I was, trying to be a stand-up citizen and give one-word answers to all these complicated questions, and now Tammy Baldwin has all my answers at the tip of her fingers. I was trying to be as honest as possible, but clearly some of my answers to the questions as they were asked would need further explanation to be publicly palatable.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, I wanted to enter a life of crime – and run for Congress. (This will not happen, incidentally, as I plan to marry Kobe Bryant and move to the Bahamas.) Now Baldwin has all my simple answers to her questions – asked the way her campaign wanted to ask them – which she could use to make me look like an idiot. (More so than I normally do myself.)
This is an awesome strategy future campaigns should use. Once you get yourself elected, pick out who your most likely challengers will be in your next election. Then do some phony poll that only calls those people, and get them on the record with “yes” and “no” answers on some controversial issues. You’ll probably find that they’ll give you more honest answers, as they feel like they’re doing their civic duty. Then, when they run, you can hammer them with their own positions. As Gill the Fish says in Finding Nemo, IT’S FOOLPROOF.
(Incidentally, if your campaign does use this strategy, you are violating my intellectual property. I accept payment in Jamba Juice.)
This week’s podcast is a MEGA GRAB BAG (and not in the Al Gore sense.) We discuss what exactly “lesbian music” is, and review music from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Brandi Carlile, Wilson Kilmer, Joe Jackson, Tokyo Police Club, Hutch and Kathy, The Jam, and Echo & the Bunnymen.
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If you see a bead of sweat forming on Russ Feingold’s brow these days, don’t blame the late June Wisconsin humidity. It’s far more likely that his flop sweat is the result of early summer poll results trickling in.
Yesterday, Rasmussen issued a poll showing Feingold in a statistical dead heat with challenger Ron Johnson, with Feingold ahead by a slim 46% to 45% margin. It is stunning that an 18-year incumbent would be virtually dead even with a newcomer who has been in the race for about sixty seconds. But Johnson, a businessman from Oshkosh, is clearly riding a wave of discontent with Feingold and Congress.
Yet even with the polls telling us what we already know, Feingold has been signaling his desperation with a number of odd public statements over the past few days. He continues to take some puzzling shots at Johnson, indicating that he knows he’s in serious danger of losing his job.
For instance, at a candidate debate between Johnson and GOP primary opponent Dave Westlake yesterday, the issue of the BP oil spill came up. According to Wispolitics.com, Johnson said he believed “BP must be held accountable,” although he had questions about the manner in which their $20 billion victim’s fund was created and would be distributed by President Obama. Hardly groundbreaking stuff.
But Feingold’s attack machine pounced, almost as if they wrote Feingold’s statement before the debate even took place: “The fact that both Republican candidates came out in opposition to holding BP accountable for the worst environmental disaster in our country’s history shows just how addicted the GOP is to big oil special interests and how out of touch they are with Wisconsin.”
Of course, this is a demonstrable lie, which Feingold knows won’t be followed up on by any reporter in Wisconsin. Apparently, Feingold knows that he can’t win points against Johnson by debating what he actually says, so he just has to make things up.
Even more puzzling was Feingold’s next attack. On Tuesday night of this week, Johnson attended some meetings in Washington, D.C., including a meet and greet with lobbyists. Again, Feingold’s attack dogs went on offense:
“By going out to Washington, D.C., to meet with lobbyists and special interests Ron Johnson makes it pretty clear whose side he’s on.”
Ironically, just a few days ago, Feingold criticized Johnson for being a millionaire. Wouldn’t that mean that Johnson isn’t beholden to special interest money? Apparently, according to Feingold, Johnson is “corrupted” either by his own money or other peoples’ money, depending on what week it is.
Furthermore, it only took about three mouse clicks to find this list of political action committee contributions Feingold has accepted during his time in the Senate. The total tally of special interest contributions collected by Feingold: 1,096 lobbyist contributions totaling $1,868,908. This from the self-professed King of Campaign Finance Reform. Seems to be working out well for him.
Among Feingold’s contributors:
And on and on it goes – 1,096 contributions and $1.8 million long. And yet, according to Feingold, it is Ron Johnson, who’s been back in Oshkosh building his business from scratch, who is beholden to lobbyists. (Of course, Feingold will never be asked what the Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County have to do with creating jobs in Wisconsin.)
Even more ridiculous is this press release from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which ends with this paragraph:
The Bellwether Group raised money for Congressman Tom Feeney, who lost his seat after he became engulfed in the largest Washington D.C. lobbying scandal in history. Feeney accepted a Scottish golf trip from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and was named one of the most corrupt members of Congress four times by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Got that? It’s not the Senator who’s spent 18 years in Washington that’s connected to Jack Abramoff – it’s the guy who’s never had anything to do with the corrupt political machine in D.C. for the entirety of his life. This is like saying that since Prince Fielder plays in Milwaukee, he must eat people like Jeffrey Dahmer.
You have to wonder if they have a giant flow chart on the wall at the Democratic Party – the “Six Degrees of Jack Abramoff” chart. If somehow, you fall within five degrees, then suddenly you’re corrupt. It appears asking the Dem Party to have at least a fifth grade level of sophistication is asking too much.
Of course, there aren’t any media members who will ever point out how desperate Feingold actually is. Saint Russ the Maverick will continue to get a free pass until election day. In fact, for this reason, a candidate against Feingold almost necessarily has to be a millionaire, in order to counteract all the positive press Feingold will get throughout the campaign.
This is perhaps the greatest irony in all these mistruths spun by Feingold – he champions restricting political speech because of all the damage it supposedly does to democracy; yet it’s the blatant lies told by candidates themselves that do the most to coarsen the public’s perception of their elected officials. Obviously, he knows he can’t win on his own likeability – he has to tear down a good man to sneak past the finish line. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll see a new law regulating that.
On this week’s podcast, we discuss the Summerfest lineup and how disappointing it is that cats and dogs can get along, and we review the new albums from Tame Impala and Nada Surf. In response to our question about who the most famous person from Perth, Australia is, the answer is Heath Ledger.
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Here’s Tame Impala’s “Solitude is Bliss:”
Last month, I became a regular contributor to the Isthmus, which is an independent newspaper here in Madison. (Here’s the Wikipedia entry on what a “newspaper” is.) It has opened up an entirely new audience to my writing; namely, people waiting for their food at Noodles & Company.
This month’s column takes a look at how the Wisconsin Legislature is likely to get a lot younger next year – and what the consequences of that demographic shift might be:
In November 2008, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), my employer, conducted a poll that gauged the legislative priorities of Wisconsin’s citizens by age.
One finding concerned the issue addressed by Rep. Fields. According to the WPRI poll, younger respondents were more likely to support the Milwaukee Choice Program. Among respondents 18 to 44 years old, 52% supported the program, while 43% opposed it. Among respondents 45 or older, the numbers virtually flipped — 41% in favor, 52% against. The strongest support — 62% — came from those 25 to 34.
Younger respondents prioritized education more than their older counterparts. Of those between 18 and 44 years old, 18.4% listed education as their most pressing issue, more than double the 8.7% of respondents 45 or older.
On the other hand, as expected, older respondents prioritized health care much higher than younger respondents. Among respondents over 45, 30.2% picked health care as their top legislative priority, compared to only 14.9% of those under 45.
Younger people (again, those under 45) were also less likely to emphasize tax reform as a priority (11.4% to 16.6%), but more likely to stress the economy and jobs (31.6% to 24.6%).
Read the whole thing here.
On this week’s MEGA GRAB BAG podcast, we play selected songs from bands we’re currently listening to, and wonder why all beer doesn’t come with twist off caps. Bands mentioned include The Daredevil Christopher Wright, Laura Marling, Male Bonding, Phosphorescent, Curtis Mayfield, Band of Horses, and Roy Orbison.
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This week, we preview the upcoming music festival schedule and review the new album “Treats” from Sleigh Bells.
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Here’s the song “Kids” from Sleigh Bells. Turn the bass up:
Some of you might remember this post from last year, when I jokingly suggested I should be a “celebrity” cashier at Bratfest. (For those of you not from Wisconsin, “Bratfest” is a giant festival where residents of nearby Madison risk their lives by ingesting hundreds of thousands of sausages in unison.)
Long story short (too late, I know) I actually got an e-mail from the Bratfest people this year, asking me if I would be a “celebrity” cashier. I explained to them that my post was actually tongue-in-cheek, but they insisted that I met whatever the nearly nonexistent bar for whatever a “celebrity” is these days. (I am on TV sometimes, but it’s usually in Milwaukee. However, my blog gets hundreds of readers a day from people searching for pictures of Valerie Bertinelli, so I assume that counts for something.)
So I agreed to serve as a cashier on Memorial Day of this year, from 1:00 to 3:00. This was a strategic move on my part. Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk were going to be there at the same time – so I figured that everyone would go stand in the lines of the real celebrities, and fewer people would stand in line to see me. (As it turns out, if I am actually famous for anything, it is my legendary ability to avoid actual work.)
As the days drew closer, I started to dread my upcoming cashiering shift. Sometimes the lines at Bratfest get really long – just imagine someone who stands in line for 20 minutes hoping to meet a genuine celebrity, and they end up meeting me. I legitimately started having panic attacks.
I tried to think of things I could say if people asked me who the hell I was. If someone gave me a hard time for being a nobody, I would just apologize and promise to be famouser next year. If someone asked me where they might have seen me, I figured I’d tell them they may know me from any number of Amber Alerts.
I also tried to think of what I would say to Tammy Baldwin if we actually met beforehand (despite being in politics for over a decade, I have never met her.) I generally try to have entertaining stories on hand just in case I meet actual famous people – just so I don’t sound like an idiot. (Still working on my story for if I meet Sinbad.) At first, I was going to joke that she was killing more people in one day with bratwurst than she was going to save in a decade with the health care bill that just passed. (I scrapped this one.) I then decided to relay a story told to me by a friend about her almost Rain Man-like ability to remember faces and names. Figured that was safer.
I showed up for my shift hungry, thinking I’d be able to down a brat beforehand. I was wrong. I went to the volunteer tent and picked the charity I would be cashiering for (Hospice Care of Dane County), got my XXL t-shirt (it was all they had left), and they threw me right in to the cashiering.
Fortunately for me, they adjusted the prices this year – rather than having different prices for hot dogs, brats, and drinks, everything’s $1.50. Want a brat? $1.50. Drink? $1.50. Want me to dance like a robot? $1.50. (Nobody took me up on this offer.)
The system they have is really slick – to your left, they have someone to run and get drinks. To your right, someone to go get the food. All you have to do is count how many total individual items someone gets, look at the handy pricing cheat sheet, and come up with the price. The only challenge was when someone ordered the “Double Johnny” (two brats on one bun), which cost $3. Fortunately, having worked several cashiering jobs in the past, I was adept at making change. I actually felt sorry for the politicians who are asked to cashier, because it seems few of them are good with numbers. (Although many of them are skilled at delivering pork.)
As it turns out, all my customers were great, as were my drink and food getters. It was a good thing it was so busy, since I probably would have gotten in trouble if I had ample time to crack wise. (There was one large teenage girl who proudly featured a giant hickey all over her neck – I literally had to bite down on my tongue from commenting.)
Sadly, with all the commotion, I wasn’t able to meet any of the other celebrities. (I spoke briefly beforehand with NBC 15′s Chris Woodard, who said this was his second year doing it.) Every now and then, I snuck a glance down the row and saw Baldwin’s somewhat-unruly mass of blonde hair at the end of the line. And it’s true – her line always had the most people in it. But by the time my shift was done, she and everyone else were long gone. And thus ended my dream of one day befriending Tammy, and going canoeing with her as we laughed uncontrollably about old movies while the setting sun served as a backdrop. (Wait… she’s what?)
While my shift was tiring, I was really glad I did it. It appears when Wisconsinites get in line to get a sausage, the person serving them is actually superfluous. Nobody asked me anything about what I did or who I was – they just wanted to get their hands on some meat. And it appears record numbers of people did so – the final count of brats sold was 209,376, eclipsing the previous record by around a thousand sausages.
So thanks to the folks at Bratfest for allowing me to crash the party, Salahi-style. Next year, maybe Tammy Baldwin will be sitting in her office thinking about what she’s going to say to me. Although if I’m any more famous, it will probably be for my ability to do the robot.
Tonight, I got hooked watching “Police Women of Broward County,” which is your typical COPS-type show, just with kick-ass peroxide blondes.
I was particularly interested in a storyline about an undercover prostitution sting, where they took one of the female cops and had her serve as “john bait” in a hotel room. They used 48 year-old detective Julie Bower, who features an enormous mop of crimped blonde hair and the dark, leathery skin complexion one might expect of a Florida cougar.
To start the sting, she had to put her own prostitution ad on Craigslist, complete with photo and everything. Within ten minutes of placing the ad, she started to get calls. Naturally, she was falsely modest, saying she didn’t expect to get calls so soon.
But that got me thinking – what if you’re involved in one of these sting operations, put one of your ads up, and don’t get any calls at all? Like, everyone in the police force is sitting around the phone, and it never rings? I’d imagine that would be fairly embarrassing. I would actually feel bad that none of these creepy guys thought I was hot enough. I mean, these lonely dudes will stoop to anything – but not you. You’d start blaming the picture, saying it made your butt look too big, or it was out of focus or something. (It would be even more embarrassing if you used a picture that you already had posted on Facebook.)
What’s funny is that once it came time for her to actually go undercover, the cameras went to her house to show her picking just the right slutty clothes to wear. And as it turns out, she had a whole closet of them. Like, it took her an hour to pick just the right whorish pants.
At one point, she actually said she had the option of picking out clothes from the police station, but decided to go with her own. Can you imagine this discussion?
Captain: “Now in order to be believable, we want you to look super slutty. Like, a real, genuine whore. And not a high-end one – one that will do pretty much anything for twenty bucks. Like a really, really dirty one. So head on down to wardrobe.”
Julie: “No thanks, Cap. I got this one.”
In any event, they managed to nab a couple guys. It always surprises me how stupid and desperate these guys can be. It seemed fairly obvious that she was trying to get them to express verbally what would be going on, in order to get it on video – to the point where it was awkward. In the rare instance I ever fooled a woman into such activities, I can assure you we didn’t sit down and map out how it was all going to go down. (Primarily because it might creep them out I set aside a couple minutes for crying.)
It does go to show what a thin line prostitution is, though. I’m pretty sure that if any of these guys had met Detective Julie Bower in a bar and bought her $20 worth of drinks, they’d probably have gotten the same thing they sought in that hotel room.
This week, we discuss the new album by LCD Soundsystem, “This is Happening.” Plus, I want everyone to hear a Wye Oak song that currently possesses my soul.
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I attended the Wisconsin Republican Party convention in Milwaukee over the weekend, and with the cobwebs finally gone from my skull, I have some thoughts:
* – Mark Neumann apparently thinks he’s running for the wrong office. It appears he is running to be 8th grade class president, not governor of Wisconsin. Think about it – he began his campaign by starting a ludicrous rumor about Scott Walker dropping out of the race to run for lieutenant governor. Then he started putting out goofball press releases bragging about all his phony Facebook followers and about how his website was winning awards for its design. At his next press conference, I fully expect him to announce that Justin Bieber is totally dreamy.
Neumann did build up some goodwill during the convention by pledging that he would support whoever the GOP nominee would be. This was likely in response to rumors that Neumann would run as an independent after losing the primary to Scott Walker, thereby handing the election to Democrat Tom Barrett. (Many people still blame former Libertarian Ed Thompson for stealing votes from Republican Scott McCallum in 2002, which handed the election to Jim Doyle – who won with only 44% of the vote.)
But whatever goodwill Neumann garnered by vowing to support Walker, he lost by pulling a stunt in which his supporters picketed outside the Frontier Airlines center, claiming they were denied entrance. Of course, anyone that wasn’t credentialed was denied entrance, not just Neumann’s supporters. (Owen Robinson and Deb Jordahl had these angles covered.)
All in all, it looks like Republicans are where they were before the convention. Walker is the huge favorite, Neumann plans to continue to go negative on him on petty issues. And for those who believe Neumann isn’t running as an independent, I give you Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who proclaimed on national television that he wasn’t going to run outside the Republican party, then two weeks later, announced that he was doing just that.
* – Ironically, there were two people who earned my newfound respect by their reaction to their damaged campaigns. Obviously, Dick Leinenkugel’s popularity increased tenfold when he pulled out of the U.S. Senate race and endorsed new entrant Ron Johnson. That was really the only way the ex-Jim Doyle cabinet member could have earned a standing ovation at the GOP Convention.
But I was equally impressed by Lieutenant Governor candidate Rebecca Kleefisch, who finished last among the four Lt. Gov candidates on the first delegate ballot. The first ballot came in with Rep. Brett Davis at 37.5 percent, Superior Mayor Dave Ross at 25.5 percent, former Green Beret Ben Collins of Lake Geneva with 13.78 percent, and Kleefisch with 13.69 percent – which bumped her off the ballot. (Davis won the final ballot over Ross by 14 percent.)
I can only imagine how tough it was for Kleefisch to suffer such a defeat, given the time and effort she’s put into her campaign. But as I walked out of the convention hall, there she was – still smiling and shaking hands. As Alec Baldwin once said it takes these to take a hit and keep a brave face – and no matter how badly she felt at the time, she kept on working. I found that monumentally impressive. (Of course, I sobbed inconsolably after watching “The Lion King” for the first time, so I might just be a world class pansy.)
* – Apparently, there are twenty-six GOP candidates running in the 8th Congressional District against Democrat Steve Kagen. And I kept hearing about how State Representative Roger Roth is everyone’s frontrunner, but I didn’t see Roth anywhere near the convention. There may have been signs and stickers that I missed, but it was hardly the convention presence I expected.
On the other hand, former State Representative Terri McCormick was everywhere, shaking hands and talking with delegates. Then again, maybe I just noticed her more, as I was afraid she might run over and karate chop me in the eyeballs after I wrote this post about her.
* – Everyone knows that all the real convention action happens at the candidate hospitality suites, which serve up free drinks and entertainment. It seemed the most popular suite was that of former lumberjack Sean Duffy, as it featured a game called “hammerschlagen.” In the game, contestants stand around a tree stump and attempt to hammer nails into it by using the pointed end of a hammer. The first one to hammer their nail all the way in wins. (Naturally, the first time I stepped up and took a swing, I hammered my nail in in one shot. ONE SHOT, BRO! This led to a long evening of trash talking on my part.)
One might question the wisdom of mixing alcohol with pointy hammers – but I’m certain 9-1-1 was on speed dial all along.
I actually did get to spend some time talking to Duffy and even more time talking to his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy. They seem like wonderful, genuine people with a beautiful life and adorable family. Come to think of it, I think I hate the Duffys.
(SIDE NOTE: My apologies to the Dan Kapanke for Congress hospitality suite-goers. They had a game set up where you could hit a baseball, and if you hit a sign on the wall, you won a t-shirt. I apparently hit the ball a little too hard, and it caromed off the wall and drilled an intern in the head. I was then asked to leave. I sincerely apologize to everyone involved – I tried to swing lighter, but couldn’t make contact. Anyway.)
* – Wispolitics was in attendance, and conducted their usual straw poll of delegates. (One of the question on the poll was “Do you support the Tea Party movement?” Which caused my friend Mike to wonder if at the Democrat Convention, they’ll ask “Do you support ACORN?”) I was surprised to see that among delegates’ preference for president, Representative Paul Ryan finished fourth (behind convention speaker Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney.) What’s most surprising is that Ryan finished fourth despite not being on the ballot. People actually wrote his name in. Sadly, Ryan had to leave the convention after the death of his mother-in-law.
* – Finally, a special shout-out to Reince Priebus and the whole staff at the Republican Party for putting on a first-class event. Especially since this was one of the largest conventions in history. The stress on these people to keep things running smoothly is immense, and they deserve a lot of credit.
As a writing assignment, I was actually going to attend the Democratic Convention in Madison in a couple weeks. I e-mailed one of my Democrat friends to see if that was feasible, and he responded by asking if this was some kind of Hunter S. Thompson stunt. I said no, but that I did plan on dropping a lot of acid before I went.
