On this week’s podcast, we picked our favorite singers and reviewed the new album from Woods, “At Echo Lake.”
Listen here:
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/willsband/Woods.mp3]For reference purposes, here’s “Shimmer” by Throwing Muses:
Christian Schneider
Author, Columnist
Month: June 2010
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.
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(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.
Listen here:
[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/willsband/Variety_Pak_II_Featuring_Ariel_Pinks_Haunted_Graffiti_Brandi_Carlile_Wilson_Kilmer_Joe_Jackson_Tokyo_Police_Club_Hutch_and_Kathy_The_Jam_and_Echo__the_Bunnymen..mp3]Or download directly here.
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:
- Goldman-Sachs
- American Dental Association
- American Federation of Government Employees
- AFSCME
- American Postal Worker’s Union
- Armenian American PAC
- Automobile Club of Michigan
- Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
- California PAC
- Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County
- Engineers Union
- Florida Congressional Committee
- Georgia Peach PAC
- International Brotherhood of Boilermakers
- Land O’ Lakes
- Maryland Association of Concerned Citizens
- NARAL
- National Education Association
- The Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball
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.
Listen here:
[audio:http://www.christianschneiderblog.com/wp-content/uploads/multimedia/audio/podcasts/Tame_Impala_and_Nada_Surf.mp3]Or download directly here.
Here’s Tame Impala’s \”Solitude is Bliss:”
As a father, I’ve figured out that nothing – nothing – is more adorable than when little kids use big words that they don’t understand.
In fact, when I was a little kid, my parents used to take me to their favorite seafood restaurant. Sometimes, my mother would get a buttered lobster. I would stare at the red lobster shell, enthralled by the claws and eyes. Finally, in the loudest voice I could muster, I blurted out:
“Mom, are you going to eat the testicles?”
Of course, I meant tentacles. The restaurant stopped and looked at our table. My mother covered her face in horror. I don’t remember us ever going back.
As it turns out, in the Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial primary, we’re seeing one of the candidates misuse a word – and it’s adorable. Seems that Mark Neumann is claiming to be a “conservative,” without really knowing what the word means. And you just want to pat him on the head and pinch his little cheeks.
While crashing the Democratic convention last week, Neumann, a former congressman who has repeatedly claimed to be the “only conservative” in the race for governor, was asked a question regarding what he thought about the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision. The decision, handed down several months ago, affirmed the right of third party organizations to run advertisements during campaigns. The ruling struck down a portion of the McCain/Feingold campaign finance law that banned issue advertisements close to election day. In effect, the Court limited the government’s ability to regulate the timing and content of political speech.
But when asked about Citizens United, Mark Neumann bristled. Here’s a video of his response:
[flv:http://www.wpri.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/multimedia/videos/Mark_Neumann_on_Citizens_United.flv 480 360]
You heard that right. Said Neumann:
“I think they should shut down every outside source of information in this campaign except the candidates themselves…”
“Whether that’s not constitutional so we obviously can’t do that. But if Mark Neumann got to have what he wished, that’s what would happen, sir.”
Neumann would actually support governmental censorship of political speech – if only that pesky Constitution didn’t get in the way. He would trust the government to determine what is and isn’t a political ad, and allow it to ban whatever it believes to be objectionable.
There isn’t a “conservative” alive that would trust the federal government with that much power to abridge the First Amendment. At least none with a fundamental understanding of what conservatism means.
What would the effect of Neumann’s ban on political speech be? Studies have shown that in races where third parties buy advertising, voters know more about the candidates, and vote in greater numbers. Apparently Neumann would like less informed voters who don’t bother to vote as often.
Strict campaign finance regulations also heavily benefit incumbents. Elected officials already in office build themselves huge advantages using taxpayer resources. Often times, challengers need help from third party groups to bring issues to the forefront that aid them in overcoming this natural incumbent advantage. Shutting down political speech insulates incumbents from much of the criticism they’ve earned during their tenure.
Of course, if individual citizens are prohibited from engaging in political speech, it always favors candidates with boatloads of personal money who are willing to spend it. Candidates exactly like Mark Neumann, who appears to be spending millions of his own dollars without getting much bang for his buck.
By condemning free campaign speech, Neumann is casting his lot with liberal boobs like Ed Garvey, who actually claimed the Citizens United decision was worse than Pearl Harbor. (Do not adjust your computer – he actually said it.) Mike McCabe of the left wing Wisconsin Democracy Campaign claimed the decision was worse than Dred Scott. And if he had heard of any other Supreme Court cases, he’d totally think it was as bad as them, too. (Incidentally, the Citizens United decision clearly hasn’t meant the end of democracy, as liberals predicted. For dozens more posts about the folly of campaign finance reform, go here.)
I had a friend in college who was terrible with directions. He thought what ever way his car was pointed was north. It seems like Neumann is working off the same plan – “I’m a conservative, so whatever I say must be conservative, too.” Only it’s not.
So while it does make you want to mess up his hair and buy him an orange push-up, Neumann’s claim that he’s the “conservative” in the race for governor has now lost all meaning. Republicans now don’t have to worry about whether there’s any validity to his claim, as Neumann clearly himself doesn’t know what the term means.
[Note: WPRI does not endorse candidates – it’s up to you to decide who you support. But we will discuss candidates when they pitch goofball ideas.]
I should mention that over the weekend, I somehow found myself at the Wisconsin Democratic convention here in Madison. I was in the neighborhood, and a couple Dem friends of mine invited me over – so I joined them. And I have to say, the convention attendees couldn’t have been kinder or more hospitable.
A couple of quick notes: the best hospitality room by far was that of Lieutenant Governor candidate Henry Sanders, who had a great local soul/funk band that got the crowd moving. The next day, the relatively unknown Sanders hammered Assembly Majority Leader Tom Nelson in the Wispolitics.com Lt. Gov straw poll, beating Nelson 326 to 167 – and I fully credit his hospitality room band’s Snoop Dogg medley with his strong showing.
I also ran into State Senator Julie Lassa, who, of course, is running for Congressman Dave Obey’s old seat. She immediately remembered a post I wrote five years ago* where I declared her the frontrunner for Obey’s seat when he retired, which made me look pretty good. Unfortunately, there were other portions of that old post on Lassa that I would like to forget, as there are observations in there about her that one should only say when they’re an anonymous blogger (as I was at the time.) So when I go back to blogging anonymously, I’ll keep that in mind.
Anyway, in the spirit of bringing people together, I want to point out an instance over the weekend in which the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Mike Tate, actually made a good point. Tate appeared on the “Up Front With Mike Gousha” television program over the weekend and answered some questions about Democratic candidates in Wisconsin. Gousha asked Tate about congressional candidates Ron Kind and Steve Kagen, and Tate’s answer was enlightening (video here):
GOUSHA: So you think Congressman Ron Kind in the Western part of Wisconsin or Congressman Steve Kagen in Northeastern Wisconsin – you think they’re safe?
TATE (After answering about Kind): Steve Kagen, I think that what’s beneficial to him is that there’s seven or eight Republicans running against him in the primary. He’s been a strong voice for the people of that district, he voted against bailouts, he voted for job creation, and he’s going to run hard on his record.
So in case you’re scoring at home, according to Dem Chairman Mike Tate, being a “strong voice” for your constituents means voting against the TARP bank bailout. (Kagen did vote against TARP, after voting for it on a procedural vote. Kagen also voted for the “stimulus” bill and the health care bill, which may end up proving to be even more politically toxic.)
So, according to Mike Tate, examples of elected officials who failed to be a “strong voice” for their constituents:
Ron Kind
Tammy Baldwin
Herb Kohl
Gwen Moore
Dave Obey
Of course, all of these Democratic members of Congress voted for “bailouts.” (Along with some notable Republicans.) And Mike Tate is right – their votes to bail out the misguided CEOs of Wall Street, who brought down the U.S. economy by pushing subprime mortgages, is appalling. Good to see him come to his senses.
* SIDE NOTE: In the post I wrote five years ago, I tried to pick the “Five Best Democrats in Wisconsin.” Not necessarily the ones I agreed with the most, but the ones that, if I were a liberal, I would want speaking on my behalf. In retrospect, some of my picks are still pretty decent, but some are really lame.
Last weekend, I took some time out from teaching my kids how to make daddy a martini long enough to let them watch the movie “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” As I’m certain you recall, the movie features a young inventor, Flint Lockwood, who devises a machine that makes it rain cheeseburgers, pizza, and, yes, meatballs. (The movie also features the much-awaited voiceover return of Mr. T, who was robbed when the Oscar nominations were announced.)
Spoiler alert: As the movie goes on, Lockwood’s machine goes on the fritz from overuse. The city government of Swallow Falls, sensing a huge impending windfall from tourists wanting to see food fall from the sky, forces him to overextend the machine’s capabilities, leading to unanticipated consequences. Those consequences come when the food gets larger and larger, leading to giant pancakes falling from the sky and crushing buildings underneath. The island of Swallow Falls is buried under giant donuts, hamburgers, and steaks.
At the end of the movie, Flint flies a homemade spaceship into the middle of a giant meatball and manages to disarm his invention. When he gets back to the town, they treat him like a hero – even though it was his invention that caused all the problems to begin with.
Now shift ahead to today, where an even more implausible event took place: Governor Jim Doyle thinks he created some jobs.
Yesterday, Doyle announced a $1.5 million loan to the Marquis Yacht Company in Pulaski, in order to save 315 jobs. Marquis’ parent company filed for bankruptcy last year, and now Doyle’s Department of Commerce is ready to swoop in and aid the yacht maker.
But in the spirit of Flint Lockwood, we don’t need to guess how this all started:
1. Wisconsin’s high taxes and anti-business climate cost companies millions of dollars;
2. Additionally, high taxes prevent individuals from buying big-ticket items, like yachts;
3. Business owner says he or she can’t afford to pay their workers, as profits are tanking;
4. Jim Doyle swoops in to help only those businesses he deems worthy of block grant money, thereby “saving” jobs.
Sure, it’s not as dramatic as saving humanity from destruction by 50-foot bananas, but it’s the same concept. Doyle expects us to give him credit for saving jobs that he, in effect, forced from the state. And the only way for a business to be deemed worthy of a bailout is to drive down to Madison, pucker up, and smooch the posterior of of the outgoing executive.
So just like the movie, maybe we should send Mr. T to the Capitol to smack some people around. Clearly, he does not pity the fool who costs Wisconsin jobs.