Government corrections in the numbers a few weeks later reduced the year-to-year loss in the Milwaukee area to 5,000 jobs. And the most recent data - preliminary figures from August - suggest a 12-month net increase of 10,000 jobs. Seasonally adjusted data are not available for the local level, but the year-to-year comparison avoids seasonal fluctuations.

The state Ethics Board said today that no laws were broken when a lawyer for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and the executive director of the state Republican Party contacted members of the state Elections Board before a crucial vote against Doyle's political rival.

Doyle campaign attorney Mike Maistelman e-mailed three Democrats on the Elections Board advising them to vote to order U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Green Bay Republican, to divest nearly $468,000 from his gubernatorial campaign account. Rick Wiley, the state GOP executive director, spoke by phone with a Republican appointee on the board before that vote as well.

The Elections Board would have had to publicly disclose those contacts - and give all parties a chance to respond to them - if it had handled the order against Green as a "contested case." Contested cases are treated as mini-trials in which witnesses are sworn in and transcripts of the proceedings are produced.

But the Elections Board treated the case against Green under its administrative rules, as it almost always does. Because of that, the board did not have to notify other parties of the contacts as a matter of course.

Maistelman's contacts became public after the Journal Sentinel obtained the e-mails of Elections Boards members under the state's open records law. Wiley subsequently told reporters about his phone conversation with Elections Board Chairman John Savage.

The Elections Board consists of appointees of politicians and state political parties; critics have said that makeup leads to decisions laced with political calculations. The board voted 5-2 on Aug. 30 to force Green to dump $467,844 in out-of-state political action committee money from his account. All four Democrats and the board's lone Libertarian voted for the order.

A Dane County judge upheld the order last month. Green is now trying to persuade the Supreme Court to take up the case and render a final verdict before the Nov. 7 election.

In one e-mail sent to two board members the day before the vote, Maistelman told them an order against Green would amount to a "PR victory for us since it makes Green spend money and have to defend the use of his Washington DC dirty money."

Wiley said he called Savage before the vote after hearing that Savage believed the vote was likely to go against Green. Wiley said they did not discuss strategy, however.

Jonathan Becker, legal counsel for the Ethics Board, said he believed the contacts with Elections Board members made the public suspicious of their votes. Becker said he was speaking personally and that the Ethics Board had not taken a position on the matter.

Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at Boston Medical Center, several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband said.

Studds fell unconscious October 3 because of what doctors later determined was a blood clot in his lung, Dean Hara said.

[snip]

Studds was first elected in 1972 and represented Cape Cod and the Islands, New Bedford, and the South Shore for 12 Congressional terms. He retired from Congress in 1997.

In 1983, Studds acknowledged his homosexuality after a former Congressional page revealed he'd had a relationship with Studds a decade earlier.

Studds was censured by the House for having sexual relations with the page. He acknowledged having sex with a 17-year-old male page in 1973 and making sexual advances to two others and admitted an error in judgment, but did not apologize.

Going to war. Crafting budgets. Proposing constitutional amendments. Taking care of the elderly, sick and poor.

These are the tasks of our representatives in Congress, one of whom - Republican Mark Green - is running for governor based on his experience in the House of Representatives.

But Green's voting record shows that he's been a loyal foot soldier in President Bush's War on Terror, as well as the president's war on civil rights, bipartisanship and separation of church and state. As Democrats are quick to point out, Green has voted with the president's agenda 92% of the time, in one case providing the deciding vote for the controversial Medicare Part D program.

The president and vice president have returned the favors by stumping for Green in the state, raising money during their brief campaign stops.

Whether voters will want Bush-style policies implemented in Wisconsin will be decided on Nov. 7. But with Bush's approval ratings slumping at 33% nationally, and a Wisconsin Policy Research Institute poll placing his approval in June at 37% among Wisconsinites, will voters make the connection between Green's votes and the president's unpopular achievements?

Here are just a few of Green's votes that helped shape the Bush presidency:

Stem-Cell Research: Back in the summer of 2001, an untested President George W. Bush emerged from vacation in Crawford, Texas, to make a major announcement, one he hoped would prove that he could unite and lead a nation that didn't give him a majority of its votes. His big news was to limit federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research to only a few stem-cell lines.

Five years later, his decision stands, despite a congressional vote to buck Bush and loosen the 2001 restrictions. Bush vetoed that bipartisan bill, drawing howls from the majority of Americans who support all forms of this promising research. Green voted right along with the president, even supporting Bush's veto. On the campaign trail, Green has been trying to explain that he supports stem-cell research - just not all kinds of stem-cell research, including the type that has made Wisconsin a leader in the field.

Off to War: Green supported Bush's decision to invade a country that posed no threat to the United States. Maybe Green believed Bush's dubious claims about weapons of mass destruction or Saddam Hussein's links to the 9/11 attacks, or maybe Green felt that the war truly would be a "cakewalk," as the administration promised.

Green also believed that the news coming from Iraq wasn't so bad, although the media made it sound terrible. So Green helped to form the "Victory in Iraq" caucus, intended to show the progress that U.S. troops were making. You know, the "good news" that the media wouldn't report. But Green isn't making much of the victory caucus now, and doesn't list it on his Web site. Who knows? Perhaps Green is among the 58% of Americans who now believes that invading Iraq was a mistake.

Sheer Torture: Perhaps the photos that emerged from Abu Ghraib didn't shock Green, as they shocked the rest of the world. Or perhaps reports of torturing enemy combatants, the applicability of the Geneva Conventions or the exact definition of waterboarding didn't make Green think twice about the morality of torturing human beings. Perhaps that's why Green voted for the recent torture bill, which, despite protestations from Sens. McCain, Warner and Graham, actually does legitimize torture by allowing the president to determine which interrogation techniques are OK to use.

Ballooning Budgets: George W. Bush grew up in a privileged family, which may be why he never got the hang of drawing up a budget and living within his means. Now, as president, he's trying to wage expensive wars while cutting taxes for the wealthy, a double-fisted strategy whose true costs won't be felt until he's out of office. Green voted for the Bush budgets that have turned a surplus into a huge deficit.

Got Faith? Then you can get some taxpayer money. Green endorsed the president's faith-based initiatives, which were sold as an efficient way to get more social services to those in need. According to one of Green's press releases, "Green has established himself as the leading proponent of faith-based solutions in Congress," and he sought to create a permanent faith-based office in the White House. But the program has been criticized for blurring the line between church and state.

Dismantling the Social Safety Net: Green cast the deciding vote to pass the Medicare Part D prescription program, which intends to cover senior citizens burdened by the high cost of medication. Although the terms confused many seniors (and their kids and caretakers), and although it threatened state-based programs such as SeniorCare and doesn't allow the government to negotiate for lower drug prices, Part D actually has a more troubling legacy. Not only is the program more costly than originally billed, but according to an article by Trudy Lieberman in The Nation, "Medicare Part D represents the free market run amok" and "insurers are benefiting from a massive congressional giveaway."

Leaving Kids Behind: Back when Bush attempted to be a compassionate conservative, the president made much of his education program, No Child Left Behind, since he claimed it worked in Texas. Green voted for it. But the program has been plagued with difficulties, from its test-based curricula to its lack of funding (it's now $56 billion below what it should be).

A Break for Paris Hilton: The estate tax doesn't affect many people, just the super-rich. But Green was looking out for this minority when he voted on the controversial proposal to give the ultra-wealthy yet another tax break. Good thing the Republicans were kind enough to sneak it into a bill on raising the minimum wage.

Using the Constitution as a Political Tool: Even Laura Bush saw through Republicans' efforts to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. The "Marriage Protection Amendment" was intended to shore up conservative Christians' support by banning gay marriage, but all it did was invite ridicule. The president endorsed it, but without enthusiasm. Green supported it.

Destroying the Environment: Enjoy the pristine Alaskan wilderness? Mark Green thinks it would be better to run a pipeline through it and drill for oil. That's why he voted to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, even though most experts have stated that it just isn't worth it.

A new report says that the average Midwestern TV station devotes only 36 seconds in each news program to political news.

People are predictably horrified. Thirty-six seconds is not enough time to run to the bathroom or get a snack.

Madison, though, thinks it is very hip and politically sophisticated because its news stations give politics lots more attention -- a whole minute and 5 seconds.

How does that stack up against, say, coverage of plans for the Halloween party?

Whether it's 36 seconds or 1:05, consider that includes all races on the ballot.

Drat!

Guess campaigns will just have to keep running those commercials. Without them, how would anyone know there was an election?

And when several run back to back, you can grab a snack and use the bathroom.

You just knew those spots were a public service, didn't you?

A new independent poll done by a national firm gives Dem Steve Kagen a 2% lead over Repub John Gard in the 8th District House race. They've surveyed 30 districts across the country, and you can see a summary of results here.

A knowledgeable pollster friend says that although it's an automated survey, it's done by two experienced, reputable pollsters and has a sample size of nearly 1000. So it's pretty reliable.

See cross tabs here.

That's the headline Governor Doyle could expect from Congressman Green, the RPW, and the Journal Sentinel if Menards was given special preference by the DNR in its attempt to build on protected wetlands.

After all, the headline fits right in line with the incessant GOP allegations and JS scrutiny over every penny the Doyle campaign has received in donations over the years.

In the case of Menards, the DNR treated the company like anyone else who wants to build on protected wetlands -- that is, it scrutinized the move.

Surely the $10,000 John Menard donated to Doyle's campaign over the past three years, the legal limit for an individual under state law, and the other $10,000 Menard donated to Doyle prior to this election cycle -- some of it before Doyle was elected governor -- would've been brought into question if the DNR treated Menards differently the other companies in the state.

Of course, that didn't stop Green and the RPW, who can't seem to make up their minds in their press release hysteria, this time swinging at Doyle for not demanding the DNR grant special preference to a major campaign donor.

I guess Governor Doyle has more integrity than the GOP thought.

Side-Note: As for the Wisconsin DNR working with Menards, according to the JS this morning, the company has applied for 35 wetlands permits with the state over the last thirty years -- the DNR has granted 30 of them, and the other 5 were withdrawn by the company.

And here's John Menard's statement on the matter: "Governor Doyle has worked very well with Menards and myself over the years, helping us grow in Wisconsin. All of us at Menards appreciate the substantial assistance we have received from the Department of Transportation and the Department of Commerce under his administration."

Preparing for state budget

Gov. Jim Doyle said Wednesday he wants to pump up job training and business investment in the next state budget.

The governor announced a plan Wednesday, dubbed Jobs for the Future, which calls for:

• Increasing funding for the Youth Apprenticeship Program from $1.1 million to $2.2 million annually. The program places high school students in workplaces ranging from manufacturing to insurance to biotechnology. Company officials also visit classes to teach students about their industries. The governor's office said the extra money would create spots in the program for at least 4,000 more students.
  
• Allocating $1.5 million to help manufacturers learn to work more efficiently.
  
• Offering $80 million in loans, tax credits and grants for private energy industries, which in turn would invest another $370 million in renewable fuels such as ethanol.
  
• Increasing funding for the Wisconsin Workforce Advancement Training Grants from $2 million to $8 million. Three-quarters of that money would go to manufacturers, which would contribute a 25 percent match. The rest of the money would go to state technical colleges for training workers.
  
• Creating a statewide manufacturing worker skills certification program. The governor said he wants 40 percent of the state's manufacturing workers to complete the program by 2016. Doyle spokesman Matt Canter said such a program would entice industries to locate in Wisconsin because the state's workforce would be better-trained and look more attractive.

The next state budget period begins July 1 and runs through June 30, 2009. The governor submits the initial version to the state Legislature, which spends months revising it. The full Legislature must approve the document and the governor must sign it before it can take effect.

Canter said the state can afford the increases because forecasters underestimated revenue projections. The governor also has asked each state agency to submit a plan detailing how it would cut 10 percent from its administrative costs, he said.

Doyle, a first-term Democratic governor, faces Republican Mark Green in the Nov. 7 general election.

Effort Was Begun In 2005

Gov. Jim Doyle said that authorities have tracked down more than 1,000 sex offenders as part of an initiative to make them comply with the state sex offender registry.

He said on Thursday in Brown Deer that the list includes 26 of Wisconsin's most-wanted sex offenders.

The effort is part of the governor's anti-crime SAFE initiative launched in September 2005 to find about 2,000 sex offenders who haven't registered with the state as required by law. A team of retired detectives divided between Madison and Milwaukee hunts them down, relying heavily on online databases.

Sex offenders have been required to register with the state since 1997. That allows police, victims and the general public to monitor and keep track of them as a way to keep neighborhoods safer and to improve public awareness about sexual violence.

Doyle said that the 1,019 newly registered sex offenders include 616 who committed crimes against juveniles.

Rather than accusations of bureaucratic bungling from gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mark Green and platitudes from Gov. Jim Doyle's office about how well the governor's office works with business, Wisconsin deserves some serious answers to serious questions about why Menard Inc. decided to build two distribution and manufacturing centers outside Wisconsin.

Did the state Department of Natural Resources put up unreasonable roadblocks to building a facility at Menard's headquarters in Eau Claire? Was a one-acre wetland really responsible for the loss of hundreds of jobs? Was Menard unwilling to adequately protect a natural resource? Would the company have built out of state anyway for logistical reasons?

Clearly, Menard found the DNR difficult to work with, a common complaint in a state that Forbes magazine recently ranked among the worst in the country for over-regulation. A Menard spokesman expressed frustration with a process that cost the company more than $1 million and three years. Menard didn't apply for a permit because it was clear that regional DNR officials were opposed, he said.

The DNR says it worked closely with Menard, including sending a series of letters to the company and holding a meeting with Menard officials that included Doyle and DNR Secretary Scott Hassett.

It's true that Menard might well have needed distribution facilities in Ohio and Iowa anyway, given its recent growth.

And, no doubt, there is some unhappy history between Menard and the DNR. Menard was twice fined record amounts after environmental complaints. In the latest case, an Eau Claire County judge last year ordered the company to pay more than $2 million in fines after Menard pleaded guilty to discharging pollutants that spilled into an adjacent watershed.

But Menard has a point. If this piece of ground was a non-starter - and that might be a reasonable decision given its importance to migratory birds - why did the process have to take three years? Why couldn't the two sides reach a compromise?

Green says Doyle should have done more to save the jobs. Maybe. But Doyle has a history of working well with business on these issues; he was the primary mover behind the Jobs Creation Act, a regulatory reform measure that made it easier for businesses to comply with regulations. Doyle's administration has worked well with Menard on other projects, something President John Menard acknowledged in a statement.

Growing Wisconsin's economy is critical to the state's prosperity, but protecting the environment is critical, too, if people want a state worth living in.

A thorough public discussion of what happened in this case - something more than simplistic campaign rhetoric - is needed.

WKOW 27 in Madison is reporting that canvassers for the "Vote Yes For Marriage" campaign have been telling residents that the amendment on the November 7th ballot doesn't address civil unions.

On the contrary, the amendment is pretty clear that it does, and the Vote Yes campaign pointed out that its own website agrees with that claim. The article points out that Vote Yes doesn't train volunteers on how to approach voters. Maybe they should start if they want to have an honest debate based on facts rather than confusion.

To review, here's the language of the amendment:

"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."

The room was packed, body-to-body-to-body, everyone clapping and chanting, a pulse-pounding moment that Jim Doyle may have envisioned but did not really imagine.

Not like this. Not this big.

It was election night 2002 and his victory had been, well, a lifetime in the making. In the hotel room, Doyle had watched the numbers tick ever higher on the TV screen, refusing to relax until celebration was certain.

Now he was on stage at the Marriott Madison West, the crowd flecked with familiar faces, though much of it was a blur of unknown backers. People who had manned phone banks, handed out fliers or just wanted to taste the first Democratic victory in 16 years.

When he was done speaking, Jim Doyle and his wife, Jessica, needed an escort from the Capitol police to get through the crowd, and found two squad cars parked outside their house when they got home. The reality of it had begun to sink in.

"Jim, you're the governor of Wisconsin," Jessica Doyle said.

"I am," Jim Doyle said, shaking his head at the thought.

The two hadn't thought about what they'd do with the house, sell it or keep it. Never crossed their minds. That night, Doyle hadn't even prepared a victory speech, considered it bad luck.

For Doyle, the victory capped a political rise that seemed predetermined. His parents, after all, had helped revive the party that he would now lead.

Along the way, though, the party establishment wasn't always with him. In his first run for office, Dane County district attorney, Doyle challenged a Democratic incumbent. When he ran for state attorney general, most state lawmakers backed his primary opponent.

Over the years, Doyle had thought about challenging Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, with whom he often clashed as attorney general. But a run against Tommy was like stepping in front of a steamroller. Scott McCallum, who got the job when Thompson went to work for President Bush, was an easier mark.

Doyle won 45% to 41%, with Thompson's brother Ed getting 10% as a Libertarian, other candidates splitting the rest.

In the primary, Doyle positioned himself as a business-friendly, tax-cutting centrist who would buck the unions and cut the state work force.

Rocky relations

With Republicans controlling the Legislature, it meant Doyle would be the party's firewall, as well as its figurehead.

Thus, the first term was marked with vetoes - 54 in all, more than the previous 12 years combined. Drawing the most GOP outrage: Doyle blocked a voter photo ID bill three times, the concealed weapons bill twice.

"When Republicans take these things to the extreme, my job is to sort of be the grownup and stand up and say we're not going there," said Doyle, the first governor in 24 years to not have served in the Legislature.

He points with pride to the early months, when he inherited a larger-than-advertised budget deficit of $3.2 billion.

He and the Legislature completed a budget, one that didn't raise taxes. They eliminated the tax on job development and put in place a tax credit for dairy farms and livestock.

The governor's job, a position his father once sought, puts Doyle squarely in the firing line. Friends and family say he has grown into the job and is well-suited for it.

He is a quick study on the issues. He has taken on the role of comforter, attending many of the funerals of state soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. He can play hardball.

And he can take a punch.

Most of them have centered on his ethics, raising questions about how he raised his massive war chest, about a state procurement official found guilty of steering a travel contract to Doyle campaign contributors.

For friends, the charges and allegations do not ring true.

Alan Zussman remembers when Doyle was part of a group that played basketball in the noon hour at "the shell," a cavernous gym on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

At one point, Zussman - a UW athletic department official - arranged for them to play at the Fieldhouse. Zussman said Doyle, just elected attorney general, wouldn't play until he ran it past the state Ethics Board.

"No one ever questioned his integrity," he said. "Never."

Doyle's basketball days are over. His schedule is too erratic.

But on many Sundays, Zussman and friend Karl Harter meet Doyle for a round of golf. They play the public courses mostly, letting off steam.

"We talk sports and talk trash and yack away," Harter said.

They know Doyle as the guy who times himself on crossword puzzles and brags about being the all-time leading scorer at the shell.

They know him as the guy who recently met Hank Aaron, and brought along his binder from grade school, the one on which he had scrawled Aaron's name over and over.

And, of course, they know him as the guy who can't seem to break 80 in a round of golf.

"It's always, 'Next Sunday. Next Sunday,' " Harter said.

Those moments, though, are harder to steal as another election approaches - the fifth time Doyle has run statewide. For Doyle, it will be hard to top the emotion of the last one.

His mother, Ruth, was still living, battling Parkinson's disease. She came to the inauguration, but not the election night party. The next morning, early, Doyle stopped for a visit.

"She had very, very expressive eyes and a wonderful smile, and that's really how she kind of communicated with me that she was proud," Doyle said. "Politics was very much a part of her life, so I know the election meant a lot to her."

Of course Doyle, in pursuit of a second term, remains ever cautious, not thinking about a victory speech.

A concession speech, either.

Someone finally calls bullshit on Congressman Mark Green for making a promise a day without ever saying how much it will cost or how he'll pay for it.

Surprisingly, it is the conservative Wisconsin State Journal that blows the whistle in this Wednesday editorial:

Pile of promises burden budget

Mark Green keeps saying the state budget is in terrible shape.

Well, if that's true, then he should stop proposing huge tax breaks that will only make matters worse.

The GOP congressman from Green Bay who hopes to become Wisconsin's next governor announced Monday he would exempt the first $20,000 of retirement plan income for people 62 and older.

Plenty of older folks in Wisconsin could certainly use a break on their taxes. But Green is so far refusing to say how much his idea would cost or how he would pay for it.

That's irresponsible.

Incumbent Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle also has made expensive campaign promises that will only make a difficult state budget next year that much harder.

But Green's pitch to ditch such a huge chunk of taxes on retirement income is by far the biggest and most unrealistic promise so far.

A previous proposal for a tax exemption half the size of Green's would have cost $150 million to $200 million a year, according to the Department of Revenue. That means the cost of Green's tax break could run as high as $300 million to $400 million a year.

That's a big hole to fill in a state budget that's already propped up by money raids and accounting tricks.

Green knows he can't afford his idea any time soon. So he pulled the oldest trick in the book - one that Doyle and the Legislature have repeatedly used in recent years. Green is proposing to phase in his idea over several years. That way, he can take credit for the tax break now and push the cost into future years for someone else to worry about.

That strategy, used again and again at the state Capitol, is largely to blame for current state budget problems.

Instead of making fat promises with no way to pay for them, state leaders should responsibly shore up the existing state budget and reject expensive new programs and unrealistic tax giveaways.

Everybody loves tax breaks. But the state also needs to pay its bills and keep its prior commitments.

Green is obviously pandering in the weeks before the Nov. 7 election to older Wisconsin residents who tend to vote in higher numbers.

Older voters shouldn't take Green's plan seriously unless two things happen. First, Green needs to come clean on the cost. If he doesn't have an estimate for the tax break when fully implemented, he'd better get one. Secondly, he should identify areas of state spending he would cut to help make up for the lost revenue.

Wisconsin is waiting.

To any normal (ie not a Major GOP spinmeister) person, the Mark Foley coverup in Congress is about as pathetic and hypocritical as can be.

A GOP Congresspedophile stalks his high school prey for years, with the GOP leadership's knowledge, yet nothing is done about it. Meanwhile, as a party the GOP bashes the Democrats for being weak on morals for their support of equal treatment of gays and lesbians. The GOP cashes in on gay bashing, while secretly covering up their own pedophile members.

Seems almost too wild to be true? But sadly it is.

So at least you'd think the REAL social conservatives would stand up to right the wrongs of the GOP congressional leadership, right? Wrong.

James Dobson, the charlatan who claims to speak for the truly "religious", does his best to continue to coverup the scandal for the GOP. I'm serious. Check this out. (No really, CHECK THIS OUT.) Makes you want to go take a shower doesn't it?

Can you believe it? "Sort of a joke by the boy"? A "prank"? If anyone thought that Dobson was truly a man of the cloth, just listen to that news clip again and again. Dobson, the same man who claimed SpongeBob was gay, is the lowest of the low. He is not a man of GOD; he is a man of the GOP.

So when will people of faith finally get it? You are being used. Your leaders care more about their power and a political party than your morals and beliefs. They would rather protect a pedophile than criticize the people who allowed him to go after teenagers year after year.

These people truly are the lowest of the low. And you follow them.

They are the same people who feed on your fears of the unknown - of gays and lesbians - and use them to make you give them money, give them your vote and give them your hearts. They don't give a damn about your soul. They only care about your wallet and your vote.

I cannot imagine that Dobson and his ilk go undamaged by this scandal. No matter how blindly you follow their hate speech, you have to wonder why they would rather coverup a pedophile coverup than represent your values.

I have to admit this makes me think of the fakers in my own state legislature. The legislators who speak of moral values, but cheat on their spouses. There are even rumors of a Capitol hooker that sees more than a few of our elected officials. Some are discrete about their affairs. Some are not. But they all lie when they get back home.

I have never been one for "outing" the hypocrites. I think it becomes a dirty business getting in the mud with the swine who enjoy it. But eventually someone has to call them out for the lying wonders they are.

A couple of years ago I was approached by someone who knew of a wealthy donor who wanted to hire a private investigator to follow around some of the bigger hypocrites. The person was willing to invest $25,000 to expose the lies of the legislators who faked family values. I convinced them it was a bad idea.

I have to admit if they approach me again I might be tempted to stay quiet.

My hope is that the far right has finally gone too far. Theirs lies and fake speech are finally being exposed for what they really are - ways to promote a political agenda. I just hope the payback comes in the next few weeks. Losing the majorities in Congress and the Legislature is a perfect payback for the truly unrighteous.

From Wispolitics:

The latest poll conducted by Maslin's firm in the race showed Kagen holding an 8 percentage-point lead over Gard in mid-September with a margin of error just more than plus or minus 4 percentage points. The survey was of 600 likely general election voters in the district. Another poll from the Dem-leaning Mellman Group, released around the same time as Maslin's, showed Kagen with a 4 percentage-point lead over Gard.

As part of its strategy, Gard's camp has declined to release internal polls or comment on polling data. Ulm did not comment on Gard's specific standing in the polls during the WisPolitics event.

Translation, Gards polls are the same or worse...

Help Steve Kagen anyway you can here.

Sex! The Green Bay Packers! Sex with the Green Bay Packers!

The usually ho-hum race for Wisconsin secretary of state is being spiced up by one candidate's naughty tell-all book about her bed-hopping exploits with Green Bay football legends during the team's glory days under Vince Lombardi in the 1960s.

Sandy Sullivan, a 65-year-old Republican with no political experience, self-published a gushing memoir in 2004 titled "Green Bay Love Stories and Other Affairs" in which she claims she was the girlfriend of Packers Paul Hornung and Dan Currie, deflected a pass from Hall of Famer Don Hutson and was on the receiving end of a saucy comment from Richard Nixon.

If the book is to be believed, the Packers did a lot of their scoring off the field, and Sullivan got her share of playing time.

In football-crazy Wisconsin, it is unclear whether the book will be a gain or a loss for Sullivan, who is not given much of a chance of beating Secretary of State Doug La Follette, a 28-year incumbent and a member of one of Wisconsin's most distinguished political families. But the book is getting people talking.

In it, she confides that her goal was always to marry a pro football player, saying they are "fast, sleek and clean," are built like "Greek gods" and love women.

"The football players of the 1950s and '60s were every bit as 'HOT' as the men of the present day, if not more so," Sullivan writes of the days when she was a trim, miniskirted brunette who did some modeling. "Remember, the '60s was the 'dawning of the Age of Aquarius' and some women ... were thrilled to experience this brave, new freedom, and celebrate our sexuality ... and the football players loved it!"

Sullivan, who is now a blonde and owns a marketing company that she says sets up autograph sessions and Packer appearances, is not hiding from her past. If anything, she is reveling in it. Her campaign Web site prominently mentions the book and features a picture of her with former Packers quarterback Bart Starr.

You know folks, there have been a number of terrible tragedies in our schools in the last couple weeks and we're all looking for ways to keep them from every happening again, which brings us to tonight's word: safety. [Caption: Safety]

When I was a kid, I always felt safe - I'd go to school, play games - there wasn't a thing to worry about. But now, the world's different. ["Let's Play Global Thermonuclear War!"] Kids face all sorts of new dangers. [Congressmen and Spinach] For instance, firearms are the second leading cause of death for kids nineteen and under and the number of American kids under fourteen killed by guns each year is twelve times the number killed in twenty-five other industrialized countries combined. So how do we make our schools safe again? How do we get back to a more innocent time? [Ban Flag Burning?] Wisconsin State Lawmaker Frank Lasee has the answer:

(Fox News clip) What I want to do is allow school personnel to carry weapons and to protect themselves and our children in our schools.

Yes! Arm the teachers! [Nice Shot, Mr. Chips!]

The only way to keep guns out of our classrooms is to put guns in our classrooms. [Reloading is Fundamental] Guns will be a deterrent. [Plus, 9mm Teaches Metric System] You see, if a teacher might have a gun, a suicidal psycho will stay away. I mean, he wouldn't want to put his life in danger! Of course, if the psycho does not follow this rational line of thinking, he might kill the teacher first. That's why we also have to arm the students. [No Guns Left Behind] Now, not every child can be trusted with the weapons so we'll give the students psychological evaluations. [And Arm the Psychologists] And the ones who pass the psych exam will get firearms training. [Ones Who Fail Go On Football Team] Of course, guns aren't the only danger our kids face.

There's also drugs. Dealers lurk around playgrounds trying to hook a new generation. [On Something Other Than Ritalin] That's why we must provide our teachers with drugs. Good stuff. Top shelf Bolivian marching powder. ["We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do!!!!"] Pushers won't stand a chance if our kids know there's primo sh-t in the bottom drawer of Mr. Johnson's desk. [Next to Unfinished Novel]

Of course, teen pregnancy is also rampant. [Damn You, K-Fed!] Well, those hormone crazed hooligans won't be getting our teenage girls in trouble if the girls are already pregnant. That is why we must artificially inseminate the entire freshman class. [Life Begins At Orientation] Shouldn't be hard. Do 'em when they're high.

You think some stranger is going to enter a school if they know it's full of pregnant, gun-toting drug addicts? [Substitute Teachers Do It] Folks, that would be like storming the Thunder Dome. [Or The Superdome]

Now obviously, I'm dreaming big here. The first step is getting weapons in the hands of our teachers. [Chalk and Awe] What other possible way is there to protect that which is most precious to us? [Second Amendment] So, to keep keep our kids safe, we must first take the safety off. And that's The Word. [Safety] We'll be right back.

Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."

Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.

Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds "I hope with a veto-proof majority," [House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California] added in an Associated Press interview Thursday.

All the days after that: "Pay as you go," meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.

To do that, she said, Bush-era tax cuts would have to be rolled back for those above "a certain level." She mentioned annual incomes of $250,000 or $300,000 a year and higher, and said tax rates for those individuals might revert to those of the Clinton era. Details will have to be worked out, she emphasized.