Friday, October 20, 2006

Wisconsin's 8th

If anyone reading this is registered to vote in Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District (aka Northeast Wisconsin including Green Bay, Appleton, and surrounding areas) it's extremely important to vote absentee this year. The race for US Representative is a dead heat between Republican John Gard and Democrat Steve Kagen. Just go to this site and follow the directions to obtain an absentee ballot ASAP and send it back to the precinct you're registered in. You should send in the request as soon as you can (November 2nd at the very latest).

Obviously you will be able to vote on all the same important statewide races including governor, attorney general, and the ban referenda (gay marriage and death penalty) but Tammy Baldwin and local Democratic state representatives and senators are certain to be reelected. While I'm focusing on the 8th since taking back the House of Representatives is so crucial and so within reach this year, this post applies to everyone who might have a close local race back home or anyone who simply might want to avoid the lines on November 7th.

UPDATE: And it really is a dead heat.

posted by Ryan Greenfield at 12:10 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Thursday, October 19, 2006

The Latest Polls

According to a St. Norbert College / Wisconsin Public Radio poll released today, Jim Doyle leads Mark Green with 51% to 38%, +/- 5%. Kathleen Falk leads J.B. Van Hollen 44% to 38%. 51% support the proposed marriage amendment with 44% opposed (eek!) and 50% supporting advisory referendum in support of enacting the death penalty for certain cases, and 45% opposed. You can read a more detailed analysis at CBS 5 WFRV.

posted by Adam Lang at 2:23 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Why Take A Stand?

Earlier in the week, in the regular College Dems column in the Badger Herald, we urged the College Republicans to take a stand - any stand - on the upcoming marriage amendment. Why do this? Our thinking is while all college Republicans (note the lowercase C) don't need to have the same opinion on a political issue, the College Republicans (capital C), as one of the leading political groups on campus, should have an expressed opinion on one of the largest political issues in the state this year. As a political party with a professed set of beliefs on what government should be and do, its the duty of the group to suggest to its membership how this issue fits into the larger scheme of their vision of government.

posted by Adam Lang at 1:20 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Early Registration

Just a reminder: today is the last day to pre-register to vote in Wisconsin. If you plan to vote early, to vote absentee or just want to get your registering done early so there're no surprises at the polling place on election day, get your forms in!

For further details on how to register, use our voter information resources, the State Election Board's resources, or check out this article in the Herald.

posted by Adam Lang at 2:15 PM 1 comments Post to DemWire

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Take A Stand!

We have asked the College Republicans to take a stance on the proposed civil unions and marriage ban.

If passed, the two-part ban will imbed discrimination, bigotry and hate directly into our state's founding document. Governor Jim Doyle was the first governor in the country to publicly condemn a proposed ban of this kind. Congressmen Mark Green, however, favors altering our state constitution to threaten the basic rights and privileges of an entire class of citizens.

Today, our Chair Eli Lewien called on the College Republicans to finally take a position on the proposed ban. The College Democrats see this as the civil rights issue of our generation. We feel that opposing the ban and voting "No" protects the rights of our fellow citizens at the time they need us most. As a political organization at UW-Madison, the College Republicans owe it to the students, their party, and themselves to take a stance on the ban.

College Republicans, we urge you to finally take a position on the proposed ban.

Read our column in the Badger Herald.

Tell them where you think they should stand by voting in the online poll.

Read what others have to say.

posted by Adam Lang at 1:08 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Monday, October 16, 2006

Mr. Green's Wall

From Milwaukee Rising:

Mark Green is hitting the illegal immigrant issue so hard, why not just take the final step and propose a wall around Wisconsin? It would create jobs, after all, and he could divert money from public education to pay for it!

Should be right up his alley.

posted by Adam Lang at 11:08 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Ethics Board Clears Doyle

From The Badger Herald:

No ethics laws were broken during partisan lobbying of State Elections Board members before a vote against gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., the State Ethics Board ruled Friday.

There's more in the paper.

posted by Adam Lang at 11:07 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

A Civil Disunion

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a story on the Marriage Amendment fight yesterday. It opened great:

The student in Wade DallaGrana's social studies class at Edgewood High School just blurted out the question, cutting through all the jargon and noise surrounding the marriage debate in Wisconsin.

"What would you do if one of your children were gay?" the student said Thursday.

For a brief moment, Julaine Appling and Mike Tate, as political an odd couple as you'll ever find, both unmarried without children, were silent.

For months, they had debated up and down the state, and finally, here it was, out of the mouth of a kid at a parochial high school, the question that made it personal, made it about family and love.

Here was Appling, 54, fighting for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as "between one man and one woman," saying that if she had a child "choosing to go into homosexuality" because "that is what I was quote - born - to be," she would pray for that child.

"I would not stop loving that child," Appling said. "Love does not mean condoning every kind of behavior."

Here was Tate, 27, fighting against the amendment, saying, "If I have children, I pray they're not gay. Not because I (would) love them less but because I think it has to be so much harder to be born gay" because they would face a world in which others would want to restrict their rights.

The debate was over. The kids applauded for a long, long time.

I think that question, and the responses from Julaine Appling of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin and Mike Tate of Fair Wisconsin, pretty much sum up this whole issue. The supporters of the ban want to outlaw the way some people are and the opponents want to get the State of Wisconsin on the side of the downtrodden, instead of helping with the downtrodding (is that a word?).

And since when is being gay, as Appling put it, "behavior?"

Lastly, an encouraging quote from the end:

"If I can get every voter to think for 15 seconds, I can win this election hands down," [Mike Tate of Fair Wisconsin] says. "I'm not glib about that. Getting voters to think for 15 seconds is really hard because they have lives, families, football."

posted by Adam Lang at 10:58 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Green Backs Bush

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has noticed that 90%+ of the time, Rep. Mark Green has supported measures President George W Bush has supported.

You can read what that means to you at 92percent.com.

posted by Adam Lang at 10:55 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Appleton Post-Crescent Endorses Kohl

The first (that I've seen) of what I suspect will be a long series of endorsements of Herb Kohl occurred today: The Appleton Post-Crescent says you should vote for Herb.

posted by Adam Lang at 10:49 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Mark Green for Governor?

All you phone bankers out there, remember to hang up your phone before you start talking to the person next to you. You don't want to turn out like this Green volunteer.

And if you haven't phone banked, you ought to.

posted by Adam Lang at 11:52 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

Groups for Doyle

So we've got Student for Doyle, Veterans for Doyle, Teachers for Doyle, ad infinum. And now Baseball Legends for Doyle? Hank Aaron is going to be up in Eau Claire this coming Thursday to stump for Governor Doyle. Awesome.

posted by Adam Lang at 11:50 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

The Collapse of the Republican Party

A blog on Daily Kos discovered "proof" the Republican Party is falling apart. It's worth a read, but I'll skip to the best part, the birthplace of the Party:

(Back to reality, though, they're restoring the building and making it handicap accessible.)

posted by Adam Lang at 11:46 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

The North Korea Timeline

The Happy Circumstance has a timeline of who did what when over the last three decades about North Korea. Worth a read as folks in Washington are playing the blame game.

posted by Adam Lang at 11:45 AM 0 comments Post to DemWire

A Question For A Bush

Hat tip Pundit Nation.

posted by Adam Lang at 11:39 AM 1 comments Post to DemWire

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The views and opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the UW-Madison College Democrats. They are the views of their authors. Postings by individual board members to not necessarily represent a consensus opinion of the board or organization.