Not Your Grandmothers Wisconsin
Milwaukee I love telling people Im from Wisconsin. Maybe its my defense mechanism for when people accuse me of being a coastal elite, out of touch with Real America. I like fulfilling all the Wisconsin stereotypes. I love cheese and cheese curds, of course. I love our sports teams out of a vague sense of homerism. And my accent (all hard As) comes out in full force after ah couplah beers.
Mostly I love my grandma, who has called Wisconsin home for 88 years. Her parents immigrated to Wisconsin from Germany, and she started public school without knowing a word of English. She forgot most of the German her parents taught her years ago, but taught me the words to the Liechtensteiner Polka that we would sometimes hear when my family would go to a Friday night fish fry.
Up until Nov. 8, I still believed my states moral baseline bent toward empathy. The Wisconsin I thought I knew, where I lived for 21 years, was filled with complex but fundamentally decent people who recognized that everyone is deserving of respect and could disagree without being disagreeable. The state did elect Scott Walker as governor in 2010, and the Republican-led legislature gutted public-sector unions, setting off huge protests in the Capitol. But I didnt think that state would vote for Donald J. Trump, turning its 10 electoral votes to a Republican for the first time since 1984. (I mean, come on, we even voted for Dukakis.)
As much as Mr. Trump won the election in Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton lost it. Her campaign, which prided itself on employing all the data wizards and ground game gurus money can buy, did not do nearly enough to lock down the upper Midwest, particularly Wisconsin and Michigan, and instead treated those states as a given.
Paul Soglin is the mayor of Madison, Wisconsins capital city, in cerulean Dane County. He supported Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, and said he talked at least once a week with a field organizer from the Sanders campaign during the primary. But once Mrs. Clinton locked up the nomination, it was radio silence from the Clinton campaign.
Since I first held elected office in the early 70s, virtually every presidential election, Ive been contacted, either by the candidate or by a staffer, he told me. Im not saying this to say Im important. But the point is, not only wasnt she in the state, but I never got a call, a contact, anything after the primary.'>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/opinion/campaign-stops/not-your-grandmothers-wisconsin.html?
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)My little punk cousins flying the rebel flag, complaining about welfare while they collect food stamps, and so on, and so on.
LenaBaby61
(6,974 posts)Won't be complaining about those Food Stamps in the very near future, because they won't be getting them under their pres tRump. All they'll be flying is that rebel rag. Don't tell me, it's Hillary's fault.
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)Walker clamped down. A single adult in WI gets $16.00 a month in FS. 60cents a day. So, no, you've got no point there.
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)But they take it, and contend the country is going to hell because others receive welfare.
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)With some years in Denver and Berkeley, I have lived here for 65 years. We have been screwed since 2010. I believe Walker and his henchmen cheated both legally and illegally. They flipped the voting machines from D to R. It worked so well for Walker's recall election and the one after that, they thought they would go bigtime. It is unbelievable because it is not believable. But, yes the DEM party messed up bigtime, also. We had that shitty Mike Tate as our leader for many years and he bled our state.
LenaBaby61
(6,974 posts)Even if Hillary had moved there and lived IN Wisconsin, it wouldn't have mattered--the Russians, WikiLeaks, the FBI had tRump's back.
Wisconsin will be a fully functioning right to work state, and continue going down from there. Health care, gone. Medicare gone. Social Security, maybe privatized.
Meanwhile, tRump will be pimping out the White House on steroids while running his business from there, and threatening the news media who helped make him, so they won't be covering his deals with the devil.
Big Pimpim' tRump and his big pimpin' daughter Ivanka--ALL business ALL the time.
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)Cheeto and Paul Ryan match made in heaven. Ryan has a hard on now for more damage to us. This time Nationwide.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)parents were first generation German Americans and like you spoke German as a first language until Kindergarten,when we were not allowed to speak German and had to learn English. No big deal.
Like some have expressed about Wisconsin,$16 for food stamps which is a travesty. The unmentioned thing is,the Wealth Transfer that is taking place via the Tax Codes both income and especially Real Estate.
As far as Clinton losing in Wisconsin,her message needed to be changed and she needed to touch base with the local Pols. The DNC Elites went tone deaf after the Comey October Surprise which was expected by many.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)But I hear ya. Can't believe the state went trump this year.
RelativelyJones
(898 posts)It was the same in PA. My family lives not far from Gettysburg and when Trump held a rally there I assumed she'd be there sometime afterward. She never showed. She put all her faith in the big data consultant types and blew it. It wouldn't have taken much to show up in the these places and drum up enthusiasm and votes. She could have beaten back the Trump waves in WI,MI and PA and won the damn thing.
elleng
(130,901 posts)Here are a few discussions on the subject:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016171204
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016171203
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/politics/democrats-economy.html?
Here's an article I haven't posted here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-hubris-of-the-clinton-ground-game_us_5831cebce4b099512f835e78