I don't usually push my own posts, but if you missed this over the weekend ...

... you may want to see it. It struck a chord with many of us ...


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027749863

Today's Non Sequitor - The Key to Peace and Tranquility

"If the Democratic Party would fight as hard for the Working Class ..."

Understanding America's Problems

Anybody notice that the team that once had a 50 point lead now refers to a tie as a "win"?

Backyard Visitor

The river is wide and slow here. A crescent-shaped sandbar bearing marsh grasses divides the oxbow. The water has been high for several weeks now, the island flooded. Geese, ducks, muskrats and others frequent the area. So do hawks and bald eagles.

Today a pair of Great Blue Heron stopped by to visit, and Crystal Dancer had her camera at hand. These are magnificant birds, standing four-feet tall with a six-foot wingspan. Impressive to see in flight or wading the shallows.

The first bird landed up the river a bit and instantly blended into the background. This one landed 25 yards off our deck.


It's crest, hackles and back feathers were all raised upon landing. You can see a bit better in this enlargement ...


After a couple little shimmys to get its feathers in place, the big bird remained motionless for perhaps 10 minutes, then began it's quiet stalk of the shallows.


Twenty minutes later it flew off, huge wings silently creating the necessary lift. Amazing encounter, and props to Crystal Dancer for grabbing the pics!

Somebody just tried to tell me that Hillary had nothing to do with Bush's Iraq war, yet ...

.... here' Hillary herself parroting Bush's exact words in her impassioned speech before the Senate.

How anyone can give her a pass on this is beyond me.

"Behind nearly every bad policy decision our country has made in the last 20 years ..."

One more pic from our Bernie rally/march in Waupaca

Such great people. Bernie won our county by 20 points. WooHoo!!!

A couple of observations on the Wisconsin results

Bernie Sanders got 36,183 more votes than Republican primary winner Ted Cruz (565,951 to 529,768).

Hillary Clinton got 47,885 more votes than Republican runner-up Donald Trump (432,688 to 384,803), but fewer than Cruz.

John Kasich got 154,468 votes while a whopping 28,345 Republicans voted for "other."

That pushed the totals to 1,097,384 for the Republicans against 1,001,925 for Democrats.

Source


For comparison, in 2008, 1,113,285 voted for Democrats in the Wisconsin primary.

In 2008, only 402,699 voted for Republicans in the Wisconsin primary.

In 2010 - an "off year" - the Republicans bumped their numbers up significantly. In the Republican gubernatorial primary 614,611 voted. In the Republican primary for US Senate from Wisconsin 591,239 voted. At the same time, the Democratic primary voting numbers plummeted. Only 233,240 voted for a gubernatorial candidate (Russ Feingold ran unopposed as the Democratic US Senate candidate).

The resulting enthusiasm gap propelled Scott Walker and Ron Johnson to victory in November, 2010.

Worth noting here that Wisconsin has open primaries.


Some conclusions ...

Republicans in Wisconsin have been very successful in motivating more of their base to the polls. The Tea Party astroturfing was slathered onto our state and politically energized a lot of folks who were otherwise being ignored. Many remain involved.

Democrats have not enjoyed that same success. (I personally blame a lot of this on the Democratic Party of Wisconsin abandoning the 30,000 recall Walker volunteer circulators - and others - immediately after Walker won his recall challenge.)

Lots of Republicans are unhappy with their candidates - 28,345 voted for "other" while only 3,294 Democrats did the same).

Democrats in Wisconsin will have to pull together to carry our state in November.

Democrats in Wisconsin need to wake up and recognize that off-year elections are very, very important.