Uppity Wisconsin

New Hampshire just joined the list of states allowing gay marriage, after a quick trip through the legislature and a world-record-breaking signing by the governor. 

And yet, Wisconsin has somehow lost its progressive way on this issue.  2006 was the sad year in which Wisconsin legalized discrimination, both legally and morally.  It's time to fix this. Let's try again.  Let's keep trying until we get it right.

(An email from Charlie Dee. To call him a longtime Milwaukee activist doesn't begin to do him justice, but it will have to suffice. -- Xoff)

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Anne and I were sipping drinks, talking excitedly to friends, surrounded by a huge multi-racial crowd in the grand ballroom of Milwaukee’s HyattHotel.  We had that feeling of euphoric happiness that doesn’t come often in life: maybe the birth of a child or a wedding. 

Before the election we asked many bloggers around Wisconsin to suggest a new way forward for the new President Elect, Barack Obama. We've collected several of these responses, and you can find them here .  We will continue to collect these.  Anyone with an Uppity Wisconsin account may post them by doing a regular blog post and using the Obama's Way Forward section in the post.  Lots of good ideas.

Using up some nervous energy while waiting to go work at the polls (I've gotten wimpier in my old age and don't work the whole 15-hour shift any more), I got thinking, for some unknown reason, about the people with Wisconsin connections working for Barack Obama's campaign.

Herewith, a quick rundown:

Let's start with Chuck Pruitt of AB Data, who's quietly headed Obama's direct mail fundaising effort. We've all read about the huge amounts of money Obama's raised, especially on the Internet.

But it's gone almost without mention that the direct mail campaign has raised something in the neighborhood of $100-million. That's unprecedented, and that money comes in very small checks. Pruitt, a longtime Democratic player, is just fine with the lack of attention. In fact, after outing him here I may have to pick up the lunch tab next time.

He's self-effacing and makes it sound like all you need to do to raise money for Obama is send people an envelope, and they put a check inside and send it back. It is not that simple, and the mail campaign, like the Obama campaign overall, has been brilliantly conceived and executed. (Maybe Chuck will buy lunch, after that).

Before we start celebrating, let's vote and count them.

We'll be starting coverage of the election returns at 7 PM.  You can join in with live blogging and commenting then. We're still moving around the information and looking for new sources - you can see the preview here.  

Reports on voting waits are starting to come in, and so far things seem to be looking good. - Well, they'd be looking good if the votereport.org servers were actually working - it looks like they've been clobbered by load and our maps are not updating.  Sigh.

Barack Obama and his GrandparentsWe've just heard that Barack Obama's grandmother, Madeline Dunham, has died.  Barack Obama left the campaign trail in late October to be with her.  Our condolences go out to the family for having such a sad time during what was already a difficult week. 

Tomorrow night Uppity Wisconsin will try to bring you as much election coverage as possible.  We're working on a set of high-tech methods for keeping you up to date on the web - this is changing by the hour, so what will happen tomorrow is as much of a surprise to us as it will be to you.

For more interesting reading on new media social tools being used for the vote, see Simon Owen's post at Media Shift.

One of the things we're carrying is Twitter Vote Report - a live map of voting problems and reports from around the state and the country.  There are many different ways you can put in your own vote report if you see issues at your polling place -  Put them in, and they'll show up here automatically on election day.

I predicted the day HRC said it that we would see the McCain campaign use these words against Obama:

"In the White House, there is no time for speeches and on-the-job training. Sen. McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, and Sen. Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002."

I fully expected it would be in a television commercial to try to drive a wedge between Clinton Democrats and Obama Democrats.

Instead, it came in an autocall from the GOP and the McCain campaign to millions of voters in swing states.

The response from a Clinton spokesperson:

"Senator Hillary Clinton does not approve this message, and as she crisscrosses the country, she has said time and again that the choice in this election could not be more clear. The McCain/Palin ticket offers only more of the same failed policies while the Obama/Biden ticket offers the vision, leadership and positive solutions we need. I wonder why the Republicans aren't using those words?"

And I wonder why she ever said the words in the phone call, knowing they'd be used against Obama if he became the nominee. And when she said them, there was an excellent chance that he would be.

There are but three days to go, Gentle Reader, and the McCain campaign is now down to fear and Joe The Plumber. Those who seek to spread The Fear are resorting to fantastic schemes and amazing leaps of logic in an effort to find something to make The Fear rise in voters. But to be honest, the crazy speculation lacks…imagination. I believe I can present crazy speculation that is at least as interesting as what they’ve put out—and funnier to boot—and with that and the Halloween just past in mind we present the final weekend edition of the 2008 campaign cycle's blogging. So, ya wanna hear a few debunked made up rumors that, frankly, have a lot more creative style? Here’s a good one, to get things started: Obama does not plan to increase employment by having the Department of Health and Human Services purchase hundreds of mobile medical vans that he will staff with pro-choice doctors and nurses so they can drive around the country and perform mobile abortions by night while teaching sex education to kindergarteners by day. The rumor that Nicholas Sarkozy is planning to resign as President of France so that he can become Governor of West Virginia after Obama renames it West By God France is, sadly, untrue. Obama will not rip off a fake rubber head o

(Guest post from Jeff Bentoff, Milwaukeean about town, recovered newsman, consultant, flack, sometimes musician, music aficionado and Wilco enthusiast.  For today, we'll just call him Jeff the Blogger.)

Jeff Tweedy, leader of the revered rock band Wilco, and two colleagues from the group, kicked off a vote-early drive Saturday aimed at getting UW-Madison students to the polls before Election Day.

Playing a free, nine-song set at the UW Memorial Union Theater in Madison Saturday afternoon, the mini, mainly acoustic version of Wilco turned in a riveting performance under a large “Obama-Biden” banner, wowing the capacity, mostly student audience of about 1,300.

Following the “Concert for Change,” attendees were planning to march to Madison’s City County Building, to encourage early balloting there. Speaking to the crowd, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and U. S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin emphasized the importance of getting out the vote for Barack Obama. They noted that while Democrats John Kerry and Al Gore carried the state in recent presidential elections, they did so by very small percentages.

You may be asking yourself why the Republican Party is filing voter fraud complaints all over, getting people like Van Hollen in Wisconsin, and the Colorado secretary of state to file crazed lawsuits to purge voter roles, and making the incredibly big stink over and over again about ACORN, when they keep losing the lawsuits, and when it hasn't seemed to have a big effect on the public? I asked myself this very question, and the answer I came up with is disheartening.

Personally I think they're intentionally poisoning the well, and preparing for a massive legal assault against the outcome of the 2008 election. After all, if you can't disenfranchise as many people as you need to to win the election, then the next best thing is to raise doubts over and over and over before the election in hopes of having your lawyers, talk radio hosts, and anyone else you can enlist to raise questions after the election.  

I expect that there's a good chance that the aftermath of this election (if it is ANYTHING like close) will make the "hanging chad, Sore Loserman, stolen vote" debacle of 2000 look like a cakewalk.

All the more reason to go out and vote even if you're in a non-swing state, or you think that the outcome is a done deal.  It can only be a done deal if the results are overwhelming.  Help make it so.