NEWS
State up for grabs
Looking for a print version?
Simply choose ‘Print’ on your computer and a printer-friendly document will be generated.
Also by Tom Schalmo:
- Carolyn Martin to become next UW chancellor (May 28, 2008)
Related Stories:
- Platteville aims to keep Bears legacy (January 31, 2007)
- Kohl wary of spiking gas prices (February 25, 2003)
- Senate Judiciary Committee passes Roberts (September 23, 2005)
- UW honored for stem-cell research (September 30, 2003)
- Dean finds support on campus (October 2, 2003)
Share This:
by Tom Schalmo
Friday, February 15, 2008
For anyone even remotely interested in politics, now is a great time to live in Wisconsin.
It isn’t every week that nationally recognized senators, governors and even a former president descend on the state as if it were the only one that mattered.
And never again will a Bears fan draw 20,000 people to the Kohl Center.
This week certainly is a special time to be in the state of Wisconsin, as two former Arkansas governors — who happened to grow up in the same little town — visited the state Thursday.
More than 2,000 people, many of whom were University of Wisconsin students, saw Bill Clinton speak at the Stock Pavillion on campus — a historic venue not just for the cows, but also for hosting Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman and William Howard Taft.
Gov. Mike Huckabee, the Republican trying to take down frontrunner Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., spoke to a smaller crowd of a couple hundred at the Concourse Hotel.
Clinton toured the state Thursday stumping for his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Two-thirds of the former first family have now stopped on campus as Chelsea Clinton visited Monday.
The candidate herself, who will be in Wisconsin Saturday through Tuesday, has pledged to visit Madison sometime before Tuesday’s primary.
All about the benjamins?
Meanwhile, the former president told the crowd in Madison that much of Obama’s recent success since Super Tuesday has come when his wife’s campaign “ran out of money and had to let all these last states go.”
Since then, though, the campaign raised more than $13 million through an online campaign.
The Clinton campaign is now focusing on not only Wisconsin but on big primaries on March 4, including Texas and Ohio, where the former president said she leads in the polls.
“We need you, we need more volunteers, we need to call everyone in the state,” Clinton said. “We need to make these arguments; you need to tell people you’re for her because she’s in the solutions business and so are you.”
Much of Clinton’s hourlong speech focused on the issues at hand this primary, and the former president distinguished his wife from Obama.
Clinton, for example, supports a universal health care plan for everyone in the United States and says she has “the most aggressive” plan to combat home mortgage foreclosures.
The state battle between Obama and Clinton appears to be in Obama’s favor right now, according to several statewide polls, but it was only last month when Clinton won in New Hampshire, despite every survey going against her.
Obama filled the Kohl Center to capacity Tuesday night, trying to pledge he takes Wisconsin seriously, as he will be back again today and tomorrow.
Huckabee forging ahead
As for Huckabee, the man who “majored in miracles, not math,” he is banking on McCain backers staying home Tuesday while every last one of his supporters goes out to vote.
McCain, for his part, responded to Huckabee’s statewide tour by scheduling several rallies of his own. He will visit Oshkosh and Milwaukee today.
Huckabee, who trails severely in delegates and in statewide polls, desperately needs to pick up Wisconsin but refused to call the state a must-win.
“We want to win Wisconsin, we’re here to win Wisconsin, we’re spending a lot of time in Wisconsin,” Huckabee said. “We wouldn’t be doing that if it wasn’t important to us. We’d just bypass it all together.”
Huckabee appeals to fundamental conservatives who back constitutional amendments banning abortion and gay marriage — and the former governor acknowledged the disconnect with a city he jokingly called the “conservative bastion of Wisconsin.”
Despite his strong criticism of the national press writing him off, those conservatives must show up Tuesday in large numbers for Huckabee to have a chance of moving on.
“If we lose a choice, we lose a voice,” Huckabee said, asking people to make a “loud noise” for his campaign at the polls Tuesday.
At the Concourse, Huckabee boasted his primary wins in states that could easily swing either way in November’s general election, including Kansas and Iowa.
“Look at the states that I’ve won, and look where the Republican map has to be in November,” Huckabee said. “I may not have as many delegates, but the delegates that Sen. McCain has accumulated, many of them come from states that are not going to be in play when we get to November.”
No matter what happens in Wisconsin, Huckabee said his campaign will move forward.
“The day that we lose the competition is the day that we start drifting into complacency,” Huckabee said. “That is not what makes us strong. Competition breeds excellence.”
The political storm in Wisconsin will surely dissipate after Tuesday, but with Wisconsin likely to be a swing state in the general election, the final nominees and their surrogates will be back.
Anonymous (February 15, 2008 @ 4:27am):
bill clinton is in denial. obama won the last 8 states because voters realize hillary clinton is disingenous and a fraud, a typical washington politician who cares about nothing but expanding her own power, and will say anything to that end.
she stands for nothing except the prevailing public opinion and safe choices that allow her to win political games. she's terrified of taking a progressive stand on anything that matters, and would go to war with iran if she thought it could win her more votes.
it's time to turn the page.
Anonymous (February 15, 2008 @ 12:55pm):
"would go to war with iran if she thought it could win her more votes."
In that strange hypothetical you are speaking of, it would also mean the vast majority of the country would be behind it. In order for that to happen, we'd probably need to have a very good reason to go to war with Iran.
"She's terrified of taking a progressive stand on anything that matters"
I'd say health care matters. I'd say getting out of Iraq matters. I'd say stopping foreclosures and freezing mortgage rates really matters. What does Obama do that's more progressive?
She's a politician, she needs to be careful about what she says and what she supports. That's the way the world is. You can create change AND be a good politician. Her husband showed that. So did Reagan.
Stupid argument. You hate Hillary and don't even know why. Probably because you think she's a bitchy politician. But that doesn't mean she won't be a great president.
Maybe it's just sexism--and that's coming from a male, for the record.
Anonymous (February 15, 2008 @ 12:56pm):
"bill clinton is in denial. obama won the last 8 states because voters realize hillary clinton is disingenous and a fraud, a typical washington politician who cares about nothing but expanding her own power, and will say anything to that end."
Expanding her own power? Maybe, but to do what? To make this nations livable again for everyone besides the top 3% most wealthy. Even Obama fans recognize their policies are similar. The only different is Clinton's are PLANS, and Obama's are vague PROMISES.
"she stands for nothing except the prevailing public opinion and safe choices that allow her to win political games. she's terrified of taking a progressive stand on anything that matters..."
Universal health care is far from a "safe choice," but she believes in it, as do I. One could argue that's why Obama refrains from taking that plunge.
Clinton for president in 2008! Maybe Obama can be her VP and learn a thing or two...and help her add more empty rhetoric to her speeches to win over the mindless masses.
Anonymous (February 15, 2008 @ 2:45pm):
The real question to ask yourself is if you would vote for Hillary if her last name was not Clinton. She likes to credit herself for Bill's triumphs and distance herself from his failures such as NAFTA. The point is that she had nothing to do with his failures or triumphs. She has less experience as an elected official than Barak and was rather un-distinguished during her time in the Senate. Please base your vote on who has actually accomplished something themselves, not by piggybacking on someone elses deeds.
Anonymous (February 15, 2008 @ 4:28pm):
"She has less experience as an elected official than Barak and was rather un-distinguished during her time in the Senate. Please base your vote on who has actually accomplished something themselves"
You might be the first person to say Barack is more experienced than Hillary. The notion in itself is pretty laughable, just because she has only been an elected official since 2000 does not mean she has not been involved in the political stage and making policy.
She's been doing that since being the first lady of Arkansas in 1979, when Barack was 18. Don't discredit what she's done or what she will do.
Anonymous (February 16, 2008 @ 12:07am):
oh, great, Hillary's experience is that she was the wife of someone who was first the governor, then president. Wow, that her experience?
The real question that Democrats should ponder, is who can win in November?
If there's one thing that fires up the Repbulican base it's the Clintons (rightly, or wrongly)
If Hillary gets nominated, then it's going to be (more of the same) John McCain who's going to end up being President.
So, really, Democrats have this choice, who do they prefer to be President: John McCain, or Barack Obama? (because Hillary won't win)
Me, I go with Barack Obama!
Anonymous (February 16, 2008 @ 9:26am):
Don't worry Mike Huckabee, the people of Wisconsin are going to give you the win you need to keep going foward!! Go Huckabee!
Anonymous (February 16, 2008 @ 12:59pm):
Obama presents himself as the candidate who can redeem the time. It is easy to mistake (as I have) Obama's messianism for vacuity. But the messianism has become unmistakable.
At the hastily assembled rally at UCLA a few weeks ago, Michelle Obama presented her husband as the only candidate who stood to cure our sick souls. Her claims on his behalf only made express the implications of his own more anodyne rhetoric.
By contrast with faiths demanding a genuine commitment, Obama's only demands your vote. More befitting Peter Pan than a presidential campaign, it's a juvenile appeal that may explain some of Obama's popularity among younger voters. Among other things, Obama seems to be leading a children's crusade.
Anonymous (February 16, 2008 @ 3:27pm):
"That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation."
Michelle Obama
Well Glory Hallelujah, the Messiah is arrived!
Government doesnât exist to save souls; it exists to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense. If I feel my soul needs saving, the very last place Iâd look (in the US) for a savior would be Washington DC or Capitol Hill.
When Republicans talk about broken souls in the context of civil society, the nutroots start screaming about the obliteration of the church-state line.
When the Obama campaign uses the same rhetoric to get him elected to the White House, everyone swoons.
Very few people will say this, but the stone cold fact is, were Obama not half-black, he would have no campaign. If he were a white, first term Senator with little legislative accomplishments, a record full of non-votes and dodging controversial but courageous stands, a jug-eared bloviator who spews platitudes and cliches instead of real policy or solutions to real problems, he'd never have even lasted through Summer '07.
I think he's being very overestimated as a campaigner. He just looks good because right now he's running against the most hated political figure of the last 100 years, on BOTH sides of the fence.
kevin larmee (February 17, 2008 @ 11:40am):
Obama is the only hope this country has to change direction.
Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain would continue the same failed policies of war (they both voted for the Iraq invasion)...and Hilllary is not stupid, she knew what she was voting for.
We need a change!
Me, I vote for Barack Obama!
Add a comment
We welcome your thoughts, but please keep your feedback thoughtful, on-topic and respectful. Offensive language, personal attacks, or irrelevant comments may be deleted.
Login...
Not registered? Sign up now.
It's quick, free, and the email address you provide will not be sold or solicited.
