When participating in stereotypically Madisonian activities like riding a community bicycle, strolling around Capitol Square during a farmers market or drinking a hazelnut latt?, I often wonder how the most conservative politicians in Wisconsin deal with spending such a significant portion of their lives in the Midwest’s cesspit of sin and taxation.
But I always come to the same conclusion: Madison is not nearly as “liberal” as our friends in Waukesha County like to think it is. Although folks like Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, and Gov. Scott Walker might try to convince you otherwise, the pockets of truly progressive influence in our city are few and far between. Yes, Madison is an overwhelmingly Democratic city, but that says nothing about the true liberalism here. And, shockingly, the University of Wisconsin campus is one of the most conservative areas of the city.
I have noticed this change in identity for many years. As an embarrassingly conservative seventh grader, I paid a visit to Madison with my family and refused to come to school here because of a sign I saw hanging from a house reading “BUSH LIES.” As an embarrassingly liberal high school junior, I was dead set on coming to Madison because it seemed to be the political opposite of my hometown in northern Illinois.
But conservatives on UW’s campus hold more positions of power than I believed they would when I first arrived here. The movement was just beginning a resurgence in fall 2009 when President Barack Obama began his political doldrums and many Wisconsinites, even some from Madison, began to agree former Gov. Jim Doyle’s eight years had been a failure. Even our student government, the Associated Students of Madison, was being run by relatively conservative figures.
Johnny Koremenos, a current member of Student Council and this year’s College Republicans chair, is probably the most prominent conservative at UW. He is an active member of the Greek system, and the administration seems to love him enough to feature him on the university’s website. He has noticed the same pattern with conservative Badgers that I have noticed.
“We only target common sense conservative ideas … things that people aren’t divided on,” Koremenos told me. “We’re not these whack jobs some liberals make us out to be.”
Koremenos is right. Conservatives like him have abandoned traditional social issues like gay marriage and abortion that were once the base of campus Republican politics and instead have embraced the type of economic rhetoric that got Walker elected. He attributes this to a change in the College Republicans’ leadership recently, but I have noticed another reason for this: There simply are more conservatives on this campus than we realize.
In last year’s midterm elections, a Republican named Dave Redick ran for the District 77 Assembly seat against Ben Manski and Brett Hulsey, the west side Democrat who eventually won after a hard-fought campaign. Redick stuck out like a sore thumb in the race – he hilariously chastised several young audience members for laughing at his broadly-painted arguments about America’s fading dominance at an on-campus debate.
Going into the election, Redick was widely perceived as an insignificant also-ran in the ugly campaign between Hulsey and Manski. But miraculously, Redick took 18 percent of the vote, with much of it coming from UW’s Lakeshore and Southeast neighborhoods. As I was covering Hulsey’s party, I noticed his expression turn to a mixture of disbelief and concern as he learned Redick had taken about 28.5 percent of the vote in the Holt Commons precinct and 30 percent of the Gordon Commons vote.
Most of those votes for Redick were likely straight-ticket voters: Republicans who checked every Republican box without knowing about Redick’s laughable campaign. 30 percent is not a number to laugh at, and UW likely has many more conservative thinkers who do not vote than we would expect.
Public figures like Grothman, Walker and Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, who commonly deride UW’s perceived “progressive” influence on Madison’s character seem to ignore the huge numbers of conservatives who actually go to school here. During this year’s union protests, Grothman went on MSNBC and offensively described many of the protesters as a bunch of college students “having a big party” at the Capitol. How would the 30 percent of Republican voters feel about that kind of generalization?
I am not a conservative, but I have a hard time believing being a conservative in this city is as socially dangerous as being a Yankees fan in Boston or an American in France. Koremenos, a “common sense” guy with great political skills, is a perfect example of how even the most conservative Wisconsinites can fit here. So conservatives – stop complaining about Madison. You are not doing yourselves any favors.
Ryan Rainey ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism and Latin American studies.
