Politics from a Political Science dude

A friend who runs a football pool I'm in is a political scientists at the UW and had a wonderful write-up yesterday. We have been stressing that he should publish his text but ney.

So if you are leaning right you can skip this.

The polling for the Democrats in Wisconsin has consistently shown a slight but outside the margin of error lead for the Democrats in 2018 here in Wisconsin.  Tammy has had a fairly consistent 10+ point lead on both Vukmir and Nicholson.  And Scott Walker fatigue is setting in.  Winning a third term is not easy (yet Tommy Thompson won FOUR terms), and historically a losing Presidential campaign typically burns up any political Capital Governors have back home, and Walker’s numbers only ever slightly recovered after he shut down his Presidential campaign here in Wisconsin.  After drastically cutting funding for public schools and the University of Wisconsin School system he is now actually running on the message of being the “Education Governor”.  While I will be voting for Kelda Roys early this week, I expect Tony Evers to be the nominee and he is the Wisconsin State Superintendent of Schools and Walker’s “Education Governor” meme was always based on the presumption that Evers would be the nominee and the GOP is trying to neutralize Evers on the very issue where he is strongest.  Our primary is August 14th.

But we thought we were going to be fine against Scott Walker before and fell short.  I place nearly all of the blame on Milwaukee County (and GOP voter suppression efforts there) that saw voter turnout plummet (especially urban black Milwaukee County voters) in 2016, allowing Trump to win the state by 20,000+ or so votes, and allowing Ron “super genius” Johnson to upset Russ Feingold for the Senate seat.  And the problem in Milwaukee county extended to this springs Wisconsin Supreme Court race where the Progressive Rebecca Dallett defeated an absolutely putrid GOP nominee Michael Schrenock.  What still alarms me about that wonderful election is that Dane County (Madison) had a larger voter turnout in actual numbers than Milwaukee county and Milwaukee County is far and away the most populous county in the state.  While it is tremendous that Dane county, the Progressive core of the state is so mobilized, the fact remains that Dane County should not generate more votes than Milwaukee County in raw vote totals like they just did in this Spring’s Supreme Court race.  So while I am cautiously optimistic for this fall in Wisconsin, I am not doing any happy dances yet to be certain.  Milwaukee County needs to wake up and start voting again if the Democrats are going to make progress on the statewide level.

I am also eyeing a couple of the House races that are sort of under the radar but could get interesting.  Glenn Grothman, the repulsive racist homophobe is showing signs of weakness in the district that has been Republican since I first was able to vote in 1980 (Oshkosh and Fond du Lac are the largest population centers in the 6th CD).  The Democrat nominee will be Dan Kohl, nephew of former Senator Herb Kohl, and his fundraising is outpacing Grothman’s by a considerable margin.  In fact. Grothman’s fundraising has been so anemic the House Republicans are sending up alarm flares over this race.   Have not seen polling out of the 6th CD yet, but Kohl will clearly have the resources to run a viable campaign this fall with 98 days to go.

And of course Paul Ryan’s open House seat is a slugathon.  Randy “Ironstache” Bryce appears on track to win the Democratic nomination against an aggressive primary opponent Cathy Myers, who has gone negative on Bryce, who has almost entirely focused on the GOP and Trump and Ryan’s failed leadership.  Bryce is a fundraising juggernaut, well over a million dollars raised and even Emily’s List has not allowed Myers to keep up with his fundraising.  I just hope she doesn’t cause him to spend so much in the primary that he is reduced to meager funds for the fall election effort.  The expected GOP nominee will be Bryan Steil, who is a bland man of few accomplishments unless chauffeuring Paul Ryan around the district when he is in Wisconsin is an accomplishment.  But the Big buck sugar daddies & mommies here in the state have anointed Steil as their guy, so I expect him to win the GOP nomination walking away.

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The Brewers picked up a slick fielding second basemen which is weird and as Council said last night the Crew will have to get creative.  It seems Schoop, a 2017 All-Star was too good to pass up so lets take a look.

Schoop is a very very good fielder with very good range. A typical power hitting Brewer that strikes out a lot and hits into a lot of double plays (like everybody on the team) but when he elevates the ball it goes places.  Expect 25ish home runs. The one thing is this guy is an every day player and has missed only 2 games in the last 2 years. 

 Can't bunt, can't hit and run but is "ok" on the base paths. He comes from another  home run ball park so no change there.  The one thing that helps is he is right handed and his career numbers shows he hits RHP well so platoon is a viable thing. 

Then at 3B we have Moustakas who is almost an identical fielder to Shaw at 3B.  Big, VERY slow, poor against LHP and hits into a TON of double plays. HOWEVER - he comes from Kansas City a pitchers park so his HR total will go up. 

and we still have Shaw. 

Pitching the Brewers picked up  Joakim Soria.  Remember how good Kneble was last year?  Soria is better. When it comes to the bullpen, ERA is a meaningless stat but his FIP is outstanding.  Soria is a closer and I feel the Brewers sort of have four (4) closer's at the moment.  Soria is a ground ball pitcher as opposed to Kneble a fly ball pitcher so I don't THINK Miller Park will be a big issue with giving up HRs.

So there ya go. Brewers are tied for 1st place and we shall see what happens next.

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Meanwhile - floating in the Pacific 73 years ago today the horrors started for real.  The survivors of the Indianapolis have been in the water for 3 days with no food or water and hallucinations are starting to creep in.  Some sailors are drinking the sea water and having a horrible death.

For 50 years the families of the survivors, in low hush conversations, have always talked about how they thought there were things not being mentioned about the ordeal at sea.  Now things are coming to light. 

What a nightmare because the crew is hallucinating and a few are turning to cannibalism to get liquid (not many but . . how many do you need) and there are other things going on in the separate groups now spread out over 60 miles.  My FIL was in a small group a floaters without a raft or net.  One problem is that when someone dies they don't sink. They just float with everybody else.

The Navy blunders continue to pile up.  The Indianapolis was suppose to go over a line, like in aircraft that go from one towers control to another.  When the Indianapolis failed to acknowledge a radio transmission they decided to wait until the Indy contacted THEM. 

Then when the plotters who keep track of military ships assumed the Indianapolis crossed the line to the other control, they just erased the Indy and assumed the other controllers would take over.  The other controllers did not know this so . . . the Indianapolis vanished from all plotting. 

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Here is a funny story.  I wish Chief Miester was still reading this blog (he read it every morning) as he would get a chuckle.

In Waupon a stoner dude was golfing and asked a foursome if they wanted to get high.  WELL, one of the foursome was the Chief of Police who informed him it was bad timing.  The stoner dude started to run but stopped and was walking back and stuck the bag of pot down his pants - one small problem. 

His zipper was open and the bag fell out his zipper. THAT, is also bad timing LOL 

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Did you see this new walkway in Vietnam? so awesome cool.  I wish the American government and Columbus for that matter was open for more art.

              

I think Columbus needs something like this. It would draw more people here and we would have a REAL tourist attraction and reason to visit.  Better then an old water tower nobody ever looks at that cost a LOT of money to save.

We could have used that money for a bike path that actually would have been useful to families who look to move here.

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WEATHER - the only change is in the far out forecast. After Sunday the temps go down to the low 80s . Maybe some storms tonight around 11 and Monday into Tuesday. All else is the same.  Warm weekend. Upper 80s

Cheers