Compas led a recall petition drive against Sen. Fitzgerald, and she’s now declared her candidacy for the13th Sen. District. I’ve no idea how the race will go, but it will be worth following. (I’ve written a bit about Compas & Fitzgerald previously. See, Sen. Majority Leader Fitzgerald’s 12.19.11 Open Office.)
The always-solid Mary Spicuzza reports on Compas’s declaration at the State Journal, and relates a predictably oafish comment from Sen. Fitzgerald:
Unlike my opponent, I have a proven track record and a real plan to improve our business climate and create jobs
My opponent: Fitzgerald can’t use Compas’s name. That’s too funny. By now, she’s well-known. Fitzgerald’s a meat-and-potatoes man, and his press releases since 2011 have been monotone. He has only one style: hard-hitting, unleavened with any humor, wit, or ironic sensibility.
The story also reports an odd fact, I wouldn’t have guessed, about the candidates’ ages: Spicuzza reports that Compas is forty-one, and Fitzgerald is forty-eight. She looks younger, and he looks older, than their respective ages. I’ve never bothered to check Fitzgerald’s age, but he looks like a man in his late fifties, not his late forties.
Perhaps it’s just his manner, but whatever the reason, the apparent difference makes a generational point.
Months ago, at a party, someone asked me if the Whitewater Schools would conduct a genuine search for a high school principal. I said no: they’d take the interim principal, insist he was the only candidate, and make him the permanent high school principal.
(That’s exactly what happened Monday night, 2.27.12. There are many times that one would rather be wrong than be right about something.)
How would that be possible, I was then asked? Isn’t a search process supposed to have at least two candidates, so that the district would have a choice among possibilities? Well, of course it is, I replied, but there will be some sort of rationalization about having only one candidate.
And so there has been a rationalization, in the form of a new search standard: if there’s only one internal candidate, and the committees interviewing him don’t reject him, then he gets the job.
Very few people – especially on committees that insiders’ carefully select – are prepared to fight against complacency, even if that fight involves asking merely for two candidates from whom to choose.
Under the new standard, so as long as a sole candidate doesn’t start twitching uncontrollably, or begin barking like a dog, he’s sure to get the job.
There’s something funny about the insistence that three committees approved this single-candidate process, as though repetition could possibly be to the district’s credit.
On the contrary, the repetition three times of the same single-candidate process is evidence of how mediocre is the district’s approach, and how cloudy its board’s thinking.
It’s even more embarrassing that the district and its cheering section think that the board’s unanimous approval of a third-tier approach somehow absolves — anoints really — a single-candidate process.
Who thinks this way? People who think that if an authority puts its stamp on something, then it must be right.
If three hospitals insisted upon the benefits of bleeding with leeches, and the American Medical Association endorsed the practice, it would still be unsound.
This was an indolent process, in the place of a true, dedicated search.
Whitewater’s Tuesday brings a slight chance of rain or snow – no accumulation expected – and a high of thirty-nine.
This afternoon, Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:15 PM.
There’s an entry today from the Wisconsin about Victor Louis Berger, born on 2.28.1860:
On this date Victor Louis Berger was born in Nieder-Rehbach, Austria-Hungary. He arrived in the U.S. in 1878 where he became a Socialist, newspaperman, and Congressman. He migrated to Milwaukee in 1881 where he taught German. In the 1880s he became interested in social reform.
In 1889, along with like-minded German socialists, he abandoned the Socialist Labor party in favor of a more flexible approach to reform. In 1893 he became editor of the Wisconsin Vorwaerts, a Milwaukee-based German-language daily. He was also editor of the Social Democratic Herald from 1901-1902. Berger was instrumental in influencing Eugene V. Debs to declare in favor of socialism. He assisted Debs in forming the Social Democracy of America in 1897. Berger was the first Socialist representative to be elected to Congress, serving 1911-1913. He was known as the spiritual leader of Milwaukee socialism.
In January 1919 he was convicted on espionage charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The Society has published several books by or about Berger that you can learn about on our publications page. [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, SHSW 1960, pg. 33]
The Wisconsin Historical Society entry is unintentionally misleading for want of a full explanation – Berger wasn’t convicted for spying for a foreign power under the Espionage Act, but for his anti-war views. The Espionage Act made criminal anti-war speech that would be protected – and should be protected – today. In any event, his conviction was overturned, and he served in Congress in the 1920s. Wikipedia has an entry for Berger that offers more biographical information.
I’ve no support for Berger’s socialism, but he was hardly a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm.
Google’s daily puzzle is one of American constitutional history: “Had the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution been passed prior to the 1801 electoral tie, which candidate would’ve been out of a job?”
It’s almost tongue-in-cheek to talk about Gov. Scott Walker’s speaking style; virtually all Wisconsin has an opinion of him that rests on more than a manner of delivery.
And yet, and yet — Team Walker has, and has always had, national ambitions for their man. Walker may be traveling across the country to collect donations against a recall, but he means to represent a national movement, not simply to collect campaign contributions. There are critics within the state, and Republicans beyond it, who cannot imagine a national role for a governor who has elicited such controversy. They may be surprised.
If Walker should be recalled, he’ll have no national future. He’ll be no one’s martyr – it’s other Republicans who will criticize him then (to draw contrast to their own, professedly more adroit handling of budgets, unions, etc.)
If he’s retained, he’ll have a national presence (or at least the chance for one).
In late January, Gov. Walker delivered his second State of the State address at the Wisconsin Capitol. From that address one may assess Gov. Walker’s speaking style: he’s been in office for over a year, the speech is one for which he had time to prepare, and during it he experiences some of the ever-present heckling that has dogged him since his push against public-employee collective bargaining.
(Better than a friendly reception, an occasionally hostile one reveals a speaker’s natural ability to parry effectively. It’s an admirable talent, if uncommon among American politicians who mostly speak without interruption.)
Below I offer an assessment of Gov. Walker’s delivery. (As Walker debated Milwaukee Mayor Barrett during the 2010 election, I’ll consider his skill as a debater separately. For this post: How’s he as a speaker?)
Attire. Dark suit, blue shirt, red tie: conventional, and subdued without a white shirt. (Those seated behind him wear white shirts; Walker’s in the more muted look.) This was an effective choice; the fewer the contrasts in Walker’s attire, the better.
Manner. He’s confident in his manner. In this speech, he seems sure of himself.
Walker sometimes gently bobs his head, a few quick times in succession, after making what he believes is a sound point. It’s an odd and unnecessary habit, as though he’s agreeing with himself.
He also holds his thumb to his fingers the way Kennedy did, the way Clinton did in imitation of Kennedy, and how just about everyone nowadays is taught to use his hands. It’s the only kind of hand gesture that many speech coaches will allow. There could be no drinking game around the frequency of politicians’ overuse of the thumb-on cupped-fingers gesture; one would be blind-drunk after only a portion of a speech.
Throughout, Walker ignores hecklers from the gallery. He just keeps talking, or waits briefly. There’s no surprise that he’d be heckled, and so he had time to adopt a responsive tactic.
The common response to heckling is to speak more loudly, and to repeat what one has already said, in the belief heckling rendered some words unintelligible. That’s a mistake – the speaker (someone in authority, after all) only looks weak if he repeats himself or needs to shout.
Walker doesn’t make this mistake.
There are three effective responses to heckling: keep speaking in an even tone, spar with the heckler, or wait quietly. Even waiting quietly truly conveys strength – one waits until the heckler goes silent, and then begins – in the end, for all the heckler’s invective, the speaker’s words issue forth when the heckling torrent subsides. Deciding beforehand which one to use is important; one should know one’s plan, implement that plan with confidence, and substitute another tactic only if necessary.
Delivery. Steady, with almost no hesitation. It’s one tempo, one rhythm, all the way through. Gov. Walker uses a teleprompter, and delivers his remarks in the same way that anyone familiar in the use of those machines would. A variable cadence would be better – far more moving – but there are few politicians who speak that way, anymore. Most move at the same speed as Walker does in this State of the State address.
There’s room for a more natural approach, to be sure. Most of Gov. Walker’s opponents, however, would have delivered their speeches in the same way he has. He doesn’t get the benefit he would if he spoke with the changes in rhythm and tone of a more extemporaneous style, but he loses little with this delivery.
Rhetoric. There’s nothing stirring here, from a state that hasn’t had fine oratory in a long time. It’s more than sad that walker calls for the next generation to enjoy a state ‘at least as great’ as the present one. It’s like a Van Halen lyric in which David Lee Roth tries to assure a woman that he “ain’t the worst that she’s seen.” (If she’s someone likely to associate with David Lee, then he probably isn’t the worst that she’s seen.)
How many Democrats, though, are better rhetoricians? Walker’s at no disadvantage if no one’s better.
This is a workman-like performance, from a man who speaks as he governs: one speed, ahead.
Democrats may despise Walker, but they’ll not win on his terms, at his tempo. To win, a Democratic opponent will need to knock him off that pace. They’ll need a candidate who can get under his skin, force him to debate, and who can charm Wisconsin while setting him on edge. It can be done, but it cannot be done unless an opponent is alternately biting and funny.
Otherwise, Gov. Walker’s State-of-the-State approach well may be enough to win his retention.
A day of gradual clearing awaits Whitewater, with a high temperature of thirty-six.
At 4:30 PM today, Whitewater’s Community Development Authority will meet. Their principal topics: “Presentation on Analysis of Housing Supply in Whitewater and Employee Housing Survey by the UW-Whitewater Fiscal and Economic Research Center (Dr. Russ Kashian)” and “Review and Approval of Consulting Services Agreement with Redevelopment Resources for CDA Director Recruitment/Selection Process.”
On this day in 1991, President George H.W. Bush declared an end to the Gulf War. The New York Times headline was simple enough: “Bush Halts Offensive Combat; Kuwait Freed, Iraqis Crushed.”
In Wisconsin, February 27th, 1904 was a day of great loss:
1904 – Second State Capitol Burns
On this date fire destroyed the second State Capitol building in Madison. On the evening of the 26th, the generator was turned off for the night. The only lights visible were two gas jets serving the night watchman. At approximately 2 a.m., night watchman Nat Crampton smelled smoke and followed the odor to a recently varnished ceiling, already in flames. A second watchman arrived to assist, but there was no water pressure with which to operate a hose. The fire department encountered a similar situation upon arrival. Governor Robert M. La Follette telegraphed fire departments in Janesville and Milwaukee for assistance. La Follette was at the capitol, directing efforts to douse the fire and entering the burning building to retrieve valuable papers. The fire was completly extinguished by 10 p.m. the next day. Losses were estimated to be close to $1 million.
Source: Wisconsin Historical Society.
The Academy Awards are over, but Google basks in the afterglow with a film-related daily puzzle: “The highway that runs through Rachel, Nevada draws enthusiasts who probably enjoy what movie genre?”
We’re a place of natural beauty, but a beauty yet augmented through our own, often agricultural, efforts. Our farming – big and small — is the envy of all America.
One need look no father than a new website, Wisconsin Happy Farm, to see the wonders awaiting at hobby farm. I’ve a screen shot of the website, and a description of it thereafter. It was my pleasure to learn of this web-based experience of hobby farming, as it will be to visit frequently. Take a look around the site – I’m quite sure you’ll enjoy what you find.
Hi everyone! Welcome to our new blog: The Wisconsin Happy Farm. We hope to fill it with stories and photos of farm animals, gardening, art and small-acre farming activities. We’ll have a few products to sell and we’ll even take a few off-site trips to learn from our Wisconsin neighbors and other farming friends.
Taking a trip and need something to entertain the kids? This blog is for you! Sick of winter and want to see something green? Here we are! Just love animals of all variety and want to see them frolic in the sun? We do too. This spring, we will grow: veggies, flowers and the content of this blog.
Ours is a virtual experience, so it can be enjoyed at anytime from anywhere, but we can also serve as a porthole, a window into the magic of Wisconsin and all it has to offer. Come with us on this journey.
Last weekend, Whitewater held its 2012 Freeze Fest polar plunge for the Special Olympics. It’s become a tradition in Whitewater, and this year’s plunge had more participants & more spectators than ever, successfully raising thousands for a worthy cause, while showing all involved a great time.
