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Monthly Archives: October 2014

Elections, Gubernatorial Race 2014, Politics, Poll

The Marquette Poll for 10.1.14

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The latest Marquette Law School Poll is out today, with just over a month before the gubernatorial election.  The last poll was 9.17.14. 

The 10.1.14 poll has Walker 50, Burke 45 with likely voters, and 46-45 to Walker’s favor among registered voters. 

The race is now just outside the poll’s statistical margin of error.

I’ve thought that the most important local issue in Whitewater will be, paradoxically, the statewide gubernatorial race; I still think so.  The schools referendum – no matter how important as policy – isn’t nearly so attention-getting. 

Still, even with limited local election data, one could construct a reasonable upper and lower limit for the referendum’s chances.  Results from the district’s communities in statewide races over the last few years, checked against referendum voting in relation to party voting during the most recent spring referendum, would give (I think) the rough boundaries of a referendum’s high and low levels.

Hardly a model, but still a reasoned approach, let’s say.

Why would upper and lower limits matter? 

There’s a good reason: although the referendum will sail on statewide currents, there will be an independent local influence, too.  It’s not as though nothing said locally will matter.

If it should be true that the vote is likely to be close, and likely to be close because the November 4th statewide contests will limit a lopsided result one way or the other, then a remaining question is how persuadable local voters will be on the referendum question.

If it’s likely to be lopsided persuasion won’t matter; if it’s a fixed and decided electorate persuasion will matter little. 

A close race and a persuadable electorate will make advocacy more important than it would be otherwise.

I’ll always favor high-quality, high-octane advocacy – more information of good quality benefits a community.

It’s worth crunching prior election results over the next week, to estimate the limits of the vote, and consequently the importance of solid advocacy. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.1.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

A new month begins, with partly cloudy skies and a high of seventy-one. Sunrise is 6:52 AM and sunset 6:36 PM. We’ll have a first quarter moon this afternoon.

On this day in 1890, an act of Congress creates Yosemite National Park:

Yosemite National Park … is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in the central eastern portion of the U.S. state of California. The park, which is managed by the National Park Service, covers an area of 747,956 acres (3,026.87 km2)[2] and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain.[5] Over 3.7 million people visit Yosemite each year:[3] most spend their time in the seven square miles (18 km2) of Yosemite Valley.[6] Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity.[6] Almost 95% of the park is designated wilderness.[7] Yosemite was central to the development of the national park idea. First, Galen Clark and others lobbied to protect Yosemite Valley from development, ultimately leading to President Abraham Lincoln’s signing the Yosemite Grant in 1864. Later, John Muir led a successful movement to establish a larger national park encompassing not just the valley, but surrounding mountains and forests as well – paving the way for the United States national park system.[8]

Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of plants and animals. The park has an elevation range from 2,127 to 13,114 feet (648 to 3,997 m) and contains five major vegetation zones: chaparral/oak woodland, lower montane forest, upper montane forest, subalpine zone, and alpine. Of California’s 7,000 plant species, about 50% occur in the Sierra Nevada and more than 20% within Yosemite. There is suitable habitat or documentation for more than 160 rare plants in the park, with rare local geologic formations and unique soils characterizing the restricted ranges many of these plants occupy.[6]

The geology of the Yosemite area is characterized by granitic rocks and remnants of older rock. About 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and then tilted to form its relatively gentle western slopes and the more dramatic eastern slopes. The uplift increased the steepness of stream and river beds, resulting in formation of deep, narrow canyons. About 1 million years ago, snow and ice accumulated, forming glaciers at the higher alpine meadows that moved down the river valleys. Ice thickness in Yosemite Valley may have reached 4,000 feet (1,200 m) during the early glacial episode. The downslope movement of the ice masses cut and sculpted the U-shaped valley that attracts so many visitors to its scenic vistas today.[6]

Google-a-Day asks a baseball question:

One of the greatest baseball players of all time was banned from the game for life after he and seven other players accepted bribes to throw a game in what year?