Good morning,
Today’s forecast calls for a chance of flurries, with a high of twenty-six degrees. (Yesterday, the National Weather Service predicted an accumulation of only one to three inches, and we exceeded that range. The NWS owes Whitewater a couple of inches and a few sunny days by way of compensation.)
In the City of Whitewater today, there are two municipal meetings. From 4:15 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., there’s a meeting of Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission. The agenda is available online.
Later, at 6:30 p.m., there’s a meeting of Whitewater’s Common Council. That agenda is also available online.
Mickey Kaus has a post at Kausfiles (now at the online Newsweek) that asks, “Are We Sure ‘Civility’ Will Help the Democrats?” He suggests that so-called civility many help incumbent…Republicans. I think he’s right. Kaus writes:
But now that they’ve won the House in an off year election, GOP pols don’t need to please the base so much. They need the middle. They need swing congressmen to vote for their bills and they need supportive poll numbers to encourage those congressmen to do so. If a “civility” crusade succeeds in getting the most volatile Republicans to cool it and stop irritating the center, it won’t be doing Obama’s work for him. It will be doing John Boehner’s work for him.
America has always been a place of robust rhetoric and polemics. A milder tone may seem self-satisfying, but it won’t help the out-of-power party retake the House (or the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate, for that matter). Scoring points now doesn’t assure an out-of-power party of winning votes in ’12. For voters to change their minds about a House Republican majority, they’ll have to think something’s wrong with Republicans, and that requires, I think, a more pointed approach than so-called civility allows.