Whitewater’s winter is not over quite yet. Friday looks to be a day of rain and snow, with a high temperature of thirty-nine.
On this day in 1877, “Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.”
Today in Wisconsin history, in 1953, former
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold was born in Janesville, Wisconsin. Feingold graduated from Janesville Craig High School in 1971. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975 and attended Magdalen College in Oxford, England as a Rhodes Scholar. He received a graduate degree in 1977 and graduated from Harvard University Law School in 1979.
He was admitted to the Wisconsin bar in 1979 and practiced law in Madison, Wisconsin from 1979-1985. He served as a visiting professor at Beloit College 1985 and a member of the Wisconsin State Senate from 1983 to 1993. Feingold was elected in 1992 as a Democrat to the United States Senate, reelected in 1998 and in 2004 for the term ending January 3, 2011. [Source:Biographical Directory of the United States Congress].
Google’s daily puzzle is about Paris, a dance hall, and a 19th century artist: “What Parisian dance hall made famous a very short poster artist of the late 19th century?”
Embedded below is a video of recall-organizer-turned-candidate Lori Compas declaring against Sen. Majority Leader Fitzgerald in Wisconsin’s 13th District. Despite Sen. Fitzgerald’s numerous challenges to petition signatures, I’d guess a recall election in his district will happen.
(It’s a partisan video, from SSWIDTMS. Compas’s remarks are my only interest; the origin of the video isn’t important to me. )
After her formal speech, she makes a few additional remarks near the end of the video. I’ll not offer commentary now, except to say what anyone can see – she’s a natural, unaffected speaker.
I don’t live in the 13th District, but of the many Wisconsin races this year (president, US senator, a gubernatorial recall, senatorial recalls, legislative races, and local elections), I think this race may be among the most interesting.
Among the Democrats who might challenge Gov. Walker is one who challenged him in 2010. Milwaukee’s Mayor Tom Barrett ran and lost in a 1,128,941 to 1,004,303 tally.
Barrett may run against Walker in a recall, so here’s an assessment of Barrett and Walker as debaters in the 2010 campaign. There’s more to write, another time, about Barrett’s chances in a Democratic primary (very good, despite Kathleen Falk’s many union endorsements) and his chances in a rematch against Walker (as good or better than any other Democrat).
This debate took place on 10.15.2010 at Marquette Law School’s Eckstein Hall.
Manner. Both seem confident, but Barrett more so. Milwaukee’s mayor is more relaxed, and more conversational.
Delivery. Barrett speaks easily and smoothly, but he would do better if he were to emphasize key points with changes in tone. A sharper tone, a greater intensity, would benefit to him.
Walker needs to speak more slowly than he does here, with a bit less intensity. Candidate Walker’s approach was useful (to convey urgency), but Wisconsin’s on a knife-edge in 2012. It’s not incumbent Gov. Walker, but a recall challenger, who needs to convey a sense of urgency now.
Clash. Clash in a debate is a good thing. It doesn’t mean incivility; it simply means that the debaters respond directly to each other’s contentions. A debate without clash is one where the debaters talk past each other, each with his or her own topics, often little more than platitudes.
There is productive clash in this debate, throughout. With a difference, however: Walker begins answers with a single-sentence summary, and then elaborates. It’s effective. Barrett, by contrast, often takes two or three sentences to make his initial point. That’s too long. Walker’s like someone who was taught to begin every paragraph with a topic sentence. It’s a useful technique.
There’s a ‘things to come’ moment in this debate, too. Listen to candidate Walker at 11:39 in the video, and you’ll hear him hit public employees as the source of Milwaukee County’s fiscal problems. Walker never proposes — and never proposed during the campaign — changes in Wisconsin’s collective bargaining rights for public employees. But he does call public employees the ‘haves’ in contrast to others, the ‘have-nots.’ Barrett responds tepidly, in an unfocused way, to Walker’s firm and direct assessment.
The election result would have been the same despite a different answer from Barrett, but neither one of these men would have a margin for a lukewarm reply now.
Attire. No one should go into a debate thinking about how to dress; attire should be a matter of instinct. No matter how much people insist on substance, some appearances matter greatly to people, however. They’ll forgive natural appearance in a way they won’t forgive sloppiness, signs of exhaustion, or nervousness.
Both these men are dressed similarly, although Walker wears a darker suit, of a color that conveys intensity. Neither one wears his two-button coat as well as Mike Gousha wears a three-button one. (Admittedly, a three-button one fits more closely.) Walker’s coat collar rides above his shirt collar, and Barrett’s coat is bunched near his shoulders. A two-button coat is still the standard for men in politics, but it’s sometimes hard to wear one at a seated at table.
The coat should rest on the shirt collar. These gentlemen shouldn’t have to worry about that; a campaign should have someone to look after this sort of thing.
I’ve never thought much of flags on lapels, but they have become a required accessory for both major parties. There’s a message in these candidates’ choices: Walker wears a flag, Barrett a ribbon that has the flag’s stars and stripes. Walker’s is the more traditional; Barrett’s the more specific (in support of soldiers aboard).
Both are fine, and it was sensible of Barrett to wear a version. (Some voters find the lapel flags reassuring. Barrett likely reassured some disinclined to him, and meaningfully unsettled no one inclined to him, by wearing one.)
There’s been so much talk about the half-hearted campaign Barrett ran in 2010. I’ve shared that view. Watching the debate again with fresh eyes, now, I find that Barrett does well, but needs an increase in intensity. If he summons that, he’d do well in a rematch.
Walker, in this 2010 debate, is the same as his political persona since: single-minded, succinct, one-speed, ahead. There’s room for change, but he’ll easily satisfy is supporters, should there ever be debates during a recall election.
The real question here, for Democrats: Do you really think union-endorsed Kathleen Falk would do better than Barrett in this environment? I’d say you’re greatly mistaken if you do. Barrett (or Kathleen Vinehout) would convey greater energy and enthusiasm than Falk.
Democrats may think the world of Falk (and some do), but a campaign’s neither a gold watch nor a certificate of appreciation.
Whitewater’s had a mild winter, and March begins here with a mostly cloudy day and a high of forty-one. Farther north, in places like Merrill, Wisconsin, it’s been a time of digging out from a heavy snowfall. In their part of the world, Punxsutawney Phil‘s forecast of six more weeks of winter looks about right.
The Wisconsin Historical Society lists a few Badger State accomplishments for March 1st:
1838 – First School in Madison
On this date the first school opened in Madison. The school was located in the front end of Isaac H. Palmer’s log cabin on the corner of what is now King and Doty streets, near the Capitol. Miss Louisa Brayton was hired to instruct pupils for $2 a week, half of which was spent on room and board.
1924 – Astronaut “Deke” Slayton Born
On this date astronaut Donald Kent “Deke” Slayton was born in Sparta. He graduated from Sparta High School and received a bachelor of science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1949. Slayton entered the Air Force as an aviation cadet and received his wings in April 1943 after completing flight training at Vernon and Waco, Texas. During World War II, he flew 56 combat missions in Europe as a B-25 pilot with the 340th Bombardment Group and later joined the 319th Bombardment Group in Okinawa and flew seven combat missions over Japan in A-26s.
Slayton was one of the original seven Project Mercury astronauts selected in April 1959 but did not make a space flight until 1975. He was assigned to fly the second Project Mercury orbital mission, but was grounded by an irregular heart beat. Slayton made his first space flight as Apollodocking module pilot of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. From December 1975 through November 1977, Slayton served as Manager for Approach and Landing Test Project. Slayton retired from NASA in 1982. Slayton died of brain cancer on June 13, 1993 in League City, Texas. [Source: NASA]
1985 – Kohl purchases Bucks
On this day in 1985 Milwaukee businessman and future United States Senator Herb Kohl purchased the Milwaukee Bucks for 18 million dollars. By 1999 the team was worth an estimated 100 million dollars. [Source: Harvard Business School Bulletin, December 1999
Forbeslists the Bucks’ worth over $250 million today.
In Google’s daily puzzle, a little geography, a little anthropology: “What tribe has lived since 1300 AD near the canyon you’d explore from Bright Angel Trail?”
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?”
