Another reason why the 2010 Wisconsin elections mattered

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Friday June 10, 2011 · 9:19 AM PDT

2011/06/10 · 09:19

Most of us by now know the horror that is the 'Fitzwalkerstan', but what has not been talked about since the 2010 elections here in Wisconsin is how the Republican led legislature is now in charge of redistricting. Remember that only 3 years ago, Wisconsin gave Obama a double digit victory here, had a Democratic governor, a Democratic majority in the state senate and narrow deficit in the state house. Fast forward to 2010-11 and we have a Republican governor and Republicans in charge of both the senate and house. Presently the Congressional delegation is split 5-3 Republican, but has been 5-3 Democratic or 4-4 in recent years. What if the Democrats had won again in 2010 and were in charge of the redistricting process? Well, this is my attempt through Dave's Redistricting App to perform the "what if".

minvis

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Wednesday April 20, 2011 · 1:19 PM PDT

2011/04/20 · 13:19

Just got this via the Recall Darling facebook page. Looks like they may be turning in their signatures.

minvis

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Sunday February 27, 2011 · 9:01 PM PST

2011/02/27 · 21:01

It's semi-open as I actually went onto the White House website and wrote this to the President of the United States. We'll see what the response is, if any. I wrote this letter or comment or whatever you want to call it as I struggled for a way to convey my thoughts and feelings after going with my family to Madison, Wisconsin yesterday. It felt wonderful to be around so many people who believed that standing up for not only their own rights but for the collective rights of the many was strong enough and important enough to brave snow and temperatures in the teens. And it also was inspiring to know that these people, regular people, like my family have continued this fight for two weeks now. They are and will continue to be an inspiration to me, my wife and my son.

Below is my short plea to the President to join us.

Poll

0 votes Show Results

0 votes Vote Now!

New Feingold Internal Poll - Statistical Dead Heat

minvis

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Tuesday October 12, 2010 · 11:12 AM PDT

2010/10/12 · 11:12

Just wanted to share a Feingold internal poll that I received from the campaign via e-mail.

Definite Voters October 7, 10-11

Feingold 43%
Lean Feingold 5% TOTAL 48%
Johnson 45%
Lean Johnson 3% TOTAL 48%
(Don’t Know) 4%

This was from Paul Maslin's polling outfit. It was, according to the memo, the 90% of the 600 likely voters polled who said they were definite voters. It also mentions that Feingold has been leading among all likely voters since the middle of last week.

Even if you account for a 4% "house effect" for internal polls, this race is still within reach and all the more reason to double and triple our efforts at getting out the vote in 3 weeks. Also, this poll was done before last night's debate where Feingold called out Johnson to stop with 3rd party advertising on his behalf.

GOTV! GOTV now!

I'll be doing my part canvassing over these next 3 weeks, but phone banking, contributing, whatever you can do, do it now!

The man behind Blago or How I learned to love the Chicago Machine

minvis

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Sunday December 14, 2008 · 9:32 PM PST

2008/12/14 · 21:32

As many of you have seen here with the Blagojevich indictment, the Chicago political scene is a tangled web of back scratching, greased palms and Machiavellian maneuvers and counter maneuvers. Blago is just another in a long line of corrupt politicians emanating from the tenaciously held patronage leaden system that is the City of Chicago, County of Cook and State of Illinois.

Well, the story of the rise (if you want to call it that) and fall of one Mr. Rod Blagojevich must start out with his political and patronage mentor. His own father-in-law, Richard (Dick) Mell, alderman from the 33rd Ward of Chicago and a local politician who can trace his start back to the mid-70's at the end of Richard J. Daley's reign. Follow me below the fold to the sometimes sordid, always twisting and interrelated web that is known as the "Chicago Machine".

minvis

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Monday November 24, 2008 · 3:08 PM PST

2008/11/24 · 15:08

Early voting is here to stay. That being said, there were many problems - long lines, not enough voting sites, not enough machines - which fortunately can be fixed. These will have to be fixed before the next national election in 2012. Some of these problems can be attributed to the localities not being prepared for the onslaught of these early voters. This was after all the first presidential election that had widespread early voting available. On top of that, we had a campaign (Obama) that made a huge effort to not only register more voters, but a coordinated GOTV effort for both early and election day voting.

But beyond being unprepared, we had other Secretaries of State (Republicans) in some battleground states trying to suppress turnout by making it as hard as possible to early vote. This was done by limiting the amount of early voting sites, limiting the hours/days it was available, and refusing to open up more sites when it became clear that people were waiting up to 8 hours to vote. (Hello, Ms. Handel in Georgia! Thank you, Gov. Crist.)

Poll

30 votes Show Results

Should early voting be mandated by the federal government for all federal elections?

30 votes Vote Now!

Should early voting be mandated by the federal government for all federal elections?

Yes, early voting should be mandatory

20 votes

No, leave it up to each of the states

3 votes

Maybe, it depends on the mandates

5 votes

Eat Pie

2 votes

More Florida Early Voter Numbers

minvis

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Thursday October 30, 2008 · 1:38 PM PDT

2008/10/30 · 13:38

By now, most of us have probably gone to the various early voting tracking websites like this one.

http://elections.gmu.edu/...

It's great to go there for some overall state early voting information, but it's only good for a general understanding of early voting. I've been tracking the Florida numbers this past week mainly because each night they update their numbers for each county. This allows you to drill into the numbers to see where the early voters are coming from. It also allows you to see the daily ebb and flow of the early voting electorate and where they are coming from.

https://doe.dos.state.fl.us/...

minvis

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Friday October 24, 2008 · 9:33 AM PDT

2008/10/24 · 09:33

As many of us here in non-battleground states like Illinois, I've been following the early voting numbers from states like North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio and Florida as I'm sure others have as well. We've seen the large and consistent African-American vote that keeps coming in from North Carolina and Georgia and the 2-1, 3-1 Democratic turnout in some areas. Well, I've been wondering if this is a portent to a potential Obama landslide. I've looked at some of the preliminary numbers out of Florida. Follow me below the fold for the results.

minvis

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Tuesday September 30, 2008 · 12:43 PM PDT

2008/09/30 · 12:43

Obama has surpassed McCain in the latest Public Policy Polling Florida poll.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/...

The crosstabs are very interesting and I'll go into more detail below the fold.

minvis

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Monday August 11, 2008 · 3:08 PM PDT

2008/08/11 · 15:08

I live in Illinois, but my father has a summer home in western Michigan about 20 miles north of Muskegon. Before I got up there, I was interested in helping out the Obama campaign up there. I was talking with my sister, who was up there as well, and she said that she wanted to help too when I got there. This was surprising since my sister has never been very interested in politics and certainly not interested about a presidential candidate as long as I remember. BTW, I'm 43 years old so my memory goes back to at least Nixon-McGovern in 1972. Needless to say, I was happy to hear about her interest, so I contacted the campaign at their local office in Muskegon Heights to see what we could do.

I'm used to canvassing door-to-door, so I was up for doing that and again I was surprised when my sister said she was willing to do that too. For someone who has not been involved in politics to not only volunteer, but also have the nerve to go door-to-door, was truly astonishing and obviously a testament to Barack Obama and his campaign that inspired her to do this.

minvis

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Saturday May 03, 2008 · 9:57 PM PDT

2008/05/03 · 21:57

Several of us from Chicago and Evanston made the trek across the border to northwest Indiana. I was part of a small group from our Northside DFA group and we met up at the Democratic Party of Evanston to jointly car pool down to Schererville. I was one of the first to arrive in Evanston, as I biked there from neighboring Skokie. I wasn't expecting anything special, just twenty or thirty volunteers. Boy, was I wrong!

Let me just say that the Democratic Party of Evanston office is just a little storefront off the beaten path. It could probably comfortably hold 30-40 people. Well, let's just say that shortly after arrived more and more people came in. There were people of all ages, colors and by the end, the little storefront held about 75 or more people in there. This included about a dozen Northwestern University students, a mother who said she had never volunteered for a presidential candidate until now, an older husband and wife who felt they needed to get involved now. It was truly inspirational seeing all these committed people and this is coming from someone who has volunteered and canvassed on many campaigns previously.

minvis

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Thursday May 01, 2008 · 11:52 AM PDT

2008/05/01 · 11:52

The North Carolina primary is the last primary of the 2008 season to assign over 100 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. It also represents an opportunity for Obama to make up the net delegates lost to Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania and a chance to make up a good portion of the 200,000 net votes lost to Clinton last Tuesday. While I know that "Scott in NJ" already posted his prediction of the congressional district breakdown of delegates, I wanted to look at it a little differently.

First, I wanted to see where each candidate may be able to pick up ground depending on the turnout of different demographic groups. We all know by now that Obama's key demographics have been African Americans, which he has been getting at a 90% - 10% clip, younger voters, regardless of gender, and men. Clinton's key demographics have women, mostly over 50, men or women over 65, and those that make under $50,000 a year. Also, I wanted to look at each district from a regional, educational and political philosophy perspective and who that may help or hurt.

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Another reason why the 2010 Wisconsin elections mattered

Wisconsin State Senate Recall #5?

My semi-open letter to the President

New Feingold Internal Poll - Statistical Dead Heat

The man behind Blago or How I learned to love the Chicago Machine

Early Voting: Here to Stay!

More Florida Early Voter Numbers

UPDATED x2 Florida Early Voting Numbers: Are we seeing the beginnings of a landslide?

New PPP Florida Poll O: 49 M:46

My day for Barack in a blue city in a red district

My day in Northwest Indiana for Obama

North Carolina Primary Scenarios