Today, constant reader, the lovely "invisible woman" and the not-so-lovely "Mr Fantastic" will be pleased as proverbial punch to provide the particulars of polling in our perfectly proud and patriotic city.
Lord how I loves me some alliteration.
I am overjoyed to report that if the old adage of high turnout favoring the challenger is true (blue), then the Walker/Koch sycophant known as David "the turd" Prosser will be folding faster than Superman on laundry day. As quantification I offer not only word of mouth observation, but also personal experience.
News is around town that as early as 8:00 a.m. the lines around many City of Madison precincts were extending down the blocks of their specific sites. Moreover, consider the following: when yer pal, "MF", voted in the disastrous November mid-term, he was voter #42 at approximately 9:00 a.m.
Today at 8:45 a.m., "MF" was voter #257.
Can turnout be that high? Could it remain at about 6 times the rate of November all across the state? I very much doubt THAT, but consider this: If the voters can achieve a turnout rate of 65% in Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, LaCrosse, Wausau, and Steven's point...barring some sort of devilish Koch-brother's action pulled from a truly fetid bag o' dirty tricks... she will win.
"IW/MF" heard on Saturday night, via a tea-party-esque acquaintance that he knows Prosser will likely lose. He claimed that one of his friends works for a GOP Assemblyman, and that this friend was saying that Prosser's internal numbers were "dismal". What's more, Prosser blames the usual suspects (rather than his own flaws and Walkoch's dramatic political overreaching) for his potential loss. You know, the "liberal" (WTF?) media, the unions, and 3rd party ads that Kloppenburg won't demand be removed.
So... we will keep you updated. Look for updates after the jump!
Update #1:
It seems that the precincts all over Madison have been busy as hell. I talked to a number of folks at lunch who were wearing "I voted" stickers and everyone I spoke to from different districts all reported that if they voted after 8 a.m. they were already in the 200's. It would be nice to call up some districts...later after the last Kloppenburg visibility deal, I will stop by my blue-collar neighborhood and checjk the numbers. We will share that number.
A potential problem or two. I see a lot of twenty, thirty, and forty-somethings voting along with the older folks and boomers (Gods love 'em). BUT I have yet to see a lot of EARLY twenty-somethings voting. So MF does hereby declare:
KIDS! GET YOURSELVES OUT OF CLASS, PUT AWAY THE BONG (BEER OR OTHERWISE) & GET THEE TO THE POLLS!
We absolutely need the kids to vote. If you fellow Kossacks know any Student age folk in WI call them NOW and make sure they vote for Kloppenburg!
One other fear: If these numbers hold up (re: turnout), I would guess that ballots might become scarce. I'll try and do some legwork and try to ascertain if this is a real concern, but you all recall in OH, circa 2004 (Bush v Kerry) that ballots in DEM strongholds/districts we under-delivered, while red districts had all they could ever need.
Keep your eyes out Kossacks!
Look for #2 in a bit!!!
UPDATE #2: Or Will We Get the KIDS to VOTE?!
Mr Fantastic is leaving the Baxter Building to run downtown for a FINAL Kloppenburg visibility effort at the (if you know campus) Library mall. We have our sandwich board signs, and information on how to get to polling places. This will be crucial. We need the kids to GOTV to counter conservative elements in rural (northern) areas where unions aren't as revered, and everyone knows a peevish scrawny guy whose glasses are bigger than his balls...and feels sorry for him, no less.
You will get another update in a couple of hours, but first this, something I found down our diary a bit, about a Right-winger complaining about today:
"Immediately outside of Madison in town of Middleton, just after 9:00am I was voter 600....my husband went within a half hour of me and he was 701. This is a huge turnout for an off-election....the town has become increasingly liberal as more and more leftists leave their created “utopia” in Madison as it becomes less and less livable when lofty ideals don't square with the reality they created. The last few elections our polling place has been heavily Dem so today's voting isn't good for our side. "
Also, I tried to find about about ballot availability, and nothing has surfaced suggesting anything untoward.
The lack of student voting, BTW suggests to me (a hack political analyst if ever there was one) that Mayor Dave might be on the ropes. We'll see.
Stay STRONG! Remember the Thing's Battle Cry:
"It's KLOPPENBURG time!"
....or somethin' like that! ;)
UPDATE #3, or How the Race was Run:
Just got back from the final Kloppenburg visibility effort and IW just got back checking on our precinct numbers. Are ye sitting down? Can ya handle some good news pilgrim?
At ward 11, as of ~6:30 p.m. we had about 1450 votes cast with a line the size of my appetite for silly alliterations stretching down the hall, and that's sayin' somethin'! Wheee! There is an effort on all sides. Union cab is giving rides for free for anyone going to the polls. There was one such cab dropping off someone when I got there. I spoke to a poll worker (a retired librarian from Hawthorne school) who said that she had never seen anything like this for a spring election -ever! Don't worry about ballot availability, though. She did say they were prepared and had enough ballots.
From the bridge on University - where we were doing our visibility effort, we had lots of cars honking and thumbs up, but the students gave us mixed reviews. In fact, it seemed like more apathy than anything else. We called to them to remind them to vote, though. Brett Hulsey (Assemblyman representing the near west side of Madison, was up on the same bridge reminding people to vote and for Mayor Dave and Kloppy.
So here we are Kossacks. We are in the thick of it, with as Gerry Rafferty would say, "Kossacks to the left of me, Jokers to the right and here I am Stuck in the middle with Invisible Woman!"
We will give you another update later, as we intend to go to the Joanne Kloppenburg victory party at the Edgewater Hotel.
Keep hope alive!