So, as we've already established, Advocates for Student Achievement in Milwaukee commissioned a poll. ASA is a group pulled together in 2007. The real Ideological Agenda at play here isn't likely very popular, so ASA's stated mission, and the stated mission of its political action committee, is to find, train and run challengers for the Milwaukee Public Schools Board, because "vigorously contested elections are needed to preserve faith in a democratically elected" yadda yadda yadda.
You don't find and run "challengers" for open seats -- you run "candidates" for open seats. Fact is, MPS Board Chairman Peter Blewett is the only incumbent running for re-election this year. I know you're asking, What's ASA's beef with Blewett? Didn't graduation rates jump while he's been on the board and board chairman? And hasn't he fought for more and better of this, and that, the languages, the arts, the music, the technical education? Yes, that's fine, but it's not that simple.
The MPS Board members oversee $1.2 billion -- that's 'billion' with a B -- in money, and when they're choosing where and how to spend that money, they don't always take private enterprise into account. It costs private enterprisers a lot of money to run private schools, if they intend to make a profit at it, and the way that public money turns into private profit is through vouchers.
So if I'm one of those people -- whether you call them Ideologues, private enterprisers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, whatever -- who believes that the MPS Board can afford to spend a lot more of that $1.2 billion annual budget on vouchers in order to pump up the private education market, then I don't care how high Peter Blewett has improved graduation rates, or how much he's fought for more and better of anything for public schools. What I care about is taking Blewett out of office and replacing him with someone who agrees with me.
Calling a spade a spade, the primary goal is to defeat Blewett. But if you're ASA, you can't say that defeating Blewett is the primary goal. If you're ASA, you can't say it's about spending more money on vouchers. You have to say that ASA is not a pro-voucher group, it's a good government group, and it's trying to encourage good people to challenge for seats on the MPS Board.
And ASA did do that when the poll was finished at the end of January, and after the pollster got cold feet and pulled his name off the poll report. That was a big blow, because when you pick a pollster, you look for someone whose name is going to give you automatic legitimacy. ASA picked one, paid the $11,900, and only after the check cleared did the guy pull his name. Go figure. At least ASA is trying to get its money back from his company for this whole screw-up.
But that guy was a gun-for-hire, somebody who was needed for a specific one-time thing. It was a lot more galling to have the reporter for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel suddenly says he's "not excited about the poll results," so he doesn't want to jump on the story. Why the cool reception to the poll data ASA offered him? Apparently the data were "compromised by the allegations of push-polling." Suddenly he's an expert on polling methodology. He wants to see all the questions, in the order in which they were asked, so he can judge for himself whether it was a biased or otherwise inappropriate survey. And he's only willing to look at this information on an on-the-record basis.
What do you do with a demand like this from a reporter? Turn everything over to him? Hell, no. You call up a reporter at the Business Journal and see if you can get a good spread on it there.
It's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, for crying out loud. The Journal-Sentinel has been so solid against Blewett from the start that you'd think Blewett was running against the Journal-Sentinel itself all these years.
This is no joke. Every single time the Journal-Sentinel has had a chance to endorse Blewett or to endorse his opponent, it's endorsed his opponent, without fail. It's comical, if you paid attention to it. I mean, it's the Milwaukee Public Schools Board -- the board that oversees Milwaukee Public Schools. Blewett's an educator himself. His kid attends Milwaukee Public Schools. And, like I said already, the graduation rates at the public schools shot up while he's been on the Board. But like clockwork, the Journal-Sentinel's been the best ally that Blewett's opponents could have.
Back in 2001, the first time he ran for Warren Braun's open seat, Blewett had a primary against Ann Bowe and Kristen O'Neill. It's funny: Bowe's made a big deal out of improving MPS graduation rates in her campaign. Bowe had a couple of strikes against her: She'd run before for some judgeship and lost, and she'd changed her filing papers after the deadline -- but the authorities let her stay on the ballot anyway. More important was that Bowe was solid for vouchers, and Blewett was solid against them. What did the Journal-Sentinel say?
School Board contest counts - Friday, February 16, 2001
Three promising candidates are vying to succeed the retiring Warren Braun in this west side district. Ann Bowe, a defense attorney, easily rises above the others. She displays a better grasp of the issues than do her opponents -- Kristen O'Neill, a full-time parent, and Peter Blewett , a poet and writing professor.
Bowe, whom Braun endorses, speaks with passion about getting MPS to serve the thousands of students the school system now leaves behind. She seems most likely to keep the reform movement moving.
A cloud hanging over the Bowe campaign does give us pause. It's alleged that she tampered with her own nomination papers after submitting them, to correct technical errors. The Milwaukee County district attorney's office is looking into the matter. While we worry about this alleged transgression, her ample talents and her passion for kids make her a candidate worth backing nonetheless.
Top two voter-getters were Blewett (823) and Bowe (768), and the Journal-Sentinel doubled down on Bowe for the general election:
A blow to MPS reform - Thursday, February 22, 2001
Tuesday's primary blew a cold wind over the Milwaukee Public Schools. Right now, reformers hold seven of nine School Board seats -- largely thanks to their coup at the polls two years ago. Should the primary results hold up in April's general election, however, that supermajority will thin to a bare majority of five. And the aggressive pace of reform -- efforts to enhance accountability, raise standards, improve neighborhood schools -- could slow.
Two reform candidates -- incumbent Bruce Thompson, the School Board president, and newcomer Ann Bowe, who's trying to succeed the retiring Warren Braun, a reformer -- did survive, but with numbers suggesting they could lose in a landslide in April.
There are rays of hope, however: The primary turnout was characteristically small, so if Thompson and Bowe could rally the true believers, they might still triumph in April.
Vouchers turned out to be the big difference:
School Board aspirants debate - Forum covers graduation rates, tests, school choice - Thursday, March 15, 2001
Peter Blewett and Ann Bowe, candidates in the race to represent a district that covers much of the west side, displayed different attitudes toward schools outside the MPS system, particularly schools in the private school choice program. Blewett, who teaches in the UWM English department, said choice schools should be held to the same standards as MPS schools. He held up the thick MPS report that includes test results from all schools in the system and said, "If you're getting public money, put your page in here or don't take it."
Bowe, an attorney, said holding every school to the same rigid standards destroys creativity and limits the ability to offer more and better options to students. ... "Our primary focus should be on the children of Milwaukee," she said. "I'm for extending public education to more options."
Race looks at direction of MPS - Contenders vying for 6th District seat clash over school choice approach - Friday, March 30, 2001
Under the board majority installed in 1999, MPS has stepped up its testing program, embraced school choice as an impetus to compete for students and emphasized sending children to schools in their own neighborhoods. Blewett attacks all those developments, especially the board's approach to school choice. "We need to elect a board of directors who believe in public education. Very simple," he said.
Bowe said the school choice program is a creature of the state Legislature, not the School Board, and that "there are many children in Milwaukee who are being very well served by having the option."
So how did the Journal-Sentinel fall on the Blewett-Bowe race? I'll give you one guess:
Our school board choices - Saturday, March 31, 2001
In District 6, on the west side, defense attorney Ann Bowe is our choice over Peter Blewett , assistant coordinator of the creative writing program at UWM.
Bingo. But how did the voters vote?
Voters shake up School Board - Victories by Morales, Blewett expected to alter MPS policy - Wednesday, April 4, 2001
Peter Blewett drew more than 55% of the vote in defeating Ann Bowe, whose views were closer to those of the existing School Board majority, in the west side district that had been represented by Warren Braun. Braun did not seek re-election.
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Opposition to the publicly funded private school choice program, which involves almost 10,000 low-income children, appeared to strike a strong chord and motivate supporters of Morales and Blewett.
A summary of the three contested races:
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Sixth District: Blewett said other board members should take a lesson from the election results, which he described as "a referendum on the current board." "I think that one of the messages is that people want a board that listens to parents, that tries to work with the teachers -- a board that's inclusive rather than dictatorial," he said.
The outcome was so lopsided that the Journal-Sentinel couldn't help publishing a follow-up editorial to stake out its concerns.
Hoping for the best result - Thursday, April 5, 2001
School choice backers lost in elections this week for state education chief and for the Milwaukee School Board, and school spending requests got voters' nods in Waukesha County -- all in all, a resounding victory for public education, some commentators are saying. That reading of election results is too simplistic, however.
This much can be said: The results do stir up both hope and anxiety -- hope because the winners in Madison and Milwaukee are intelligent and caring and because taxpayers gave education the priority it deserves; anxiety because the challenges are awesome, the winners are untried and the Milwaukee victors may seek to reverse a promising course.
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All in all, the elections offered reasons to hope -- and to fret.
In 2004, when Blewett ran against Jeff Spence to be board chairman, the Journal-Sentinel said the board needed "stability at the top."
MPS needs stability at top - Monday, April 26, 2004
Dealing with this crisis is one reason to maintain stability at the top. In a pleasant surprise last year, the Milwaukee School Board retained Jeff Spence as president. It should repeat that step when it votes for president tonight. The thoughtful Spence has led ably and well. He displays vision and creativity and has good ideas for solving the fiscal crisis.
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Spence understands all this, as do other members of the School Board. His faction was in the minority when he was surprisingly renamed president, and it's still in the minority today. Wisely, Charlene Hardin, a member of the opposing faction, stuck with Spence last year. This time around, Spence's rival for president is Peter Blewett. But this is no time for a change.
When it was all over, though:
Blewett elected MPS board president - Spence out as political winds change, close vote reinforces idea of two factions; Hardin elected vice president - Tuesday, April 27, 2004
For the fourth time in five years, the political winds on the Milwaukee School Board switched directions Monday night with the election of Peter Blewett as board president.
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Blewett replaces board member Jeff Spence, who was president in each of the last two years. Board presidents serve one-year terms. They pick who serves on board committees, play a central role in deciding the agenda the board pursues and become one of the primary voices of Milwaukee Public Schools.
And what did Blewett do when he got elected? He gave his opponents seats of power:
Board president names opponents to key spots - Tuesday, May 4, 2004
Incoming Milwaukee School Board President Peter Blewett has extended an olive branch to some members of the faction that opposed his bid for the presidency, naming former president Jeff Spence and Barbara Horton to lead two different committees.
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The appointments suggest that the board may be less likely to return to overtly partisan bickering, at a time when the district faces serious problems with its budget and contentious contract negotiations with the teachers union.
So 2005 comes, Blewett's up for re-election, and he gets a challenger for the general election:
Schools chief race among few on ballot As filing deadline passes, many races uncontested - Wednesday, January 5, 2005
On the city's west side, School Board President Peter Blewett , 48, a lecturer at UW-Milwaukee, will be challenged by Kevin Ronnie, 46, the director of operations for the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.
That time, the Journal-Sentinel ran a series of profiles on the candidates. Check out what they said about Blewett at the end of their profile on him -- they really had to stretch to find something good to say about him:
Blewett seeks to foster collaboration - Thursday, March 24, 2005
As president of the School Board over the last year, Peter Blewett says one of his chief concerns has been to bring a more collaborative tone to the board. He deliberately appointed a colleague with whom he has sharp differences to head one of the board’s more powerful committees, he said, and often reiterates his belief that the board should work as closely as possible with William Andrekopoulos, the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools.
"I think the board has come a long way since I’ve been president in its eagerness to get community input," he said. "We have moved forward, and it would be a mistake to go back to what I perceive as less collegial days."
Blewett, 49, described his major accomplishments over the last four years as a series of "small things," such as collaborating with Citizens for a Better Environment to ban pesticides in the schools and standing firm on the school district’s hiring requirement for building projects, which stipulate a certain level of minority participation.
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In the long term, Blewett said, he would like to look at the "role and purpose" of schools chartered by the district (charter schools have more autonomy and flexibility) where the employees are not members of the teachers union. "There are people who see them as a way of avoiding paying teachers a just wage," Blewett said.
He would also like to make sure that the promises of the Neighborhood Schools Initiative, which aims to cut transportation costs by encouraging families to send their children to nearby schools, are carried out. He cited promises made for before- and after-school care, which "seem to be in jeopardy." He recently lobbied against the administration’s proposal to close a handful of schools — a move the board did not approve.
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Blewett is a chatty, extroverted type one can imagine holding forth at the neighborhood bar on just about anything.
Look at the difference in its profile on Blewett's challenger, a stand-up guy named Kevin Ronnie, the same day:
Ronnie would seek to give schools control - Thursday, March 24, 2005
Ronnie, 46, is drawn to Milwaukee — and the prospect of serving on the School Board — because of his love for strong communities. His chief goals for the school district center on empowering teachers, parents and administrators at the grass-roots by encouraging teachers to create their own schools, and shifting more control over budgets and decisions from central administration to individual schools.
"I think we will get better results if decisions are being made about our priorities by principals, teachers and parent councils," Ronnie said.
Ronnie, who has worked as the director of field operations for the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy for the last several years, does not have any children. But he does have considerable frustration with the current leadership of the School Board and Board President Peter Blewett. This has made the race the most contentious and feisty of the three contested MPS board elections. Ronnie’s deliberate, methodical and mild-mannered style is a stark contrast to Blewett’s loquacious and unfettered approach.
Ronnie has lived in the Washington Heights neighborhood since he settled permanently in Milwaukee about eight years ago. He said a few personal experiences led him to run, including interactions with young men who came to his house to shoot hoops.
I couldn't wait to read the Journal-Sentinel's pick in this race, 'cause I knew the Journal-Sentinel was all about keeping stability at the top of the MPS Board.
Funny thing: In 2005, stability was out, vision was in, and the Journal-Sentinel picked Ronnie.
Reformers for MPS board - Friday, April 1, 2005
On Tuesday, voters can and should put control of the Milwaukee School Board back into the hands of the reformers. That means electing Kevin Ronnie in the 6th District on the west side, Bernadine Bradford in the 4th District on the north side and Danny Goldberg in the 7th District on the southwest side. The shift would also entail ousting two incumbents: board President Peter Blewett in the 6th and Vice President Charlene Hardin in the 4th.
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What’s more, two candidates — Ronnie, field director for a national philanthropic organization, and Goldberg, an educator and strategic planning consultant — are superb in their grasp of the issues, their vision for reform and their proven ability to get things done. Ronnie has gotten high marks for his work as the first director of ACHOICE (now called Community Shares), which raises funds at workplaces for activist organizations.
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To his credit, Blewett has been somewhat conciliatory in heading the board, but he falls short on vision.
And how did that turn out?
Newcomer’s win could signal shift for MPS board But Blewett, Hardin both defeat their challengers - Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Board President Peter Blewett defeated challenger Kevin Ronnie on the city’s west side.
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Blewett, a lecturer in English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was running for his second term. He has been president of the board for the last year. Goldberg and Ronnie aggressively challenged Blewett’s leadership while campaigning, although Blewett countered that he has worked hard to bring a more civil, collaborative tone to the board. He noted that he appointed a board member with sharply different views from his own to chair a powerful board committee, for instance.
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"For me, the message in my district is that the people reaffirmed their belief in public education and we are going to continue to improve Milwaukee Public Schools," Blewett said when reached late Tuesday night.
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Ronnie said Tuesday night that he wished Blewett well. "There are a tremendous number of issues that need to be dealt with," he added. He attributed his loss to the fact that Blewett outspent him, saying that Blewett probably spent three times what he was able to.
Going even further, the Journal-Sentinel called it "unfortunate" that Blewett had won re-election in its follow-up.
Time ripe for MPS reform - Thursday, April 14, 2005
No, the results were not as rosy as they should have been. Unfortunately, incumbents Peter Blewett, the board’s president, and Charlene Hardin, the vice president, defeated reform-minded challengers Kevin Ronnie and Bernadine Bradford in contests on the west and north sides, respectively.
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That a big-city school system can work remains an unproven proposition. But the reforms — greater accountability, site-based management, shoring up of neighborhood schools, for example — appeared to have led to a bit of progress. Last week’s election keeps hope alive for more gains.
When the new board started its term that year, it elected Ken Johnson to serve as chairman, and Blewett was shut out of any committee leadership role.
School Board president denies posts to opponents: They're not assigned to committee leadership - Friday, May 6, 2005
If the committee assignments are any indication, the Milwaukee School Board might grow more polarized and combative in the coming year.
Recently elected President Ken Johnson sent a clear message to his opponents when he made the assignments: None of the four board members who opposed him was named chairman of a committee, and the four were put on very few committees at all. For instance, Peter Blewett , the former board president who voted against Johnson, was assigned to one committee: special education.
On the other hand, Joe Dannecker, who voted for Johnson, was named chairman of the Committee on Legislation, Rules and Policy, as well as of the Committee on Special Education. He also was named a member of the Committee on Innovation and School Reform.
"I’ve given the work to the people who are going to do the work," Johnson said. "We need to get things done more than talk about getting things done."
But board member Tom Balistreri, a Johnson opponent who was taken off what he described as two key committees, assailed Johnson’s assignments. "It’s pretty hard to have someone stand up and indicate that he is going to reach out and then automatically stack the deck," Balistreri said. "I understand his agenda and will continue to pursue mine even though he has the majority vote. There is nothing I can do about it except continue to be myself."
The Journal-Sentinel itself admitted that the changes were leading to "incivility" on the board, and it even noted that board meetings had been "more sedate in recent years" but never went so far as to give Blewett any credit for the progress:
Incivility returns to MPS board meetings Angry words among members divert attention from policy-making - Sunday, October 2, 2005
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There were other ingredients in the week’s untasty stew:
• Johnson’s heavy-handed approach to running a meeting, sometimes stopping comments from board members in the opposing faction (at Thursday’s meeting, Balistreri called Johnson "power hungry");
• Actions that were in themselves mysterious (the board resolution to negotiate a new contract with Andrekopoulos "reflecting the terms discussed in executive session" that was off-limits to the public — "I’m not going to reveal that to the public," Johnson said as he cut off questions by board members on what they were voting on).
Put it all together and you have . . . well, you have the board of directors of a billion-dollar-a-year enterprise whose business (educating 90,000-plus children) is crucial to Milwaukee’s future, and they’re behaving in ways that clearly left spectators at both meetings last week watching in bewilderment, if not amazement.
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Board meetings have actually been somewhat more sedate in recent years than they were for several years before that. For one thing, John Gardner, a board member known for confrontational rhetoric, lost his re-election bid in 2003. But last week’s events left good reason to wonder what new routes to incivility might be explored in pursuit of leading a school system dedicated to helping children grow up. Indeed, things could get worse. So far, there hasn’t been a boxing match.
Less than two years later, when the board re-elected Blewett as chairman, the best that the Journal-Sentinel could say was that the board was "complicated."
School Board elects Blewett president - Spence wins vote for vice president - Thursday, April 26, 2007
Demonstrating how complicated a group it is likely to be, the new Milwaukee School Board elected Peter Blewett as its president Wednesday night, and then moments later elected a candidate Blewett voted against as vice president.
In each case, the swing vote was Tim Petersons, who was elected unopposed April 3 to represent the northwest side on the board. Three of the nine members at the board’s first meeting were at their first meeting and one, Bruce Thompson, was returning after six years.
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Petersons, who has said frequently that he wants to be an issue-oriented independent in board politics, said he voted for Blewett because he felt the two shared many concerns and beliefs and Blewett is a strong advocate of arts and music programs.
And just last year, when Blewett was elected board chairman again, all it could do was report the fact that he won "with five votes, the minimum needed."
Blewett re-elected Milwaukee School Board president - Friday, May 2, 2008
Improving the education of Milwaukee Public Schools students in civics and community involvement will be a priority in the coming year, Peter Blewett said Thursday evening, moments after being re-elected president of the School Board. Blewett won another one-year term as head of the board with five votes, the minimum needed.
But 2009 is different, because Blewett's up for re-election to his board seat, and because it's high time that private schools get the funding that Milwaukee's private enterprisers want. This is serious. School Choice Wisconsin, whose name tells you who they are, couldn't carry the burden alone and couldn't make the case to voters. That's why it was necessary to have a completely separate group to push for new board leadership, find challengers and train them. It didn't matter who they found, the challengers only had to live in the district and agree with the Agenda.
That's why it was so important to get the Journal-Sentinel to publish an article confusing the issue of school funding in December:
MPS SCHOOL VOUCHER FUNDING Fairness is in the eye of the beholder - Sunday, December 7, 2008
The voucher funding flaw is a bigger problem than ever and is costing Milwaukee property taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
The voucher funding flaw effectively no longer exists, and the publicly funded program that allows children to go to private schools is saving Milwaukeeans property tax dollars.
Can both of those things be true? Decide for yourself.
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School Choice Wisconsin leaders suggest that MPS leaders are pointing the finger of blame in the wrong direction when they focus on the voucher funding system. They released a chart showing that per-student spending, adjusted for inflation, has gone up substantially for years in MPS, as has state aid to Milwaukee. Decisions made by the School Board years ago, such as pension plan increases approved in 1998, are a big factor in MPS’ financial problems, they say.
It's why it was so important to get the Journal-Sentinel to find some way to tie Blewett to the controversy over Charlene Hardin's travel expenses, even if no real tie existed:
The Milwaukee School Board needs to censure board member Charlene Hardin. - Thursday, December 18, 2008
The Milwaukee School Board should censure board member Charlene Hardin at a special meeting tonight for her travel excesses. Whether a censure is deserved is beyond dispute. Hardin took tax money earlier this year to attend a school safety conference in Philadelphia and then blew it off.
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The Milwaukee County district attorney’s office failed to find anything criminal in her behavior this month but deemed her actions incompetent.
In previous editorials, we urged board President Peter Blewett to take action against Hardin. We’re hoping tonight’s action shows that he and the rest of the board have gotten the message about how offensive the community has found Hardin’s behavior.
And it's why it was so important to get the Journal-Sentinel to cover someone's run against Blewett this year, whoever it would be.
Hardin, Blewett face challengers Milwaukee School Board has one seat uncontested, another up for grabs - Wednesday, January 7, 2009
ReDonna Rodgers, the founder and CEO of the Center for Teaching Entrepreneurship, was the only person to file to run against board president Peter Blewett, meaning there will not be a primary election in February for that seat. Blewett has been on the board for eight years. The district covers much of the west side.
And, for crying out loud, it's why it was so important to get the Journal-Sentinel to cover the Advocates for Student Achievement poll data just as ASA released it, without asking a lot of questions and without any investigative analysis.
Ideologues only have one shot to remove Blewett; the Journal-Sentinel has advocated for Blewett's defeat every time he's been up, but now this is the best that the Journal-Sentinel can do?
NO QUARTER Judges absent from bench a lot - Monday, February 2, 2009
Ready, fire, aim
It’s still not clear who was behind a push poll against School Board President Peter Blewett. Blewett put out a statement saying the poll by the Parker Group of Birmingham, Ala., suggested that he authorized fellow board member Charlene Hardin’s infamous trip to Philadelphia. In fact, he did not sign off on her junket.
But this much we do know: The poll didn’t always hit its intended target.
Thad Nation, the Democratic campaign strategist, said he received the push-poll call about Blewett’s race. But Nation said he can’t figure out why. "I live in Shorewood," he said, meaning he can’t cast a ballot for or against the Milwaukee official.
Nowhere during the poll, Nation said, did the Parker Group ask if he was eligible to vote in the contest.
Maybe the Journal-Sentinel is hoping for some reverse-psychology jiu-jitsu this time: Since it's endorsed Blewett's opponent every time before and failed to defeat him, the solons over there think that leaving this anti-Blewett poll alone is a sure-fire way to get him defeated.
For the life of me, it makes no sense. None.