I’m trying to adjust to the idea that maybe Russ Feingold, who is probably the most principled politician in Washington DC, is no longer supported by the people of Wisconsin. I’m trying to hold onto some hope for the guy, but I can’t deny that I’m worried.
So, I think I will focus on the fact that little Finn has finally decided that he needs to be mobile. He isn’t crawling exactly, but he’s figured out how to get to where he wants to be. All it took was a trip to the library to hang out with other kids his age who were moving around. That was Tuesday. On Tuesday night and Wednesday, he practiced his moves. Today he managed to start scooting around. He’s got a bit of an unorthodox style. He gets into a kind of pre-crawling position and then sits up. This moves him three of four inches forward. Then he sits straight up and uses one leg to scoot another few inches. Then he repeats the cycle. In combination, he’s able to move up to eight feet in a fairly short period of time in pursuit of a toy or a bowl of macaroni and cheese.
I’m trying to stay focused on the important stuff.
My beautiful granddaughter is getting close to that point. She’s 5 months old. She rolls over great and can travel a ways doing that, but she often ends up in compromising positions as she comes in contact with a couch or a chair or something. She’s dressing up as a skunk for Halloween, grandpa will be there with his Canon 20D documenting the entire event. 🙂
I have a hard time believing Johnson is up by that much. Is Teahadist money having that much of an effect? Any other polls showing that same result?
Wisconsin is purple, so I don’t have a hard time believing it. Plus Feingold almost was beaten before; he capped the amount of money he’d spend. People said he was foolish. And now he’s refusing DSCC money and ads…
I’m leaning towards R-pick-up, but it won’t be by much.
I know Cheeseheadland is purple, but we’ve done pretty well there in the past few elections. And he’s sticking to his principles in capping his spending and refusing DSCC. Wisconsin has given us Feingold and Fightin’ Bob LaFollette. Then again, it’s also given us Joe McCarthy. Hopefully Wisconsin doesn’t make another mistake like that again.
Feingold, LaFollette, and let’s also not forget Wm Proxmire and Gaylord Nelson, two outstanding and effective lib Dems who were longer in the senate, iirc, than Feingold so far.
It’s depressing to consider also since Feingold has prided himself on visiting each of WI’s however many dozens of counties at least once a year or so. The guy really does try to get out of DC and get back and speak directly to his constituents and listen to their concerns.
Apparently though this hasn’t been enough, or he’s suffered from a lack of adverting, or there’s something about his somewhat distant personality perhaps. Whatever, it seems that usually the hardworking constituent-oriented pols not only succeed but tend to expand on their success from election to election. But not so with Feingold. I don’t understand exactly why he hasn’t built an unbeatable base over his years in Congress.
It might be because he preaches to the choir in a lot of those counties, and they haven’t been able to convince their neighbors.
Once they get mobile the fun really begins. Time to child-proof everything.
Thanks BooMan. Actually inspirational.
Hi Booman,
thanks for posting this. inspiring stuff…
Lily never crawled, she did the same move and we called it scootchie butt. Then she moved on to using tables and chairs as walkers.
Next thing you know it will be opening day of little league season- it is here in dubai 🙂
It doesn’t look like the Democrats are going to win anything in Wisconsin this year.
I am far more upset by the prospect of our next governor, Scott Walker. (I almost typed Scott Brown, which wouldn’t be nearly as bad.) I know people follow Senate races a lot more closely than Governor’s races. But the Governor typically has more power, and can do a great deal of harm to the people of the state. It’s a critical time for Wisconsin (for a lot of states), and Walker is going to be an incredible disaster.
I work for state government, and our union had a flyer about the election, and the consequences of a Walker victory. Basically, it told us that state employees can expect a cut of $1,000 a year. I’m trying to figure out how I can deal with that. I will look into applying for food stamps, I guess.
Also, it appears that Milwaukee County will be going bankrupt in the near future. I assume that means that the buses will stop running (among other things), because there won’t be any money to keep them going. I don’t have a driver’s license, and I rely on public transit.
Wisconsin is soon to be a failed state. It’s time to consider where else I can live. Feingold is way down on my list of worries this election.
Let’s hope if he wins he won’t take note of how Mitch Daniels threw out all the unions as one of his first acts a governor. He’s currently scheming overtime to try to bust the teachers union. I still have the NOT MY MAN bumpersticker on my car that was printed by one of the Indianapolis area unions.
I didn’t know Mitch Daniels did that. Scary. I don’t think Walker could do that; Wisconsin is still a fairly strong union state… but who knows?
I don’t know how close it is. Silver says within 4. Maybe if he’d blitzed adds he would have pulled it out, who knows. But I’ve seen it in the local races here too where the Dems saved their money until the last month. It’s the god damn air war the republicans can hurl with their huge corporations. Corporations we propped up.
It depends on the GOTV effort in Wisconsin among African-Americans, students, and union Democrats. And the big question is whether union voters will vote on economics, and whether the students will turn out and actually vote.
There are polls saying that the distance between Johnson and Feingold is 5 points, with a plus or minus 4-5%.
Johnson is an empty suit. Columnists over at the indie paper here, The Isthmus, have been tearing him down over his marrying his wealth, his Minnesota roots, and his heavy reliance on TV ads to put his words across.
http://www.isthmus.com/isthmus/article.php?article=30057
http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=30808
Feingold ads have been hitting hard the past week how Johnson simply has no strategy about how to help solve Wisconsin’s ills. I think the closeness of the race may have also helped to close the gap between the pair. Maybe not by much, but from what I’ve heard, Feingold has squeaked by before.
Newspaper columnists are useless. Good to know the other stuff.
Appreciate the sanity now. Because when he starts moving anywhere he wants by toddling, you will be thanking the blogs for their relative sanity.
Glad to see the little guy is bustin’ some moves. Enjoy it now because you’ll be sending him off to college before you know it!
So are you ready to concede the seat? Or is this one of those things where you mentally prepare but you’re not going to concede anything until the votes are counted?