If every state was like Wisconsin, Barack Obama might just defeat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary for president.
The fundraising margin for Obama in Wisconsin jumps off the charts. Through the third quarter of this year, according to USA Today, Obama raised $394,816, compared to $119,730 for Hillary Clinton. That’s more than a 3-to-1 margin for Obama.
Only five states surpassed Wisconsin in the margin of monetary victory for Obama: In North Dakota, Obama has beaten Hillary by $12,000 to $1,000, in Vermont by $335,000 to $31,000, in Hawaii by $335,000 to $42,000, in Maine by $279,000 to $65,000, and in Illinois (natch) by $9.3 million to $2.8 million.
Why is Wisconsin so generous to Obama? Perhaps it’s the Chicago effect: some of Southeastern Wisconsin is a suburb of Chicago, with a fair number of folks who work in the Windy City. The Chicago media market also has an impact in Wisconsin, where people pick up the Tribune and listen to Chicago radio.
Another theory, suggested by one local Jewish observer, is that Obama has a lock on Jewish donors in Milwaukee. Jews always provide a disproportionate amount of campaign donations to Democratic candidates, so its critical to connect to those donors. Obama’s first fundraiser in Milwaukee was at the home of Dan Kohl, the nephew of Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl. That may have gotten Obama off to a good start with Milwaukee’s Jewish community, and Milwaukee typically provides the lion’s share of donations in this state.
Obama trails Hillary in total 2007 donations nationally, his $75 million to her $80 million, so his edge in Wisconsin is quite notable. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’d win the vote here. A survey by the Republican pollsters Strategic Vision showed state Democrats favored Hillary over Obama by 44 percent to 22 percent, by a slightly lower margin than nationally, where she wins by 49 percent to 22 percent.
One number that jumps out about Obama is the number of donors: Nationally, he has attracted a stunning 11,988 donors, compared to Hillary’s 6,609. No statistic on this is available for Wisconsin, but given how big our pro-Obama wave is, he probably had at least three times more donors than Hillary.
That many people voting with their pocketbook for Obama shows that Democratic activists far prefer him, whereas Hillary leads among more casual voters. Activists in either party work like yeast: They are more likely to be opinion leaders, more likely to attract others to their cause.
In short, Hillary may be the front-runner, but don’t count Obama out.
Mike Huebsch, Rock Star
Who is the big victor in the state budget battle? My vote goes to Mike Huebsch, the Republican Assembly speaker. He did so well, perhaps we need to know how to pronounce his name (like “hipsh”) and where he’s from (West Salem, near La Crosse –and as far as I can tell, there is no East Salem, so somebody screwed up somewhere).
Huebsch didn’t seem to hold many cards. He was opposed by both the Democratic-led state senate and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. And while there was sniping from both the right and left in the media and in blogs, Huebsch took a lot of the abuse.
“Assembly Republicans,” Madison’s Capital Times harrumphed, “continue to refuse to participate in a serious manner with the budget-writing process. Their extremism has made Wisconsin the last state in the nation without a spending plan. If he (Huebsch) does not choose to play by the rules, then Assembly Democrats should begin working with responsible Republicans to remove him as speaker.”
Or how about this op-ed in the Small Business Times by Progressive Majority blogger Scott Ross: “Huebsch… and his Republican negotiating team… would rather bend to the special interests than do their jobs – no matter the harm to the people of Wisconsin. First, they don’t think we deserve the same health care we pay for them to have. Then, they don’t want us to do anything about Big Oil gouging consumers. And then they want to protect Big Tobacco.”
Similar language came from Doyle, who declared that”extreme Republicans” were caving in to “too much right-wing pressure” and refusing to compromise on a budget.
Doyle maneuvered adroitly: He tried to offer some legislative pork to certain Republicans to rob Huebsch of his assembly majority. Doyle also took away powerful supporters of Huebsch, convincing the Wisconsin Hospital Association to go along with the gov’s ingenious hospital tax plan that would have gained revenue for the state while funneling more federal Medicaid money to the hospitals. This, in turn, won the endorsement of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, whose membership includes many elite business leaders. “The GMC endorsement adds to the growing pressures on… Huebsch and some of the other Republicans in the state budget impasse,” the Small Business Times noted.
Even Republicans dumped on Huebsch, with some asking WWJGD – “What would John Gard Do?” referring to Huebsch’s predecessor as speaker.
The answer is that Gard would have been harder-edged and more polemical. Huebsch kept his eye on the prize and did his best to reach out to moderate Democrats. “It is my hope that it will not be the liberal democrat wing of that party who rule the day and somehow say that we need to tax and spend more,” he declared at one point.
Huebsch also rejected the advice of conservative loud mouth Grover Norquist, who demanded that conservatives oppose an increase in the cigarette tax. (Earth to Grover: An increase in the cigarette tax is very popular with voters, most of whom don’t smoke.)
Huebsch held on to the votes of his caucus and held out until he got a better deal. Meanwhile, the Democrats, as usual, bickered over different versions of the budget rather than uniting behind their governor. (Republican legislators always closed ranks behind Republican Tommy Thompson, often – in the case of conservatives – with teeth gritted.)
You can make the case, as the Wisconsin State Journal did, that both sides won in the budget battle. Doyle got an expansion of the BadgerCare Plus health coverage, a $1-a-pack increase in the cigarette tax, and increased funding for schools, universities and student financial aid. But as UW-La Crosse political science professor Joe Heim told the paper, “Doyle may have moved more than 50 percent to get this done.”
Huebsch and the Republicans can claim they kept spending and taxes lower than Doyle wanted. And no one will punish them for eating the cigarette tax. “They played their hand very well,” UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin told the paper.
That’s putting it mildly. Huebsch had a far weaker hand than Doyle and came away the clear winner.
The Buzz:
-Several Milwaukee alderman met with Mayor Tom Barrett and were shocked to hear he’d admitted his priority in the state budget was not more revenue sharing, but more school aid to end the underfunding of school choice – and that this is what he told Gov. Doyle. That will help Milwaukee taxpayers but do nothing for the city budget. Henry Maier, for whom revenue sharing was the be-all and end-all, was probably rolling over in his grave to hear this. But it strikes me as a remarkably un-parochial and statesmanlike stand by Barrett.
-My dream is to be as active and vital a contributor at age 65 as Michael Cudahy is at age 83. Amid the intractable debate over transit, the ever-feisty Cudahy continues to push for improvements, and his op-ed column last week was a thoughtful contribution to the debate.
-Taxpayers will be asked to pay for a new sound system for Miller Park. Except of course, they won’t have to be asked, because the sales tax that pays for the park is a kind of slush fund that can always be dipped into again and again. Call it taxation without re-representation.
And don’t miss the latest from the Sports Nut.
