Quote:
Originally Posted by ZonieDiver
As a resident, how do you explain this seeming dichotomy?
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Great question. Interesting that today the main newspaper ran a blog article asking exactly that and, taking it further, cited many of the counties that O took in 2008 were taken by Bush in 2004.
Many of the counties that can be counted on for Dems are, as usual, the most populous. (Forget the sheep & guppy analogies for the moment.) These areas are hugely populated and almost driven by their ties to the University system. A few similar less-populated counties up north are peopled by what I call "semi-green thinkers of lofty thoughts." (Yes, I am being semi-sarcastic when I say that, but it's just me.)
Over the past couple of years I've tried to understand this and I do think it's event-driven in the most recent examples. In '04 folks were more reluctant to "seemingly" vote against a POTUS at war, particularly when we had alot of our treasure getting deployed - kids we watched grow up, took to hockey practice, etc. The state-level switcheroo by '06 was conversely driven by a tantrum at Bush (by this time over OIF) and taken out on anything with (R) within 50m of its name.
Watching closely how well the hankie-wringers in Madison could screw it up it was time for a change in 2010 yielding Walker. (One of the first things he did was tell the G "please take back your boondoggle light-rail grant and don't send anymore.")
The issue with the recall was interesting because quite a few Dems I personally engaged with told me that they were sickened by the behavior of the Dem legislature who went AWOL into N. Illinois right afterward, and the recall effort taking off right after that. They saw that as too much whining too soon and cowardly. They told me that they still believed in the process and that Walker deserved a chance - they NOTICED that the little babies started the crocodile tears from minute-one. It didn't hurt that the same nincompoop he previously ran against was trotted out for the recall - but being just the Milwaukee mayor in a town headed even further south over civil rights abuses there was no good side for Barrett to play outside his own moat. Walker wins the recall.
For O it didn't hurt that his motto happens to be Wisconsin's and the traditional High Church of Academia and the unions were in play again. Obama's campaign ads hammered Romney on things that were never really refuted and, moo, the Romney campaign never hammered Obama's presidency on anything other than the debt number.
Not to quibble, but I think a major mistake by R was that his campaign had him VERY EARLY saying an actual number of jobs he would create (12 million). Anyone not in a coma knows that was a mistake. It was also a mistake in the way he put it. HE was going to create 12 million new jobs, not the conditions that will be prevalent in the country to facilitate that. I had people tell me sticking himself on a number "sounded like Obama" and they didn't take that seriously either.
BTW, Rick Santorum had been the candidate that really resonated with "the folks" up here. So those sitting on the fence viewed Romney as a consolation prize offered up by the Republicans. I don't think the WI electorate (with the above big-city exceptions) is necessarily fickle. I think they're quietly a bit smarter than most politicians give them credit for. They don't like to be patronized and if you insult their intelligence they will make you pay.
EXAMPLE: Pols can come in here all they want & talk of renewable energy - up here that means proposals for wind farms just like it means sustaining the stupid ethanol subsidies in Iowa. The fact is, most politicians don't pay attention to local stuff up here until they're walking down the ramp of the aircraft. If they did they'd know that a HUGE piece of the population want nothing to do with f'n wind farms.
My views are based on small samplings but they are real humans I've spoken with about this.*
* I think they're all ate-up and full of shit but, hey, we can have a dialogue.
