A Question For My Conservative Friends

Do you believe that an unborn corporation is a person with free speech rights?

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

com·mu·ni·cate (k-myn-kt) VERB:com·mu·ni·cat·ed, com·mu·ni·cat·ing, com·mu·ni·cates VERB:tr.
1-To convey information about; make known; impart: communicated his views to our office.
2-To reveal clearly; manifest: Her disapproval communicated itself in her frown.
3-To spread (a disease, for example) to others; transmit: a carrier who communicated typhus.

VERB:intr.
1-To have an interchange, as of ideas.
2-To express oneself in such a way that one is readily and clearly understood: "That ability to communicate was strange in a man given to long, awkward silences" (Anthony Lewis).
3-Ecclesiastical To receive Communion.
4-To be connected, one with another: apartments that communicate.

Compare that to Uncommunicative:

"I don’t know what the standard is,” Kleefisch told WHBY.

A "professional communicator" who won't communicate, a lazy reporter who can't be bothered to find out that Barbara Lawton and Jean Hundtermark debated twice, a free-range moralist without an anchor; are those really qualifications for the second highest office in Wisconsin? Could you live with Governor Kleefisch if you had to?

A Few Loose Thoughts After the Friday Night Debate

1. Johnson seemed surprised by the way that Milk Marketing Orders work. Given that he has the DBA endorsement, shouldn't he have known about this before?
2. I have to believe Feingold shaved at 7:15 or had a heavy layer of foundation on. He never actually looks clean-shaven.
3. Johnson in one response talked about how well he worked with the School Board when he was asked about Judicial Advise and Consent as a way of telling us that he was for judicial capabilty and not litmus testing. In the next response he was trying to pin Feingold for the gun views of the judges he'd let GWB have. Either he was confused or lying.
4. Johnson definitely looked more comfortable in the middle of the debate. He started off with too many "ums" and "uhs" for a Senator and ended looking tired, as if a full hour was just too much.
5. Dear Senator Feingold, It's good to be all mavericky but you might not want to claim the TEA mantle too quickly. Those votes are shiny but you'll never get them and people who vote on facts don't really care for their brand of emotionalism.
6. Dear Mr. Johnson, Stand up straight. You're not running for School Board. Respect your audience and the job you seek even if you don't respect your opponent.
7. Johnson seems ready to throttle the HCR monster even after it starts to drag him under the waves. Acceptance rises every week now that people understand it. To run on a platform of "woulda, coulda, might," seems more than a little disingenuous.
8. I only saw one candidate with a fire in his belly to serve the people last night. Say what you want about Scott Walker, he always looks like he WANTS the office. Johnson didn't look like that last night. He looked like a man who is used to making his own decisions and then having his decisions carried out. His body language was that of a man who'd rather be somewhere else.
9. Bring on Monday night!

But He Doesn't Like It When We Say He's Not Really Very Good At Making Connections

Scott Walker tweets with no irony about how hard it is to get from there to here because of traffic.

Great Moments In American Political Debate

"The electric cord ... that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together [is a self-evident truth.]" –Abraham Lincoln

“This is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty - the cause of humanity.” – William Jennings Bryan

“You, Sir, are no Jack Kennedy.” -Lloyd Bentsen

“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” - Ronald Reagan

"Yeah, I got nothin'" --Rebecca Kleefisch

What Do David Vitter and Rebecca Kleefisch Have In Common?

An aversion to telling voters what they think.

Would You Buy A Candiate In A Poke?

Can you have a horse race if only one horse shows up? Politico ran an article yesterday titled The Year of the Missing Candidate which featured Wisconsin's Own Bought and Paid For Candidate, Ron Johnson above the text. Politico likens the tactic by many candidates on the right to running out the clock in a basketball game; hoping that time runs out before they make a mistake that ends the game.

Johnson's propensity for gaffe and dodge has made him a target of more than a little derision. At his appearance at The Milwaukee Press Club Johnson declined to spell out his ideas because

"...I'm not going to get in the game here and, you know, start naming
specific things to be attacked about, quite honestly,..."

"I've never been a newsmaker before," said Johnson, smiling. "This is
new to me. I'm a rookie."

That's hardly a campaign stance. It's more like something your Prom date would say.

And Johnson is hardly the only debate dodger. The Walker Campaign is so afraid of what Rebecca Kleefisch might say in front of a live microphone that she's dodging debates altogether. The good people of Wisconsin won't buy a cantaloupe without testing it to see if it's good, they test-drive any car they're thinking about buying and check to see if they're getting a good deal on a washing machine or TV and, at the same time, they're being asked to take Rebecca Kleefisch on trust.

Even Saint Ronnie said, Trust. But verify." WisGOP and the Walker Campaign aren't willing to let you do that. They know their candidates are so extreme that you won't buy what they are selling so they're hoping you'll buy them sight unseen.