Wisky recall: 119% voter turnout in Madison (and other fun)

[frank ryan]

What kind of drugs were they addicted to, then?

The few I met were social drinkers.

[frank ryan]

But some of them were self declared anarchists

[Moliere]

I'm equating the OWS crowd with the Madison crowd, and that could be a mistake. They certainly appear to be very similar. And of course I'm not suggesting that the unions are going out and funneling drugs to these people, nor are they intending that any money that ends up in the hands of these professional protestors go to drugs. But some of these professional protestors are most certainly drug addicts, have you ever been around them before?

Yes, I've been around them. They come by my building every Friday around 4:30pm. They seem like decent people that just believe in a different political position than me. Some of them are well spoken and seem very educated.

Listen, there are a lot of loose nuts in every group. The GOP has plenty of them as does the TEA party. I don't think we should be characterizing the overall group by the loose nuts. Granted I think saying unions are overbearing and hurtful to the economy and business is fine, but getting down to a personal level by calling them methheads, mentally paranoid, or other things seems not only a mischaracterization but is just over the line IMO.

This thread makes me feel like I'm reading Snipe and Whistlepig posts on CB with the way it has turned.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

For the record, the guy in the youtube video who said "colon cancer better get her before we do" doesn't appear to be a meth addict. He does appear to be an anarchist. In case some don't know, Rebecca Kleefish had/has colon cancer, it was diagnosed shortly after the 2010 election. I think she's in remission.

The lady shaking the tambourine in the beginning looks like just a smelly hippie, the most palatable variety of OWS/Madison protestor (at least she's not dangerous). At worst, it looks like she smokes pot (which really isn't a big deal).

[Jacob]

I'll credit Ed Shultz for saying, on air, that last night was a victory for democracy because there was such high turnout. Even though he thinks the result is the end of the world--although I'm sure he's back to his usual antics by now.

I, on the other hand, am not interested in high turnout and don't think that high turnout says much about democracy one way or the other.

[Jacob]

Some union lackey actually slapped her candidate last night because he conceded the election a few minutes earlier than she would have preferred. Awesome.

http://www.wisn.com/politics/wiscons...0/-/index.html

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Yes, I've been around them. They come by my building every Friday around 4:30pm. They seem like decent people that just believe in a different political position than me. Some of them are well spoken and seem very educated.

Listen, there are a lot of loose nuts in every group. The GOP has plenty of them as does the TEA party. I don't think we should be characterizing the overall group by the loose nuts. Granted I think saying unions are overbearing and hurtful to the economy and business is fine, but getting down to a personal level by calling them methheads, mentally paranoid, or other things seems not only a mischaracterization but is just over the line IMO.

This thread makes me feel like I'm reading Snipe and Whistlepig posts on CB with the way it has turned.

I would just challenge you to find any post by Snipe or Whistlepig that's ambivalent about gay marriage (like I am), speaks positively of Bill Clinton or has said the GOP provided little reason for anyone to vote for it after the combination of the Clinton and Bush 43 presidencies (just a couple examples where I stray from conservative orthodoxy).

I understand some of these people aren't bad people, Peter Schiff debated some of them in those web videos and some of them seemed nice enough. But there is definitely a significant portion of them that are absolute freaks. I saw a similar ratio during the 2004 GOP convention.

Ann Althouse has had very little good to say about the crowd up in Madison. She's a law professor at UW and voted for Obama. Despite her vote for Obama, I still get the sense that she's slightly right of center, so take it for what it's worth. It could be that some of the nastier elements congregated there because of the importance of the issue.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Some union lackey actually slapped her candidate last night because he conceded the election a few minutes earlier than she would have preferred. Awesome.

http://www.wisn.com/politics/wiscons...0/-/index.html

This actually disgusts me. The man should be entitled to do the courteous thing and concede when it becomes apparent that he's lost without some nutjob striking him. She did it knowing that the Barrett really can't do anything about it through law enforcement.

[Jacob]

Tom Barrett didn't deserve that. The man should be entitled to do the courteous thing and concede when it becomes apparent that he's lost without some nutjob striking him.

Oh, I agree. I just find it amusing that these are the types of people who forced the recall and that he was championing.

[Indy Coug]

GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!

[YOUTUBE]wI0uDL0I0Jg[/YOUTUBE]

[falafel]

Some union lackey actually slapped her candidate last night because he conceded the election a few minutes earlier than she would have preferred. Awesome.

http://www.wisn.com/politics/wiscons...0/-/index.html

It looked like she just gave him a hard whack on the shoulder. I was thinking she slapped him in the face.

[Jacob]

[YOUTUBE]wI0uDL0I0Jg[/YOUTUBE]

It's amazing. these people are in an uproar over some public employees contributing a fraction of their own income toward their retirement plan. End of democracy indeed.

As for the spending advantage as the reason for Walker winning, it us useful to note that in 2008:

President-elect Barack Obama, the first major-party nominee to reject federal funding for the general election, spent $740.6 million. That eclipsed the combined $646.7 million that Republican President George W. Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry spent four years earlier.

In any other year, the fundraising by Clinton and Republican nominee John McCain would have stood out. Clinton spent $250 million, compared with Kerry’s previous Democratic record of $228.4 million.

McCain spent $227.7 million; among Republicans, that was second only to Bush’s $269.4 million in 2004. Obama outspent him by a 4-1 margin between Sept. 1 and Nov. 24, FEC records show.

There will likely be no such spending advantage for Obama this time around.

[Jacob]

It looked like she just gave him a hard whack on the shoulder. I was thinking she slapped him in the face.

If you look closely, you can see his face react to being slapped. The camera didn't have a great angle, but I think she smacked him in the face.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Here's a better angle for the Dr. Zaius to Barrett slap.

[YOUTUBE]2yGYfFQjybs[/YOUTUBE]

[Indy Coug]

He did a very good job of ignoring it.