Sometimes I struggle to find a topic for my weekly blog. Other times the topic falls in my lap. Last week, for example, I can’t imagine what else could have happened during the week for me to write about anything other than the Brewers winning the World Series. This week the obvious choice is the midterm elections.
Most of my out-of-state friends live in heavily Democratic states. Minnesota, California Washington, New Mexico, Illinois, New Jersey. For them, the primaries are often more significant than the general elections. They cannot understand why a place like Wisconsin bends with the political winds.
That’s okay, because I don’t understand it either. I live in one of Wisconsin’s left-of-center bubbles.* I see evidence of conservatism (e.g., Trump campaign signs that never come down) whenever I drive across the state to visit my mom, but my day-to-day life is surrounded by progressive politics. It is easy to forget that Wisconsin is a swing state.
I can think of only one right winger with whom I’ve ever had a serious conversation. That would be my cousin Tom. He was a moderate when we were both in college, but he turned conservative not long after moving to northcentral Wisconsin. I somewhat understand his transformation, as the same thing happened to me in reverse when I moved from Green Bay to Madison. Geography matters.
Every four years, Wisconsinites choose one Presidential candidate over another by a one point margin. This makes us a prime example of 1) why it is important to vote and 2) why the electoral college is dumb. In every Presidential race, all of our electoral votes go to a single candidate based on the whims of a handful of people who can’t choose between Trump and Clinton, Trump and Biden, or Trump and Harris. I’m liberal, and I identify more with staunch conservatives than I do with the “undecideds.”
In last week’s election, Wisconsin was part of the anti-Trump wave, and all of the candidates that I voted for won. I’m not sure that that’s ever happened before. David Crowley won as governor. Rebecca Cooke is my new representative in Congress. Wisconsin had no Senate race this year.
For two weeks in a row now, I’ve had a reason to celebrate. After the Brewers won the World Series, I spent the better part of the next day reading every sports page that I could find. On the day after the Democrats clobbered the Republicans, I scoured every op-ed page. Of the two events, I was more excited about the Brewers’ championship than about the fate of my country. That’s a bit embarrassing. In my defense, it’s only been since Obama that I’ve been waiting for the Democrats to step it up. It’s been my entire adult life for the Brewers.
* The bulk of Wisconsin’s liberals reside in Madison or Milwaukee, but La Crosse, Eau Claire, the Menominee Indian Reservation, and a strip along Lake Superior also are blue. The rest of the state is red, some places moderately so (i.e., the Fox River Valley of Green Bay, Appleton, and Oshkosh) and others blood red (i.e, the northern third of the state other than that strip along Lake Superior). Wisconsin is not a purple state, so much as a series of blue and red splotches.
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