 Welcome to the Donahue Group, glad you could join us. Before we went on the air, we were just wondering if Carl Rove might somehow be back in the picture at some point in the New McCain administration. Well, the ads are nasty enough. The ads are certainly nasty enough, but that's not what we're gonna get started with today. We're gonna talk about a little local news, and we had a primary on Tuesday, September 9th. Not that you would hardly know it. I was voted number 92 in my ward at 610 p.m. I think the turnout was about 4%. Are you gonna introduce us? You know there's a good point. Let me introduce my fine group of conversants here. You know, I start thinking about Carl Rove, and all sorts of really rational thoughts, just escape, that's okay. You know he's not even a college grad. He's not even a college grad now. Let's stop slinging mud. Stop slinging mud. That's not how we discuss comedy, I don't know. I'm not the vice president lying about it, you know. It's gonna be a very tough group to control tonight. I can just tell. It's a blue blazer crowd. Tom Paneski, raise your hand. There we go. A blue blazer crowd here today. In the blue blazers. How do you get the memo? Geez. Tom, professor of mathematics, associate dean at the assistant dean. Associate dean. Associate dean, I had it right the first time at the University of Wisconsin, Sheboygan. Cal Potter, curmudgeon of the week, I love it. I'm just getting started. He's just getting started, so I suggest you stay tuned for the entire show. Former state senator and overall political maven. And Bovee Vaughn. And Bovee Vaughn. Ken Risto, truly now just a humble social studies teacher at Sheboygan South. He's smiling. Yes, I am. And you've made your re-entry into the school year. I'm back at South full-time. No longer in the friendly balls of central support. Interesting part of that. There we go. The warm heart of central support. So that we don't have to start over, I'm gonna just keep talking. I'm Mary Lynn Donahue, a humble lawyer at O'Neill Cannon, Holman D. Young. A large but metropolitan law firm. Okay, so we got a little off track and we're gonna just kind of redirect ourselves to the primary election. I don't, I was gonna say I didn't think there were any surprises, but I was, the Piper-Hosee election came down to about a 60-40 split. Sadly, that may be as many votes as Job Hosee ever gets in terms of a percentage. I was down at the admin building, watching the votes come in. All the clerks lined up with their boxes of votes and so forth. Alex Piper was down there with Mike Libham. Young man, what do you think? How's that race gonna turn out? Should Terry Van Akron be happy or sad that Alex Piper is his opponent? Well, he's unknown. I don't think we know the things that will still come out of his mouth and what his positions are. You know what Hosee, what he has said in the past, what type of ads he ran last time, which were very helpful to Van Akron because of the fact that he used some odd ads such as the mimicking of a Hispanic person. So I think it's an unknown quantity here, but I think Hosee's votes came from a constituency that he was very strongly aligned with and it's the right to life people. I think he was purported to be endorsed by both of the right to life groups and I think that's why he got the 40% of the vote that he did. But I think the Republicans probably wanted somebody new and they got somebody new to run against Van Akron. It's a new face. Yes. It's a new face. Well, Job did so poorly last time. Right, right. I mean, I think Terry has to be kind of sad, but. I think Piper had to say, I'll run for assembly. Terry, you run for mayor. Collect both of us. We'll do a good job and we see the city forward. I don't know, let's just try something new here. Well, I believe. I'd like to be the only way that the Republican gets that seat. I truly think that the Democrats, in spite of the McCain resurgence, really and truly have the opportunity to take the assembly and fall. So I think they will. I wonder if the state Democrats will put some money into Terry Van Akron's campaign. Terry really hasn't had to campaign since his very first race. And I mean, I think Job Jose in some ways was his own worst enemy with, in some of the ads, you know, were inappropriate. And I mean, the guy's very sincere. And I think he worked hard in his election, but he got 22% of the vote against Van Akron last time. I think if I were Terry Van Akron, I would use this new guy as a new fundraising focus, you know, new face, new challenges. Because again, Terry hasn't had to do much. I mean, it's been not a free ride exactly, but it hasn't been, you know, rigorous challenges. Yes, power of incumbency. You ought to have, what do we call them, term limits? Yeah. Then we're gonna have changeover, that sort of thing. But otherwise, you know, Terry could be there in a long time. You ran, you had to run every two years until you were elected to the states. Real pain running every two years. I mean, you never stop, right? No, you don't. Every year and a half, really, because you start with nomination papers on June 1. And you have to start raising money before that. Yeah, it's real grind. Yeah, I think the race is Van Akron still lose. It's a democratic district going back to, you know. Except for five him years. Yeah, yeah. But otherwise, Kundi and, you know, Carlotti and then myself, when they reapportioned me and gave me the city. Jim Baumgart, you know, most of those years have been democratic dominated. And so I think it's his to lose. And I think he's not been off the beaten track that he's going to lose support. I think the 70 some percent, whatever he got last time is a good base to work off of. And so he should get the least majority of the vote this time around. Are there any scheduled forums for these two guys so that people can actually see? Well, the Chamber of Commerce, I know, is doing candidate forums. I think they were waiting until the primaries were over and they're advertising those. My AAUW group used to do candidate forums, but really the Chamber ones tended to turn out more people and I think have a broader base of appeal and so forth. So I think those forums will come up. I was just, you couldn't tell from the photos and the paper, but Alex Piper is really pretty young. And... Yeah, how young is he, anyway? I mean, he looked to me like he was in his 30s. Just in the brief period of time that I saw him. But it's... This is his first time running. He's got his own business in coal, is that it? Right, yeah. Okay, and I don't know how old he is, yeah. So, well, and more power to him. As we say, we like it when new people get into the race and make it a little bit more competitive. Other primary results. I thought at a certain point that Dan Lemme, he was going to get every single vote in his district. The assembly district that he's in, the 59th, is primarily in Sheboygan, but it does kind of scoot over into Fond du Lac County. West Bend. And West Bend, okay. So that's Washington County then as well, okay. And I don't know the proportion. I mean, is Sheboygan a greater percentage of the electorate? Well, the city of West Bend is in it. West Bend's got to be 20,000 people, I would think. Okay. Out of what, 50,000 seat district? Yeah. But I- He did very well, 71%. Yeah. I think he reflects the conservatism of that part of the district. By that part of the district, I mean, you think of growthmen having beaten Mary Panzer on who's the most conservative here in the Republican Senate choice. She kind of won't there. And- That's right. When you look at the three assembly districts, let me use seat is probably one of the more conservative. I agree. On the social issues particularly. And I think he reflects the district and says so very openly and people have responded. Well, I think he's incredibly well liked in, and he's a very likable person, incredibly well liked in the Usberg, Cedar Grove, Southwestern part of the county there. So he did get 90% or 91% of the vote in the Sheboygan County part of his district. And so, again, Mr. McCarty, sorry, so that's what we call a schvetsing. And so I think that was an interesting race. The, just talking a little bit about the challengers to Congressman Petri, and of course those are always sacrificial lambs. You know, you just feel really sorry for these guys. But Kittleson beat Mr. Wallam pretty decisively. 62-38. And I don't really know a great deal about Roger Kittleson. I doubt that he would be able to run a particularly strong primary. You'll have trouble raising money. He's talking about raising or spending five digit thousands. That's not even competitive. He needs lots of bucks. Well, Petri's been around a long time. I knew him when he served in the state legislature and he's a popular fellow. Roger's a very quality candidate. He's got a master's degree in business. He's in a dairy marketing firm. And he's been on the school board in Lumaira. He's a very impressive candidate. I wouldn't mind him representing me in Congress. But it's gonna be tough to beat Petri. Or he could be vice president. You never know. He'd be better than the choice that McCain made. Works best. We're gonna have to put up this all night. So I'm gonna let the school just walk around here. Cal is just getting started. He's just getting started. I like governor. All right, well we're just gonna talk. We're gonna continue to talk about the Sheboygan area until Cal just bursts out. And then Ken is gonna channel John Stewart and we'll talk about Carl Rove's comments. And we'll just have a great old time. And this is the very last time that they invite us to be a part of the channel eight family. But you know. We're getting back to Petri. They're really, when you look at that congressional district there's no way a Democrat's gonna really prevail there unless there's really some big. Well it's better than when it before they had reapportionment last time because Sheboygan was in Sensenbrenner's district. Now Sheboygan's back in the sixth. And there was one instance way back in the Johnson landslide when John Race took it. So when you add up the fact that Sheboygan Manitowoc, Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Appleton, cities of 50 to 70,000, Cairns gets in Garner some democratic votes out of those union folks and those working folks. It's possible more so than it was before the last. But with Petri's incumbency and the track record of Oshkosh, Appleton, Fond du Lac, voting Republican and Manitowoc, Sheboygan being the two democratic cities it's gonna be tough, you're right. Well Tom Petri is one of the more moderate Republicans that you're I think ever gonna see. And I think he's been supportive on education issues and other matters that it's hard to dislike Tom Petri. He's a very nice fellow. He really is. And we can't bring the Carl Rove mystique to Tom Petri. So those were the I think the interesting primaries. Laura Henning Lorenz came through her primary. She's our county treasurer. But I think the fellow who was running against her in fact dropped out of the race. He did but he didn't, I guess he neglected to tell the county that he was out. Once you get those, I think the rule is once you file your papers you're on the ballot. I didn't know whether there's a method of filing an affidavit or something or saying. There really isn't from what I understand. So were there any other local races? I'm just trying to think. I don't believe so. But, well at least there were a couple and. Well and we think of turnout. I mean it's gonna be a big presidential race so there's gonna be a lot of turnout. So there could be some interesting things that happen across even Subwayton County and maybe the state. Do you remember the excitement of four years ago that week before the election? I mean people I think on both sides were really pumped up. The moveon.org folks had local organizers in town and I saw people who had never been politically active before willing to go out and knock on doors for John Kerry. And so it will be interesting to see and I don't think Kerry really energized any democratic base to the extent that Obama is. And I think that McCain did breathe new life into his almost moribund campaign with Sarah Palin. And so I just think it's gonna be exciting times here. So it's gonna be interesting to, as this whole election pans out, what people are gonna base their vote on as I was driving up here. There was a little segment on public radio trying to ascertain what role race will play. I mean obviously this day and age when you ask people, would you vote for a black person or are you racist? Oh no no I wouldn't do that. But when you start getting into subtle questions about do you think a black person is ready to be president of the United States? You start getting like 27% of whites, good old boys saying no. So they're saying there is that racist undercurrent that's there and ascertaining what that will be when they get in the voting booth is gonna be an interesting thing to see happen in occur. But with those kind of folks that you just described, Cal, would they be typically voting democratic anyway? I mean we talk about people that are gonna be pushing the republican lever, whether the candidate on the democratic side is black, white, green, yellow, or blue. Well I think it depends on where they are. I mean when you look at the country, there's a new book out by the black brothers, they're university professors in Houston I believe and they've divided the country into five segments and they say the south and the northeast, the Midwest, the mountain states and the Pacific. And democrats will do well in the northeast they'll do well in the far west. They'll lose the mountain states, the Montanars and Wyoming. They'll lose the south and they were saying that McCain will win the south big. And so I guess the bubble vote, as some people call it, a lot of it will be the bubble vote in the middle west and states that aren't typically south racist and where there's a heavy history of segregation and racism. How those folks will vote I think is gonna be, whether they can bring themselves to vote for a black person. I mean I don't know if you were asking this, you were thinking will the democrats tend to be hesitant to vote for a black candidate? Because I think the republic are gonna see Obama as an extreme radical on the left and they're not gonna be voting for him regardless of what they think about. Extreme radical? Yes. I mean he's been moderate. From their perspective. Yeah. I mean his positions are. He's far left, he's far left, very far left. So I don't think you're gonna find that on the republican side. You might find the democrats instead of voting for Obama and vote for somebody else or not vote. I mean I think Obama is generally regarded as being quite moderate and particularly as you play out and get into a national campaign and if you had, you know just as McCain is you know pretty much on the right but as he comes into a national campaign he tries to move a little bit. Although it's very, very helpful to have a vice presidential candidate that will satisfy the base as it were and. Well as we do this program, McCain is actually taking the script from Obama. He's saying he's the candidate of real change. This other guy's not real change. I'm real change. I'm the real maverick and it's kind of laughable in a way because that's not how he won in the primaries. I mean he was lapping up to the conservatives as much as he could. Well it's great because Ken and I are great fans of West Wing and the seventh season have this sort of improbable presidential race in it which we are actually just absolutely playing out now in really remarkable detail and you know we're a pretty moderate Republican running with a right wing vice president and a not a conservative Democrat but a religious Democrat and so it's, I mean it's very interesting to me that fiction is still stranger than fact but how this whole piece plays out will be very interesting. Whether it gets into real substance. I mean the 30 second ads are absolutely inane and insulting and latest one from McCain is these wolves running around up in Alaska that Obama's unleashed to find dirt on Pailin. Now this is supposed to be something of substance and ad you know when Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are drowning in unpaid future bills and we've got people running ads with wolves running around here, I'm stupid. Well the next ad, I was thinking about that ad because I had seen it too and I thought okay well we've got the wolves running around. The next ad you're gonna see is Sarah with a little shotgun and check one of those wolves. There's a bear in the woods. There's a bear in the woods. Back to the 1980s then. There's a bear in the woods. Yeah. 1984 ad. And then all the wolf lovers are gonna go oh my. But isn't it sad when you look at the magnitude of the problems of the world and you think of the leaders of the world like Winston Churchill and others in the world and you've got somebody who's pictured with a machine gun or an automatic rifle. Oh and Maria was a high school teacher or something. Yeah she had a few brains too. All right gentlemen, we're gonna move right along and we're over talking about jobs in Shboygan. Jobs in Shboygan. Nice transition. Thought so, thought so. I am, you know we're kind of going back and forth. I think the Shboygan economy has not is not reeling as badly as other economies. It's nice to have beamus moving jobs up here. Of course those are jobs that are being taken away from the southern part of the state. We're losing some pent-air jobs. But Morgan aircraft looks promising and so I think overall the economic climate here is tolerable, fair statement? Well given the state of the economy, especially the way things are being slowed down the fact that Shboygan's economy really had, I mean I've not seen the Shboygan figures for about a month or so so I'm not sure if I'm up to speed on this but they are really kind of holding their own although pent-air was a real blow. Those jobs, there are a lot, a lot of folks who really relied on those jobs and I think they had a goodly number of minority employees over there and so that's gonna be really tough for those communities. I know a good number in our faith community, a good number of our Hmong are employed over there and they're real concerned about where their next job is coming. So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. But we'll have to, we'll just have to see. Well just to change the pace that's kind of warm out today, the city is asking for $800,000 for new snow plows and additional equipment. I don't know where the money comes from. They want to tap into that motor vehicle fund before the rest of the rest of the day all over and use it for something else. Remember we had this big motor vehicle fund and I was like, what are we gonna do with it? Well let's use it here, let's use it here and it was supposed to be for replacement trucks and equipment and everything. So I think they're probably saying, hey let's grab a piece of it before it disappears and when we really need a truck, we're not gonna have it. And that was a very controversial topic there for a while and we don't hear much about it in terms of where they were gonna pay down some of the pension debt for the city and really use that fund which it accumulated way beyond probably what it needed to be. And I don't really know where that stands, if how that played out but it does seem to me that one of the good things that I think is happening in Sheboygan is irritating as it is for those of us at least who live on the north side or the road repairs and numbers of streets in our neighborhood have been torn up for, oh just forever, not that long, but it feels like it really does. But I think that the city paying close attention to a real capital improvement budget shows one, people understand, the mayor understands how important it is to actually budget for the improvements that a city needs or a government that any infrastructure needs that most politicians quote unquote can't seem to do because it's something that can be put off until another election. So I think it's good that these kinds of things are going on and I don't know about the particular need for $800,000 in snow plows. I would, maybe that might be a little high, I don't know, but I think it makes sense to use that fund as smartly as they can. Well we'll know whether it can be used for that or not probably because the budget needs to be finalized by October so the property tax bills can go out in December and if there's other gaping imbalances in the budget, the older persons are gonna have to just use it for that. It's one of those things that capital expenditures get postponed because the day to day keeping the doors open need to be paid for and I don't know how much the city's imbalance or not on their whole total budget but cost to fuel and other things certainly are beating at most people's budget doors, I'll tell you that. But I didn't quite read the story completely. Is it just the plow or is it the vehicle with the plow? And they talk about the snow plow, you're thinking the entire truck and the plow together. Right, I think it's pretty extensive remodeling of the fleet. Of the fleet. Of the salters plows. So those things are very expensive so $800,000 isn't gonna buy much, I don't think. Yeah, so speaking of buying much, the county and the county pulled the plug on the shared HR human resources position. I think in our last show we talked about the fact that the county and the city got together on a purchasing agent, which was good news. But the HR position just doesn't seem to lend itself. So sad story, good story, predictable? What makes the position incompatible that the county and the city can't come together and hire someone to do that particular responsibility? Well I think the bottom line analysis is where do you save money? Now the city has an HR director and two staff people for about 800 people, 800 employees. And the county has slightly more than that for I believe about 1200 employees now that Sunny Ridge is closed. So it was at least clear to me that the county HR departments could certainly not handle the city's HR if in fact they were gonna take it on. I mean. You almost double your workload. Yeah, I mean you've got to hire new people. So the question is, what do you save? Where's the saving? Okay. So I think in some respects that's what it comes to. But it seems to me that the continued search for jobs, the continued search for shared services are things that clearly make some sense in terms of good governance, so. Where's the next area gonna be beyond purchasing agents? Is there some discussion of where we're going with this? As to where we're gonna find the next areas which you can find some cost savings? Well, I don't think it's real high on anybody's agenda at this particular point. I think anything that they talk about is a good idea because it keeps the idea alive and so forth. But territoriality is pretty intense and we do things differently and all those different kinds of things. Institutionalization of the towns and villages that we have, it's tough to take 100 some years of how things have been done and changing. Right. And then we get back to the Kettle report that we've talked about many times, which is we just don't do government particularly efficiently. What we do do is do it responsibly. I mean, the lower down your government level is the more responsive your legislators are. I think Alderman are more responsive than Senator Feingold. I can call Cory Bauck up and say, Cory, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Little harder to get to Senator Feingold and I think Joe Liebham found when he was on the city council and then got elected to the assembly. It was a much better thing for him not to be on the council floor because those were almost two conflicting positions and it was hard for him to be able to keep his distance, just a little. Well, even at the job, I mean, it's a different responsibility which you know, when you're a city Alderman, you're dealing with issues that are front and center in front of the person and when you're at the assembly level, I would think, or the state senate level, the issue is probably right not front and center, your backyard, your street, your light, your garbage pickup. It's secondary, it might be funding for education. Well, I could have, you know, a little bit with the... Or the general shared revenue payment that the mayor wants. Later on, which is a little more remote from, and so it becomes less... We have to wind it up. So we went from Alaska to, you know, Sheboygan gutters. So I think we did a good job. Thanks so much for joining us and I hope you'll join us again.