The number one song in the U.S. today in 1955 was written 102 years earlier:
The number one song in the U.S. today in 1966:
Today in 1970, Arthur Brown demonstrated what The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was like by getting arrested at the Palermo Pop ’70 Festival in Italy for stripping naked and setting fire to his helmet during …
Since I have worked every Labor Day for at least seven years (and probably most of my adult life, because people who pay to get newspapers don’t like it when they don’t show up on time, irrespective of what the calendar says), the writers of all those memes about how weekends and holidays were brought to you by unions can go straight to hell.
No business, no jobs, and no tax money to pay government employees’ salaries. You’d think liberals would someday learn that.
Some people have the correct perspective about work. For instance, Tom Woods …
… It’s Labor Day, which means your Facebook feed is full of propaganda about labor unions giving us the weekend.
Oh, really?
Then I guess all Bangladesh needs to get weekends off is a bunch of labor unions?
(And if that’s all they need, why do we send foreign aid to the Third World? Shouldn’t labor unions suffice to do the trick?)
Or how about the 99% of human history in which more than 99% of the population was desperately poor: those societies just needed some labor unions?
Until society grows wealthy enough, all the labor unions in the world can’t make it possible to take two days a week off from work.
Can you imagine, in the primitive economies of 300 years ago, agitating for a shorter work week? People would have thought you insane.
With little capital, and with most goods produced by hand, it takes all the labor power all the hours it can spare just to make life barely livable.
Something did bring you the weekend, but it sure as heck wasn’t labor unions.
Same for better working conditions and shorter hours.
What was it?
The very capitalism the propagandists despise.
… and Daniel Mitchell:
I’ve periodically explained that capital formation (more machines, technology, etc) is necessary if we want higher wages.
Simply stated, workers get paid on the basis of what they produce and the most effective way of boosting productivity is to have more saving and investment.
This is (one of the reasons) why I have so much disdain for politicians who try to foment discord and division between workers and capitalists.
To be sure, there will always be a tug of war between investors and employees over which group gets bigger or smaller slices. But so long as we have the right policies, they’ll be bickering over how to divide an ever-growing pie.
That’s a nice problem to have. Especially compared to what happens when politicians intervene – for the ostensible purpose of helping workers – and adopt policies that create economic stagnation.
Larry Reed of the Foundation for Economic Education wrote with great insight about the link between labor and capital a few years ago. He starts with some basic economics.
…as complementary factors of production, labor and capital are not only indispensable but hugely dependent upon each other as well. Capital without labor means machines with no operators, or financial resources without the manpower to invest in. Labor without capital looks like Haiti or North Korea:plenty of people working but doing it with sticks instead of bulldozers, or starting a small enterprise with pocket change instead of a bank loan. …There may be no place in the world where there’s a shortage of labor but every inch of the planet is short of capital. There is no worker who couldn’t become more productive and better himself and society in the process if he had a more powerful labor-saving machine or a little more venture funding behind him. It ought to be abundantly clear that the vast improvement in standards of living over the past century is not explained by physical labor (we actually do less of that), but rather to the application of capital.
He concludes that we should be celebrating Labor Day and Capital Day.
I’m not “taking sides” between labor and capital. I don’t see them as natural antagonists in spite of some people’s attempts to make them so. Don’t think of capital as something possessed and deployed only by bankers, the college-educated, the rich, or the elite. We workers of all income levels are “capital-ists” too—every time we save and invest, buy a share of stock, fix a machine, or start a business. …I’ve traditionally celebrated labor on Labor Day weekend—not organized labor or compulsory labor unions, mind you, but the noble act of physical labor to produce the things we want and need. …on Labor Day weekend, I’ll also be thinking about the remarkable achievements of inventors of labor-saving devices, the risk-taking venture capitalists who put their own money (not your tax money) on the line and the fact that nobody in America has to dig a ditch with a spoon or cut his lawn with a knife. …Labor Day and Capital Day. I know of no good reason why we should have just one and not the other.
Courtesy of Mark Perry at the American Enterprise Institute, here’s a nice depiction of how labor and capital are interdependent.
P.S. When economists write about the relationship between capital and labor (savings => investment => productivity => wages), some critics assert this is nothing other than “trickle-down economics.”
Yet this is the mechanism for growth under every economic theory – even Marxism and socialism. The only thing that changes under those approaches is that politicians and bureaucrats control investment decisions. And we know that doesn’t work very well.
Somebody high up at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel doesn’t like the Wisconsin Examiner, the new progressive publication covering the state Capitol. You can tell this because the newspaper keeps hammering the same misleading message.
First there was an August 20 JS story on the rise of liberal ‘news’ websites in the state, the use of quotes around news tipping readers off that maybe these groups don’t do real journalism. Then came an August 21 summary of the newspaper’s stories that week by reporter Sarah Hauer which described the Wisconsin Examiner as a “partisan political website.” And then there was JS editor George Stanley’s August 23 column warning to his readers to “Watch out for slanted political coverage” from publications like the Wisconsin Examiner.
So If the Examiner is a “slanted” and “partisan” operation whose claim to cover the news deserves to be questioned and put in quotes, it should be easy to find and report some examples of such journalism, right?
And yet the Journal Sentinel story on the Wisconsin Examiner, by Patrick Marley andMary Spicuzza offers not one example of a slanted or inaccurate story by the publication.As the reporters surely knew, the Examiner actually had one the biggest Capitol scoops in its first few weeks of launching. Its editor Ruth Conniffdid a story revealing that Republicans were discussing using a Joint Resolution to pass redistricting and thereby bypass Gov.Tony Eversand continue gerrymandered districts in Wisconsin.
The Journal Sentinel did a follow-up story that credited the Wisconsin Examiner, while quoting Republican leaders (who pointedly declined to respond to Conniff) denying any such plan.
Conniff also credits her reporterIsiah Holmes with being the first Wisconsin journalist to report on Pentagon spy balloons doing overhead surveillance of the state. This was based on an earlier story by The Guardian, but Holmes hit upon a company called Persistent Surveillance Systems, which sells a similarly sweeping surveillance system.
His story was published at 9:30 on August 8th and about 90 minutes later the Journal Sentinel published a similar story byBruce Vielmetti that also mentions Persistent Surveillance Systems in his story. Did he get that from the Examiner story? “I don’t think so,” Vielmetti says, adding that he remembers the company from some prior stories he read.
That’s a pretty squishy reply and it’s worth noting the Journal Sentinel has always been reluctant to credit other publications who are first to report a story. Indeed, back when Holmes was a free lance reporter for Urban Milwaukee, he did a remarkable investigative piece revealing that a transitional living center that is supposed to help drug addicts had seen five residents die of overdoses within eight months and that the center hadn’t been licensed by the city.Weeks later the Journal Sentinel did a story on the opioid deaths and the city review of the center’s license without crediting Holmes or Urban Milwaukee, whose reporting led to the city’s scrutiny.
The main thesis of the JS story on Wisconsin Examiner is that it is a “left-wing” response to right-wing sites like the MacIver Institute. But MacIver was started as a think tank, not a news site. And when it did do journalism, its methods could be questionable, as Sourcewatch has noted: In 2009 MacIver operative Bill Osmulski was charged with obtaining interviews with two elected Wisconsin officials under false pretenses. The MacIver Institute falsely claimed the state Government Accountability Board would deem recall signatures from “Mickey Mouse” or “Hitler” to be valid when counting signatures in the recall effort against then-governorScott Walker.
MacIver is first and foremost a political group whose staff works to support the Republican Party. Thus, it filed class action suits against the Government Accountability Board and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm for their role in the John Doe Probe of Walker. While MacIver has done more reporting in the last couple years, it does so sporadically: its site lists four new stories it did in the month of August and 13 in July. The Examiner did more than that in its first two weeks. One of MacIver’s main “reporters” is Chris Rochester, who is also the communications director for the group. The other is Matt Kittle, who previously wrote for the now defunct conservative site, Wisconsin Reporter, where he did hundreds of stories with Captain Ahab-like obsessiveness bashing the John Doe probe.
The Examiner has hired four experienced journalists, including Conniff, who worked for two decades for the Progressive Magazine while also doing columns for the Madison weekly Isthmus, Erik Gunn, a former Milwaukee Journal reporter of many years and longtime Milwaukee Magazine contributing editor, Melanie Conklin, who worked for years as a reporter for Isthmus and the Wisconsin State Journal, and Holmes, who free lanced for several years for Urban Milwaukee and other publications. The JS story only reports on Conklin’s background.
The Examiner is funded by the liberal Hopewell Fund, but as Conklin told the JS, the publication is “non-partisan,” and it has already proven itself with many solid news stories. Whereas the JS has already followed up on two Examiner stories, it rarely cites the MacIver Institute. I emailed Marley and Spicuzza for examples of some MacIver stories cited by the JS, and Marley, who responded, had to go all the way back to 2009 to come up with three stories. Versus two for the Examiner in two weeks.
Nice bit of weasel work on Cunniff’s and Murphy’s parts here. “Nonpartisan” and “nonideological” are not synonyms. I’ve been on the radio with Cunniff. Her politics are obvious, as are Isthmus’ for decades. And as I’ve stated here before, Murphy despises Republicans and conservatives, and he proves that here.
Their story has the feel of one assigned by an editor (to not one but two journalists) with a pre-ordained thesis. Most stories start that way, but a good reporter (and both Marley and Spicuzza are good ones) is first and foremost curious and driven to find the real story, even if it departs from the original thesis. In this case there is a huge one that was ignored: the decline of for-profit journalism and the rise of non-profit journalism.
Between 2008 and 2018, newspapers lost 47 percent of their newsroom jobs, as the Pew Research Center has reported. “These major cutbacks, according to the Institute for Nonprofit News… are fueling the growth of nonprofit news outlets,” as the Johnson Center, which tracks non-profits, has reported. “In late 2017, both the Guardian and The New York Times announced the establishment of nonprofit wings….philanthropy is pouring new money and emphasis into nonprofit journalism.” According to another analysis, there are now some 270 U.S. nonprofit news sites, with most popping up in recent years.
You can see that in Wisconsin, where the for-profit Wisconsin Gazette went of business, the Journal Sentinel has suffered a massive loss of staff and the size of the Business Journal has steadily declined. Meanwhile non- profits like WUWM-FM and Wisconsin Public Radio have maintained or increased their news coverage. Even Radio Milwaukee does some news stories these days. Now add the Examiner to the list.
On an average day, a reader interested in coverage of the Capitol will find more stories by checking Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Examiner than from the Journal Sentinel. Urban Milwaukee republishes stories by both publications, along with stories by Neighborhood News Service, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and Wisconsin Justice Initiative, all also non-profits. And as for-profit entities like the Journal Sentinel continue to decline, you’re likely to see more of its one-time coverage replaced by non-profit journalism.
That’s the big trend in journalism which the JS story on the Examiner pointedly ignores, because it’s bad news for the newspaper. Instead it publishes a sloppy story lumping the Examiner in with political entities like MacIver or the liberal super PAC American Bridge. Whatever nuance emerges in the story by Marley and Spicuzza (and it isn’t much) was quickly overwhelmed by Hauer and Stanley slamming the Examiner as partisan and slanted. It’s all part of an exercise to convince readers the JS is the only news source you can trust, and to do this the paper publishes an obviously misleading story.
I learned something decades ago. A publication should never, ever write about its competition. There is no way for you to look good in the process. Do good work, and let the readers and advertisers decide. And the market (which, as you know, liberals hate) will decide whether the Wisconsin Examiner survives or not.
Britain’s number one single today in 1972:
On the same day, the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival was held on Bull Island in the Wabash River between Illinois and Indiana. The festival attracted four times the projected number of fans, three fans drowned in the Wabash River, and the remaining crowd ended the festival by burning down the stage:
The number one song today in 1962:
The number one song today in 1984 announced quite a comeback:
Today in 1955, a London judge fined a man for “creating an abominable noise” — playing this song loud enough to make the neighborhood shake, rattle and roll for 2½ hours:
Today in 1968, Private Eye magazine reported that the album to be released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono would save money by providing no wardrobe for Lennon or Ono:
This is the 100th anniversary season of the National Football League, so the Associated Press decided to create a list of top NFL announcers.
I’m going to modify the AP’s list, because there are two that deserve a separate category, and this doesn’t mention an additional category that needs mention:
While fans of some sports all have their favorite local announcers, the NFL has been much more of a shared viewing experience.
With all games being shown on national networks rather than solely on local channels, the most memorable voices of football are universal.
There were the early voices of the game such as Curt Gowdy and Ray Scott; the unique combination of Howard Cosell, Don Meredith and Frank Gifford in prime time; to years of Pat Summerall’s brevity punctuated by John Madden’s boisterous interjections.
Everyone has a style they prefer, from Tony Romo’s role as Nostradamus to the exuberance of Gus Johnson and Kevin Harlan to the understated style of men such as Summerall and Scott.
Here’s a look at some of the iconic voices of the NFL:
Play by Play
AL MICHAELS
Michaels has been a prime-time fixture in the NFL for decades as the voice of “Monday Night Football” on ABC for 20 years and is now entering his 14th season calling Sunday night games on NBC. Michaels was viewed as so important to the premier prime-time package that NBC traded the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s precursor to Mickey Mouse, to Disney in order to get the rights for Michaels to call Sunday night games in 2006. Michaels has called 10 Super Bowls and is a play-by-play announcer willing to interject his opinions into the broadcast when needed, as well as frequent thinly veiled gambling references to point spreads and over/unders.
DICK ENBERG
Enberg replaced Curt Gowdy as the lead announcer for NBC’s coverage of the NFL in 1979 and spent more than three decades calling NFL games there and at CBS. Known for his exclamation “Oh my!” that was peppered throughout his broadcasts, Enberg called eight Super Bowls at NBC and was the pregame host for another. He worked with various analysts such as Merlin Olsen, Bob Trumpy, Phil Simms and Paul Maguire. Enberg called some of the most memorable games, from John Elway’s “Drive” to the AFC championship in January 1987 to Joe Montana’s comeback win over Cincinnati in the Super Bowl two years later to back-to-back titles by the Cowboys in the early 1990s.
CURT GOWDY
A versatile announcer nicknamed the Cowboy who started off as Mel Allen’s partner on Yankees radio broadcasts, Gowdy was one of the original voices of the AFL on ABC when the league started in 1960. He moved on to NBC in 1965 and was in the booth for some of the most memorable games in pro football history. He called the first Super Bowl for NBC; the “Heidi” game in 1968; Joe Namath’s guarantee in Super Bowl 3; and the Immaculate Reception. ABC wanted to hire Gowdy as the original voice of “Monday Night Football,” but NBC wouldn’t let him out of his contract. His final Super Bowl broadcast came when Pittsburgh beat Dallas for the title following the 1978 season before he was traded to CBS to create an opening for Enberg to become the lead voice of the NFL on NBC. Gowdy had few catch phrases but was known for colorful descriptions.
JACK BUCK
Best known for his work in baseball calling St. Louis Cardinals games, Buck also had a big impact in football. He called the 1962 AFL title game that went double overtime and was one of the top announcers at CBS for more than a decade, calling the Ice Bowl, and the 1970 Super Bowl. He also was a staple on radio, calling 17 Super Bowls for CBS radio as well as “Monday Night Football” games for many years. Buck’s son, Joe, also went on to have a successful announcing career and has called six Super Bowls as the lead play-by-play man at Fox.
RAY SCOTT
Scott began calling Packers games in the 1950s and was the voice of the Lombardi dynasty of the 1960s, when CBS had crews dedicated to specific teams until 1968. With his understated style that featured calls like, “Starr … Dowler … Touchdown, Green Bay,” Scott was on the microphone for some of the NFL’s biggest games, including the Ice Bowl in 1967 and the first two Super Bowls. Scott called four Super Bowls and seven NFC or NFL title games.
ANALYSTS
JOHN MADDEN
After a decade run as a successful coach of the Raiders, Madden made his biggest impact on the game after moving to the broadcast booth at CBS in 1979. He became the network’s lead analyst two years later and provided the soundtrack for NFL games for most of the next three decades, entertaining millions with his interjections of “Boom!” and “Doink!” throughout games, while educating them with his use of the telestrator and ability to describe what was happening in the trenches. He helped establish Fox when the network took over the NFC package from CBS in 1994, and broadcast Monday night games on ABC and Sunday night games on NBC before retiring in 2009. He won an unprecedented 16 Emmy Awards for outstanding sports analyst/personality, and covered 11 Super Bowls for four networks.
HOWARD COSELL
One of a kind as an announcer, Cosell was the rare analyst who never played or coached the game. He brought a different perspective to the TV and his willingness to clash with fellow analyst Don Meredith helped make “Monday Night Football” popular to die-hard and casual fans alike. He popularized the phrase “He could go all the way!” on long plays that became TDs, and was never shy about criticizing players, coaches, the league or his fellow announcers. Cosell’s most memorable moment might have come in 1980, when he informed viewers that John Lennon had been killed. Cosell also put together the halftime highlights package that provided many fans their first look at Sunday’s games in the era before Red Zone and ESPN’s “NFL Primetime.”
MERLIN OLSEN
The Hall of Fame defensive tackle went on to have a long career as the top analyst at NBC, working alongside greats Gowdy and Enberg during the 1970s and ’80s and calling five Super Bowls. A physical presence on the Rams’ “Fearsome Foursome” defensive line, Olsen was more soft spoken as an announcer. He never tried to overshadow the game and was a comfortable listen throughout his career.
CRIS COLLINSWORTH
The former receiver moved right to TV after ending his career following the 1988 season, working in the studio on HBO’s “Inside the NFL.” He did both studio work and worked as a game analyst throughout his career, but has had his biggest impact on NBC’s coverage on Sunday nights. Never shy to offer strong opinions, always well-prepared and adept at quickly analyzing plays, Collinsworth has been a perfect replacement for Madden at NBC. He also has played a role in getting statistical analysis into the mainstream by buying Pro Football Focus and using some of their numbers on his broadcasts.
AL DeROGATIS
The former defensive tackle for the New York Giants became perhaps the most respected analyst of the early Super Bowl era. Working for years alongside Gowdy on NBC’s top team, DeRogatis was known for his ability to describe what happened even before a replay and helped millions of fans better understand the game. He worked three Super Bowls, including Joe Namath’s guarantee game in January 1969.
The first place I differ from this list is that there are two who need to be in both analyst and play-by-play roles, because they did both.
PAT SUMMERALL
Summerall transitioned from a successful playing career to the booth in the 1960s and became the voice of the NFL. He started off as an analyst and was part of the first Super Bowl broadcast. He shifted to a play-by-play role in 1974 at CBS and that’s where he really shined. With an economy of words and understated persona, he helped analysts Madden and Tom Brookshier shine. A call of a big TD for Summerall could be as simple as “Montana … Rice … Touchdown.” He announced a record 16 Super Bowls on network television and contributed to 10 on the radio as well.
FRANK GIFFORD
The Hall of Fame running back went on to have a career as one of the most versatile announcers in football history. Gifford started broadcasting following his first retirement when he was knocked out on a hit by Chuck Bednarik. He retired for good following the 1964 season and returned to CBS as a broadcaster, where he was an analyst for the Ice Bowl and the first Super Bowl, and a sideline reporter on two more Super Bowls. He then moved to ABC in 1971 where he shifted to a play-by-play role on “Monday Night Football,” often playing the straight man to Cosell and Meredith. Gifford then moved back to the analyst chair in 1986 when Michaels took over and remained in that role for more than a decade. Gifford and Summerall are the only announcers to call a Super Bowl as both play-by-play man and analyst.
The broadcasts are not what they’ve been were it not for the pregame shows, headed by Brent Musburger when he was at CBS …
… and postgame, led by ESPN’s Chris Berman:
Today in 1959, Bertolt Brecht‘s “Threepenny Opera” reached the U.S. charts in a way Brecht …
… could not have fathomed:
T0day in 1968, Apple Records released its first single by — surprise! — the Beatles:
Today in 1969, this spent three weeks on top of the British charts, on top of six weeks on top of the U.S. charts, making them perhaps the ultimate one-number-one-hit-wonder:
No, this post isn’t about Seinfeld, it’s about what Elizabeth Vaughn reports:
Since 2004, Gallup has conducted a monthly party affiliation pollparty. They ask voters, “In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?” Results from a November 1-6, 2016 poll showed that 31% of voters identified as Democrats, 27% as Republicans and 36% as Independents. A recently conducted poll indicates a significant shift in those numbers. Currently, 27% of voters consider themselves to be Democrats, 29% as Republicans and 38% as Independents.
What to make of the 4% plus in those identifying as Democrats? Did half of these voters make the switch to the Republican column and the other half to the Independent column? That would account for the two point increase in those two categories.
Also, while there have been many fluctuations along the way, a glance at the number of those who identify as Democrats show those figures peaking between October 2018 and February/March 2019. The results ranged between 30 and 35 during those months. A major drop to 26% was seen following the release of the Mueller report and it has failed to recover.
Conversely, those calling themselves Republicans dipped in January of 2019 to a low point of 25%.
A comparison of what was going on in Washington at that time vs. now explains these changes.
Winter 2018/2019:1. Special Counsel Robert Mueller was still riding high and Republicans were bracing for the horrors of what his long awaited report might reveal.
2. Democrats were riding high after winning back the House majority in the 2018 midterms. The incoming chairmen of the powerful House committees, such as Reps. Jerry Nadler (Judiciary), Adam Schiff (Intelligence), Maxine Waters (Finance) and Elijah Cummings (Oversight), were feverishly preparing their investigations which they were sure would reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors they needed to get rid of Trump once and for all.
3. We saw the ascendancy of the exciting, audacious new Congresswoman from New York City, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well as the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress.
4. A huge new crop of Democrats were kicking off their 2020 presidential campaigns with radical new ideas to transform the US into a “kinder, gentler” socialist republic. All were touting the Green New Deal, the masterpiece introduced by freshman firebrand AOC, telling voters we only had 12 years left to save the planet.
5. Presidential candidates have shifted farther to the left than at any other period in US history. Ideas which had been considered “radical” and “socialist” when first proposed in 2016 by Bernie Sanders have been adopted by most of the 2020 hopefuls.
August 2019:
1. The Mueller report was released and as hard as he and his team of angry, Hillary-supporting Democrats tried, they failed to find sufficient evidence of collusion or obstruction of justice by the President. Then, Mueller reluctantly appeared before Congress to answer questions about his 22-month-long investigation. His disastrous, humiliating testimony immediately reduced the once feared special counsel to a weary old man who had long ago handed over the reigns to his subordinates.
2. The efforts of House Democrats to impeach President Trump have become, if not a joke, then at least a mere side show. Most amusing is that the average voter couldn’t tell you if Nadler has begun impeachment proceedings or even an impeachment inquiry against Trump if their lives depended on it. No one is paying attention to what he is doing. Both Nadler and his efforts have become irrelevant.
3. Similar to Robert Mueller, the three radical freshmen reps, who had initially taken Washington by storm, have seen their rockstar status fizzle. Their reckless rhetoric, their bigoted statements, and their transparent lust for power have turned them into pretty unsympathetic characters. They forged ahead carelessly without bothering to first acquaint themselves with the ways of Washington believing that by sheer audacity, they could achieve their goals. Better yet, Trump has managed to make these women the face of the Democratic Party.
4. Deeper analysis of the Green New Deal has turned AOC’s signature proposal into a joke. Outside of the far left fringes of the Democratic party, most voters understand that the GND (and other plans based on the GND) is nothing more than a power grab designed to turn America into a socialist nation.
5. The majority of Americans oppose the policies the 2020 Democratic candidates have embraced. Voters are against late term abortion, open borders, free healthcare for illegal immigrants, and they don’t see climate change as an existential threat.
The political landscape has changed dramatically between January, when 32-34% of voters identified as Democrats and the present, when only 27% do. The Democrats may want to rethink their strategy going forward because Americans aren’t buying what they’re selling. Additionally, William Barr’s appointment as Attorney General has upended the Democrat’s Russian collusion narrative to the point where the investigators have now become the investigated. And while the results of one poll don’t tell a story, Democrats have lost a lot of battles in 2019. And it sure looks like the advantage has shifted to the Republicans.
Some of this seems strange. How many people change their party affiliation based on election results? (As opposed to the results of the election results, the second five points.) It’s one thing if, like Ronald Reagan, you didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left you. If you claim to be a member of whichever political party did better in the last election, then we must wonder about your principles. (I suppose “winning” is a principle by someone’s definition.)
On the other hand, for those who despair about whatever GOP leadership is doing, well, Democratic leadership has apparently lost The Cap Times:
The Democratic National Committee will never be accused of having its act together, especially when it comes to Wisconsin. The DNC’s long history of misreading Wisconsin almost cost Democratic nominees the state’s electoral votes in 2000 and 2004, and the bureaucrats in D.C. finally did enough damage in 2016 to tip the state into the GOP column.
So it should probably come as no surprise that the party is bumbling arrangements for the Democratic National Convention in 2020. Yet it is somehow shocking to see the Democratic insiders blow the simplest of tasks: hotel arrangements.
The party made the right decision when it chose to hold the convention in Milwaukee, a great American city that is ready to be mobilized to end Donald Trump’s presidency. But now, the party bureaucrats have decided that thousands of delegates and alternates and convention guests will be spend much of the convention week in Illinois.
The DNC has determined that while 31 delegations will be housed in Milwaukee area hotels, 26 delegations will be staying in northern Illinois. In fact, so many large delegations are being sent across that state line that Wisconsin will barely house the majority of delegates. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “In all, 2,926 hotel rooms will be used for delegates in Wisconsin while 2,841 hotel rooms will be used in Illinois, according to the list.” In reporting the assignments, the Journal Sentinel explained, “It turns out the 2020 Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee is going to be very good for the Illinois hotel industry.”
It will not be so good for the hoteliers of Madison, Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan and other Wisconsin cities that are as close or closer to Milwaukee than northern Illinois. Make no mistake, all of these cities have excellent hotels that would be outstanding bases for delegations. They are also more affordable than Chicago area hotels, which is no small consideration for a party that is supposed to maintain at least a minimal interest in attracting working-class voters.
We do not deny that there are fine hotels in the Chicago area, and we are aware that the Milwaukee bid for the convention proposed that some delegations would be housed in Illinois. That’s cool. What is not cool is that almost half of the delegates will be spending convention nights outside Wisconsin. And what is simply stunning is the decision to prioritize airport hotels in Illinois over outstanding hotels in Wisconsin cities that are more easily reached than the congested O’Hare area.
But this is about more than logistics. This is about something the Democratic National Committee should understand, but apparently does not: politics.
From a political standpoint is difficult to fully describe the scorching stupidity of the DNC’s approach. But let’s try.
In 2016, Illinois gave 56 percent of its support to Democrat Hillary Clinton and just 38 percent to Republican Donald Trump. In 2020, the state is expected to maintain that pattern.
Illinois is not a battleground state, not by any measure. But Wisconsin is.
In fact, it is a classic battleground. When Wisconsin’s electoral votes moved from the Democratic to the Republican column in 2016, along with those of Michigan and Pennsylvania, the Democrats lost the presidency.
Of the last five presidential elections in Wisconsin, three were exceptionally close calls. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore won the state by 5,708 votes out of roughly 2.6 million cast. In 2004, Democrat John Kerry won by 11,384 votes out of almost 3 million cast. Democrat Barack Obama won the state with ease in 2008 (taking 56 percent) and 2012 (with almost 53 percent), as he did the rest of the country, making him the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win two consecutive national elections with over 50 percent of the vote.
But in 2016, Trump took Wisconsin by 22,748 votes out of just under 3 million cast. For the first time since 1984, a Republican carried a Wisconsin presidential vote. Fly-by-night pundits imagined that the state had tipped to the GOP. But two years later, Democrats won every statewide race — for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state treasurer and secretary of state. Several of those results were exceptionally close, however, confirming what anyone who knows anything about Wisconsin politics knows: This is a closely competitive state. And it is likely to be that in 2020.
So how will the race be decided? By generating lots of excitement in Democratic bases such as Milwaukee County and Dane County and by capturing counties that Democrats have won in the past but where they ran poorly in 2016. Such as: Racine County and Kenosha County to the south of Milwaukee on the Lake Michigan shore, and Sheboygan County to the north. Obama carried Racine and Kenosha counties in 2008 and fell just 400 votes short in Sheboygan County; in 2012, the Democrat again took Kenosha and Racine counties and was at a competitive 45 percent in Sheboygan County. In 2016, all three counties backed Trump.
So let’s review: To win Wisconsin, Democrats need a huge turnout in Madison and they need to carry or at least remain competitive in the lakeshore counties north and south of Milwaukee. And which communities has the Democratic National Committee decided to give the cold shoulder when making 2020 Democratic National Convention hotel assignments? Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Sheboygan.
The DNC could have created good will and electoral excitement in the places it needs to win the battleground state of Wisconsin in 2020. Instead, it decided to head for Illinois. Good luck with that.
Of course, heading for Illinois what minority Democrats in the state Senate did in attempting to engineer their coup d’etat against Republican Gov. Scott Walker. That not only failed to prevent Act 10 from passing, it failed to defeat Walker and it failed to wrest control of either house of the Legislature in 2012, the same election in which Barack Obama was reelected president and Tammy Baldwin was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Recall Will Rogers’ statement “I’m not a member of an organized political party; I’m a Democrat.” Or perhaps national Democrats are afraid of Madison.
Today in 1966, the Beatles played their last concert for which tickets were charged, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
Today in 1970, Edwin Starr was at number one on both sides of the Atlantic:
Britain’s number one album today in 1981:
The number one song today in 1982:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 