The Battle for Wisconsin
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
The Battle for Wisconsin A Brahmin among the Cheeseheads BY STEPHEN F. HAYES Green Bay John Kerry may have lost Wisconsin last Wednesday. Lambeau Field is arguably the most historic sporting...
...Lambert Field...
...They came with free green-and-gold New Orleans-style beads, however...
...It's capitalized in Wisconsin...
...ME: Who would he support...
...He began with a rally in Chippewa Falls, home to the legendary Leinenkugel's brewery...
...They like their guns, and I'm sure Brett likes his money...
...Kerry spoke with Schultz on June 23, 2004...
...Governor Jim Doyle is a Democrat, but Republicans control both branches of the state legislature...
...The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth chose the state in their targeted rollout of ads attacking John Kerry...
...Each one claimed to be a Bush supporter...
...The Kerry campaign is hoping to build on that success...
...Veterans saluted...
...Think Robert LaFollette and Joe McCarthy...
...That's why you get liberals like Russ Feingold, who is certainly to the left of the voters here, getting reelected...
...After Labor Day, you won't see a new car ad for six weeks," says Keith Schmitz, a grassroots activist and Kerry supporter from the Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood...
...Assuming Brett Favre doesn't endorse anyone, Wisconsin will likely see an unprecedented level of political activity in the next two months...
...in July 2003...
...And the publication in question happens to be located in western Wisconsin—one of the few rural areas where Al Gore ran well in 2000...
...I started at the Stadium View Sports Bar and Grille, where 24 oz...
...Of his 7 campaign bus trips, 3 have taken him to Wisconsin...
...Me: But you're not successful yet...
...Marquardt was an impressive multitasker...
...I'm an anti-Bush voter...
...Bush leads Kerry 45 percent to 44 percent, with Ralph Nader at 3 percent...
...WARD: It would carry the state...
...ME: Iif Favre endorsed one candidate ^ the other, do you think it matters...
...Every summer, fans ring Clark Hinkle practice field 20-deep to watch the Packers' training camp...
...But it is particularly effective in Wisconsin, which has a long tradition of favoring plainspoken elected officials...
...That's when their beloved Packers—okay, our beloved Packers—travel to Washington, D.C., to play the Redskins...
...Wheelchair-bound nursing home residents were wheeled out to the curb...
...One burly man held a large sign with silver, duct-tape letters: "Mr...
...One week later, in its issue dated June 30, 2004, The Country Today broke news that would be especially significant to its readership...
...In Chippewa Falls, squad cars blocked the streets for Bush's motorcade...
...But not all of the signs were friendly...
...The Democratic National Committee launched its first television ad of the 2004 campaign in Madison...
...The reason for all of this attention is simple...
...WARD: I know it would...
...Lots of people think it was stolen from Bush in 2000...
...Let me tell you something: When I was a kid, this 'kid from the East' had an aunt and uncle who had a dairy farm, and one of my greatest joys in life in fact, I lived on a farm as a young kid...
...The death-knell for a Democrat in Wisconsin is to be a flip-flopper," says Rep...
...I asked him why: WARD : I''m going to vote fo^ Bush because once I become successful, which I plan on doing, I want my money...
...Those are Kerry's words that day, as recorded in the July 4, 2004, Boston Globe...
...The Kerry campaign was the one who contacted me," says Schultz, in an email...
...We go now to Scott Stanzel, spokesman for the Bush campaign...
...The exception was Linda Marquardt, a graphic designer from Green Bay, who readily agreed to be interviewed when I ordered two more Miller Lites from the Beer Man...
...Cornejo is a self-described Reagan Democrat who has voted Republican since 1980...
...Kids waved American flags...
...The Bush supporters I met at Lambeau Field will have a tough decision to make three days before the election...
...But the local police ran out of cars...
...Paul Ryan, co-chairman of the Bush campaign in Wisconsin...
...John Edwards toured the state early last week...
...He ticked off the accomplishments of his first term and goals for a second...
...This down-the-middle split manifests itself in the state's political leadership: While both of Wisconsin's senators are Democrats, the House delegation is split evenly, 44...
...I did vote for the compact as a representative of farmers in Massachusetts," he explained...
...Go Packers...
...So I would say like 8-out-of-10—I don't know Brett personally—but there's an 80 percent chance he's definitely Republican...
...A poll published Friday by the Los Angeles Times shows that little has changed...
...Named after quarterback Brett Favre, for you Chicago Bears fans...
...I would have voted for whoever the Democrats put up...
...Bush has been to the state 13 times as president...
...Republicans think the margin was closer...
...What can you expect from a guy who probably thinks the phrase 'the frozen tundra of Lambeau' is something on the menu in an expensive French restaurant full of foreign leaders...
...Lambert Field...
...But it was still a flip-flop...
...Kerry's ill-fated trip to Green Bay came just two days after Edwards left the state...
...How long has that superstition held true...
...Miller Lites were selling for an outrageous $6.00...
...Wisconsinites have already been inundated with ads, phone calls, and candidate visits...
...They said they were interested in getting their message out to the rural population and asked whether I'd be interested in having 15 minutes or so one-on-one via telephone while the senator was traveling...
...He and his wife are voting for Bush...
...As the third quarter began, she answered questions about the race, participated in the wave, and watched the game...
...I returned to the Stadium View after the game and struck up a conversation with Trevor Ward, an unemployed bartender from La Crosse, and a friend wearing a hat featuring a ten-point buck devouring a foamy, yellow wedge of cheese...
...They're huge into hunting...
...Victory 2004...
...I'm unemployed and I'm going to vote for Bush...
...Midway through the speech, Bush sarcastically referred to John Kerry's tortured explanation of his vote against the $87 billion to fund troops in Iraq...
...Lambeau Field is so important to the state, and Packers fans so representative of likely Wisconsin voters, that that's where I chose to travel nine days before Kerry's gaffe to conduct primary research on the state of the presidential race in Wisconsin...
...WARD: I don't know Brett Favre personally, but a good friend that I hung with every year knows Jeff Favre, his brother...
...New digital voice-recorder in hand, I approached a busty young woman wearing a cheese-bra— support made out of the foamy, faux-cheese material Packers fans often wear in triangles on their heads...
...The Packers lost...
...Wisconsin, according to Hotline editor-in-chief Chuck Todd, is "the swingiest of all the swing states...
...The Progress for America Voter Fund, another "527" group, released the first of its anti-Kerry ads last Wednesday in just two states—Iowa and Wisconsin...
...So not only did John Kerry give an interview to Scott Schultz, managing editor of The Country Today, but Kerry's campaign solicited the coverage...
...Ron Kind, a Democrat from La Crosse who represents Wisconsin's third congressional district, believes Bush is vulnerable because "people are unhappy with the direction of the country...
...Locals lined the streets to see the president, or at least his motorcade...
...WARD and the deer-cheese guy were good company, so we spent a considerable amount of time discussing how Ward might become successful...
...So was Jose Cornejo from Sussex...
...I plead guilty...
...The presidential visit clearly strained the resources of the community...
...This is not, of course, a typical election year...
...They're both for Bush...
...Over the course of the evening, I interviewed perhaps two dozen voters...
...The friend, perhaps understandably, refused to be identified...
...And if he were to say it, it would definitely carry the state...
...You can't discount that motivation...
...ME: You think it would...
...And whatever good the careful planning and straight talk might have done was quickly undone by the candidate's awkward attempt to transform himself from John Forbes Kerry to Farmer John...
...Al Gore won Wisconsin by 5,708 votes in 2000—47.8 percent to 47.6 percent...
...For the last 72 years—or 18 presidential elections...
...It was an admirable and refreshing moment of candor...
...Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said that if he's elected, he'd no longer support special regional dairy pricing programs that some Wisconsin and Minnesota farm leaders have opposed...
...Bush's speech in Chippewa Falls varied little from his standard stump speech...
...She was not interested in talking about politics...
...Stephen F. Hayes, a native of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...According to the Hotline's Chuck Todd, a noted Packers fan, "If the Redskins lose or tie in their last game before the election, the incumbent's party loses the White House...
...The first farm was where Kerry rode a tractor with a hand who worked the family's property...
...For months polls have shown the race to be dead even, with most of the results within the margin of error...
...Dick is a Dick," read one, presumably referring to Cheney, not Gephardt...
...Two days later, on July 2, Kerry addressed a large rally at a dairy farm in Independence, Wisconsin...
...Bush's most recent trip to Wisconsin came on August 18...
...I don't think people talk like that here...
...Ralph Nader won 94,070 votes—4 percent...
...Bush uses that line wherever he gives the speech— Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico...
...The credibility issue for John Kerry is his biggest liability...
...Anti-Bush groups such as MoveOn.org and the Media Fund have spent considerable sums trashing the president in the state...
...Outside groups have also been as active in Wisconsin as they have in any state...
...To give you some idea of how important Green Bay Packer football is to Wisconsin, consider this: While most NFL teams struggle to fill the stands for preseason games, the Packers sold out Lambeau Field for an intra-squad scrimmage in which tackling was prohibited...
...At the dairy farm, he tilled the land himself...
...My parents, when we lived in Massachusetts, we lived on a farm, and I learned my first cuss word sitting on a tractor with the guy who was driving it...
...That's what John Kerry called it during a stop last week in Green Bay...
...I'm going to stand up for farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa just as hard as I did for the farmers in Massachusetts...
...Ward, too, is a Bush supporter...
...Further down the highway, a patrol boat from the Chippewa County Sheriff's Department obstructed traffic as six motorcoaches—two red-white-and-blue Bush-Cheney buses and four for the press—cruised by...
...WARD: Not yet...
...I had more luck with Brian Budsberg, a retired insurance salesman from Waupaca...
...Budsberg, accompanied by his brother from Texas, railed against the media's misre-porting of Iraq...
...In a typical election year a Democratic presidential campaign would likely dismiss or altogether ignore an interview request from a weekly agricultural newspaper with a readership of just 25,000...
...The margin of error is 3 percentage points...
...In Wisconsin, people will vote for you if you're consistent," he adds, citing the voters he shared with Ralph Nader in 2000 as evidence...
...Ryan, a conservative from Janesville...
...When I was 12 years old, my passion was being allowed to go out and sit on the John Deere and drive it around the field and plow, and I learned, as a kid, what it was like to look in back of me and see those furrows, and see that pattern, and feel a sense of accomplishment, and end up dusty and dirty and tired but feeling great, looking back at that field that you plowed...
...But there's a downside to consistency: stubbornness...
...At the time, Kerry's parents lived in Europe and he attended boarding school in Switzerland, but he returned to Massachusetts on vacations, Cutter said...
...The crowd roared its approval...
...I made that last one up, but there sure seem to be a disproportionate number of 8-year-old Bretts running around the state...
...When asked about why, he said, well, he actually did vote for the $87 billion right before he voted against it," Bush explained...
...But in the end we returned to the Packers and politics...
...Opposing players long for the opportunity to play there...
...Lambeau Field is arguably the most historic sporting venue in the United States...
...There were dozens of reports of malfeasance in Milwaukee County," says Rep...
...Every American male over the age of 4 can finish the description of the field made famous by the pseudo-thunderous voice of ESPN's Chris Berman: "The Frooooooozen Tunnnnnnnndra of...
...Kerry had supported the Northeast Dairy Compact, which Upper Midwest dairy leaders said unfairly benefited Northeast dairy producers...
...President—Let's Roll...
...After the Packers won the Super Bowl in 1996, 43.2 percent of males born in the state were named Brett...
...A dark green pickup truck with "Chippewa Falls Animal Control" written on its side blocked one street, a bright orange garbage truck sealed off another...
...He cracked a few jokes, thanked the local politicians, and reminded Wisconsin Republicans that he thinks his wife is doing a terrific job as First Lady...
...Of the four Wisconsin towns Bush visited that day, Chippewa Falls— population 12,924—was the largest...
...Kerry continued shoveling...
...According to the same article, Kerry spokesman Stephanie Cutter explained Kerry's farm days this way: Cutter "said Kerry was referring to two farm experiences, one when he and his parents lived on a farm in Millis, Mass., and later when he frequented a dairy farm straddling the Ipswich/Hamilton border that was owned by his aunt and uncle...
...Democratic strategists say the Kerry campaign plans to have events featuring the candidates or prominent surrogates almost daily in Wisconsin from Labor Day through the November 2 election...
...This saturation will not be limited to ads, or "paid media," but will also include the free media generated by news coverage...
...It's the Mecca of American football...
Vol. 9 • September 2004 • No. 48
