24 July, 2007

"The real world will never be like Wisconsin"

Salon has a look at Russ Feingold today as well as the new book about him, Feingold: A New Democratic Party, which sounds like it's nothing more than hagiography. Edward McClelland wrote the piece for Salon and I think he does a decent enough job of portraying Feingold but his comments on our state, of which he says, "The real world will never be like Wisconsin", are off-base.

Wisconsin is very much in the real world. We voted to ban gay marriage - a bit more than a simple nod to real-world homophobia and bigotry. Mr. McClelland might want to go check out some of the real-world problems in Milwaukee or real-world racism & poverty up north on our Indian Reservations. Clean government isn't a big issue here - property taxes are. Plus there's teacher bashing, anti-Hmong sentiment, and folks who vote based on a candidate's views on gun control. And we've got lobbyists in our state capitol too. The spirit of Bob La Follette and clean government is long gone. There's corruption and politicos who fancy themselves "vindicative potentates".

Just like the real world.

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