Election Matters: Van Hollen hosts McCain 'victory' party
CALENDAR: The Nov. 4 election is one day from today. ("What a difference a day makes ... 24 little hours ... ")
POLL POSITIONING: Forget McCain; will Obama beat Reagan?
Democrat Al Gore won Wisconsin in 2000 by 0.2 percent of the vote.
Democrat John Kerry won Wisconsin in 2004 by 0.4 percent of the vote.
Democrat Barack Obama could win Wisconsin in 2008 by 11 percent -- or more.
The last time a presidential candidate of either party won more than 50 percent of the vote in Wisconsin was in 1988, when Michael Dukakis took 51.8 percent.
If Obama gets to the 55-percent range, he won't be competing with recent Democratic nominees.
He'll be trying to best the last presidential candidate to score anything akin to a landslide victory in Wisconsin: Ronald Reagan, who took 54.3 percent in 1984.
For the latest state polling numbers, click here.
Consider, as well, the popular www.fivethirtyeight.com (get it, 538 electoral votes), which offers geek-friendly projections for the Nov. 4 Electoral College.
VAN HOLLEN TO HOST McCAIN "VICTORY" PARTY
After claiming for weeks that there was nothing partisan about his ambitious election season regimen of suing the Government Accountability Board and dispatching attorneys and special agents to polling places where high Democratic turnouts might reasonably be expected, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen comes out of the closet Tuesday night.
He's co-hosting the "Wisconsin GOP Election Night Party" -- where supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin will toast their successes or drown their sorrows -- at a Waukesha hotel.
Van Hollen, a McCain campaign co-chair, will be joined by other non-partisan good government activists like Republican congressmen Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner.
HOW SERIOUS IS THE "VOTER FRAUD" ISSUE? Not very, says top McCain aide
Ronald Michaelson, the former executive director of the Illinois Board of Elections who serves as a key member of the McCain-Palin campaign's "Honest and Open Election Committee," was asked by ProPublica reporter Chisun Lee whether he could name a single instance in which fake voter registrations lead to phony votes.
"Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form?" asked Michaelson rhetorically. "No, I can't cite one chapter and verse."
He was also asked whether Republican campaigners -- and, presumably, officials such as Van Hollen -- have gone too far in stirring up fears about voter fraud. "Well, it doesn't help," admitted Michaelson. "It has captured the attention of a lot of people. Maybe it's because there's nothing else to talk about."
For a link to the ProPublica article, click here.
BEASTIES FOR OBAMA: "Fight for Your Right to Vote"
If you answered the phone Sunday and the person calling you shouted,"You've Got to Fight for Your Right to Party" -- followed by a gentler bit of prodding to get out and vote for Obama -- your name must have been on the phone-banking list handed to Adam Yauch, Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys. The rap-rock pioneers were in Wisconsin working the phones and pumping up "Get Out the Vote" events for the Obama campaign over the weekend.
WHERE'S THE BIGGEST McCAIN-PALIN SIGN IN MADISON? Go southwest, young Republicans
The hand-painted number on the corner of Raymond Road and Whitney Way is huge -- almost billboard size.
But it can't compete with the massive Obama signs on each side of a building on East Washington Avenue as you approach Baldwin.
COATTAILS, ANYONE: Would a big Obama win mean big advances for Democrats? Not necessarily
Democrats hope the new voters who swell the polling places on Tuesday to back Barack will mark their ballots for the rest of the ticket. If it happens, they think the state Senate, which the party already controls, could become even more Democratic and that the state Assembly, which Republicans narrowly control, could end up with a Democratic majority. Republicans, not surprisingly, fear these scenarios.
But history suggests that Wisconsin is a ticket-splitting state.
It is true that in the 1932 Franklin Roosevelt landslide, Democrats went from holding two seats in the Assembly -- yes, two -- to 59. In the Senate, Roosevelt's fellow partisans went from one seat to nine.
But in the even bigger Roosevelt landslide of 1936, Democrats lost four Assembly seats to the Republicans. Democrats also lost four Senate seats that year, although some of them went to the briefly-muscular Progressive Party.
In the Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964, Wisconsin tossed out a Democratic governor (John Reynolds) and replaced him with a Republican (Warren Knowles), and gained only one seat in the Senate and six in the Assembly
In the Ronald Reagan landslide of 1980, Republicans picked up a couple of Senate seats but gained nothing in the Assembly. (It should not be forgotten, however, that Democratic U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson lost that year.)
Four years later, when Reagan won an even bigger mandate, Democrats retained control of the Assembly and Senate. In fact, they started the next session with two more seats than they had at the opening of the previous legislature.
Will 2008 be different? Perhaps. There is no question that Assembly Democrats have recruited aggressively, and well. But the Republicans have adopted a sly strategy of running without party labels -- and in some cases, as with state Rep. Brett Davis, bragging about how well they work with Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.
Bottom line: Election Matters thinks Democrats will retain control of the Senate and take a narrow majority -- perhaps 52-47 -- in the Assembly.
For some history on coattails and straight-ticket voting, click here.
LAST CHANCE FOR EARLY VOTERS
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's always-on-top-of-it spokesperson, Rachel Strauch-Nelson, says the hallways here at the City-County Building were "buzzing" over the weekend. And they are likely to be packed with last-minute "early voters" Monday. More than 1,300 people cast ballots at the CCB Saturday -- pushing the total number of people who have voted at the City Clerk's office past 16,000.
The early voter/absentee ballot total is well over 30,000.
That compares with 25,258 in 2004.
Early voting hours for today are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Everyone who is line by 5 will get to vote.
If you don't make it, you can still vote the old-fashioned way: at the polls on Tuesday.
File photo
On Tuesday night in Waukesha, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen will co-host the "Wisconsin GOP Election Night Party."
