From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Northwest of Marshfield in the village of Spencer, population 1,941, voters ventured to the municipal building where they marked ballots while sitting at a table or standing in booths made by a local carpenter.The key phrase here is "made by a local carpenter", because of course they were.
So I have some Wisconsin cheese curds from Trader Joe's, and some Turkish apricots to go with -- pace Paul Rhode, but the Turkish ones are better than the Californian -- and a tumbler-full of Korbel brandy, waiting for the election results to trickle through our dysfunctional media. The McCain watch party in Madison is at the Nitty Gritty, God help us all, a bar where, when people received birthday shots, they would play the most godforsaken version of "Happy Birthday" ever recorded, just different enough to avoid copyright issues. (One set of verses was backwards: Yadhtrib Yppah, Yadhtrib Yppah, natas teews ym no kcor. It used to drive my friend Stein up the wall; she unfortunately lived next door, and they'd play it several times a night.)
The Obama watch party in Madison is at the Great Dane, an actual brewpub off the Capitol Square, not too far from the Majestic Theater where I saw Rocky Horror. The old Majestic was rumored to have an interesting employment policy which I will not go into. I don't know where the Clinton watch party will be, but I'm sure Tammy Baldwin will be there. Ben Masel, the hemp activist and former Republican candidate for Dane County sheriff, will probably be live-blogging the returns on Daily Kos, which is just weird to me all the away around. In person, you wonder about the paraquat-motormouth connection, but online, he's pretty lucid.
There have been some leaked exit poll data, but I wonder about the older mom demographic. Stranded by weather, Clinton did manage to give a speech up near Green Bay in De Pere at St. Norbert's College, where my own mom taught on occasion -- I forget whether it was ASL or financial planning; might have been both. And my old allergist Congressman Kagen has pledged to go with the results of the district. It's supposed to be wonderfully cold, which means turnout should be good. It's virtuous.
Recently I was asked if I ever planned on moving back to Wisconsin. I replied with absolute candor, because the conversation deserved absolute candor. But it's still my home, and they're still my people. I get homesick sometimes.
Tons of people registering at my polling place (in Wisconsin, you can register at the polls). I was number 1114 at 7pm. That's very high for my polling place. On the way out, I heard someone saying they "voted for audacity". I like that.
As far as older mothers go, all the ones I know are voting Obama. Including my own. Of course, I live somewhere that went 8 out of 10 for Kerry/Edwards (9 out of 10 in my precinct).
Posted by: Carrie | February 20, 2008 at 05:58 AM
I'm not sure how my mom would vote -- a little moot, since her religion discourages it and she's outside the country anyway. (Cruise!) She likes Libby Dole, and she likes Tipper Gore, so I suspect voting for the first woman president would appeal to her.
My dad, I think the last election which made sense to him was Magsaysay's. He voted for Anderson in 1980.
Posted by: Carlos | February 20, 2008 at 06:22 AM
Hm, that was quick. But really, not a surprise; Clinton is no Eli Manning.
Now let's see if the Big O can beat the spread.
Posted by: Carlos | February 20, 2008 at 06:30 AM
Obama +17.6%. Clinton got smoked in the old industrial towns, the only exceptions being Kenosha County on the Illinois border and W/h/i/t/e/f/l/i/g/h/t/ Waukesha County near Milwaukee, which she only lost.
No one minded when McCarthy would run up the score.
Posted by: Carlos | February 20, 2008 at 12:32 PM
Can't beat the insanity that happened here. Last caucus, 25 people showed up at my district's gathering point. Last night almost 1,000 people did. They had to use slips of scrap paper after they ran out of ballots.
It's a combination of Hawaii actually being able to vote while the race still mattered and Obama having strong Hawaii connections. Hillary didn't stand a chance.
Posted by: Spike Gomes | February 21, 2008 at 12:30 AM
I don't usually pay much attention to US primaries because I don't understand the system and because the interesting candidates usually fall by the wayside but this year does seem different.
Do you think the current enthusiasm will translate into higher voting turnout among the young for the actual election? That would be good for America, I think.
Posted by: James Bodi | February 21, 2008 at 06:36 AM