Halfway down the Danube

Not an end, but a beginning

Of all the e-mails, Carrie's (of Bad Mama) was the first. From Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson:

Brett Favre has informed us of his intention to retire from the Green Bay Packers and the NFL. He has had one of the greatest careers in the history of the National Football League, and he is able to walk away from the game on his own terms - not many players are able to do that.

The Packers owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. He has given Packers fans 16 years of wonderful memories, a Super Bowl championship among them, that will live on forever. Brett's many accomplishments on the field are legendary. He leaves the game holding virtually every career passing record, plus his consecutive starts streak, which may never be duplicated.

The uniqueness of Brett Favre - his personality, charisma and love of the game - undoubtedly will leave him as one of the enduring figures in NFL history.

I'm glad I can say I saw him when.

Wisconsin primary pre-game show

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.

Wisconsin primary notes

The beautiful thing about Wisconsin primaries is that everyone is on the same ballot. This was one of Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette's innovations, and it basically drives pollsters mad. I can guarantee you that there are serious people in Wisconsin right now making a serious decision between Huckabee and Obama.

In 1960, Wisconsin broke for John F. Kennedy in the primary over Minnesota's Humphrey. Wisconsin Catholics were the crucial swing voters, as they were in the general election against Richard Nixon in Wisconsin. In 2008, of course, none of the candidates are Catholic: Clinton and McCain can be described as High Church Baptist, but aren't regarded as especially devout; Obama belongs to the inoffensive United Church of Christ, yet many people still believe he's a Muslim; and Huckabee is a Southern Baptist, of the sort which not long ago called the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon. He's not going to pick up many conservative Catholic votes... and before anyone asks, the following is the conservative Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's policy:

We cannot ask candidates with no religion to affirm a belief in God as a condition of running for office. If any candidate agrees to such a test, it will be used against all religious candidates -- Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, everyone, even against non-religious candidates. If we do not speak up against these tests, we are opening the door to divisive anti-religious campaign techniques that destroy the principles of civil discussion that have been the basis for American democracy. People of all religions or of no religion should speak up against such religious tests for public office.

Anyway. Clinton has done well with Catholics in past primaries, but I tend to think this is a demographic accident of having various machines on side in New York, in Massachusetts, and in southern California. At any rate, Milwaukee's mayor (and presumably its associated machine) has endorsed Obama. There isn't a large Latino population in Wisconsin, and most of it is made of recent Mexican immigrants by way of Chicago. There is the rather conservative northeast part of the state, and it's not a coincidence that McCain and Huckabee are both touring Appleton, Joe McCarthy's home town. (Actually it's Grand Chute, but I think the old farm is now underneath a parking lot.)

Finally, watch the media chatterers get the names wrong. A Wisconsin pronunciation guide can be found here.

A different season in Green Bay

The lead paragraph from the Manitowoc Herald-Times: Sen. Barack Obama ended his Green Bay visit Friday night with onion rings and a perch plate at Kroll's East.

See, there's Kroll's East and there's Kroll's West. Different branches of the family. Kroll's West is the one by Lambeau Field. They're the ones who send Jon Gruden his bratwurst fix. Kroll's East is the one my grandparents would take me to. Their specialties are their butter burgers and their chili.

Wisconsin, especially northern Wisconsin, is like one very large small town.

Friday's rally in Green Bay got off to a rough start, although Oshkosh's was slightly worse.

"Now, it is hard for a Packer to support a Bears fan," Obama started.

A few boos.

"But you would not want some guy to come up here and say he was a Packers fan when he was a Bears fan, would you?"

Shouts of "No!"

"Of course not. You've got to stick with your team even when they don't break .500. Even when they don't make the playoffs. Even when they make you tear your hair out. You've got to stick with your team."

Then Obama introduced the Packer linebacker Brady Poppinga. Now, Poppinga is this huge young Mormon guy from Wyoming -- the last name is Dutch; Doug asked me that once and I just knew it, I don't know how -- BYU grad, did missionary work in Uruguay; and of the current Packer roster I would have put him rather near the bottom of the list of potential Obama supporters.

My people surprise me. I like that.