Recently, I wrote here about how a search of the candidatesâ?? own websites shows that supporters of Barack Obama have many more events literally all over the country, even in presumed GOP strongholds, than John McCain.
The Obama campaign has built a machine that is crushing what passes for the McCain/Palin effort. The latest evidence is the Big Ten Battleground Poll, which covers the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
The jaw-dropping numbers come from the Big Ten Battleground Poll, which is supervised by two University of Wisconsin political science professors. The survey finds Obama ahead — BY DOUBLE DIGITS — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota (as well as his home state of Illinois and Michigan, where McCain pulled up stakes a few weeks ago).
With an 11-point advantage among likely voters in today’s Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, Barack Obama maintains his largest national lead of the campaign in Post-ABC polling.
In addition to the state polls out today from Quinnipiac and the University of Wisconsin, another way to see the magnitude of the Democrat’s progress is to see how well he is currently doing across so-called “red” and “purple” states.
With the Wisconsin Badgers football team winless four games into the Big Ten Conference season, the changeover is now complete.
UW is a basketball school.
It may be for this year only, but, as they do at Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and other basketball-first schools, UW fans have largely pulled the plug on football and are eagerly anticipating the start of the men’s basketball season.
So are the Badgers, though it has nothing to do with football.
There is a new documentary, “Trumbo,” opening at Sundance in Madison Friday. It arrives with great reviews for its portrayal of the blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo.
Stephen Holden in the New York Times called it a “stirring documentary” that “gives you reason to cheer but also to weep.”
Thursday, I climbed some stairs to get a look at the film’s genesis: Trumbo’s letters, which are stored on the fourth floor of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison.
Martin Hanson, a prominent Wisconsin conservationist who helped preserve the pristine Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, has died. He was 81.
Gov. Jim Doyle called Hanson “one of Wisconsin’s greatest conservationists.” Doyle commended his work to preserve the Apostle Islands and his donation of hundreds of acres of pristine northern Wisconsin land to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for research.
Other football finalists include tight end Travis Beckum (Wisconsin).
Both referred to their respective threat-of-choice as “existential” in nature, and throughout the foreign policy-themed debate at UW-Madison repeated established arguments from the Right and the Left on things like U.S. relations with Iran and Cuba, the status of Guantanamo Bay, support for “family planning” efforts overseas and whether or not President Bush and Vice President Cheney are worthy of impeachment.
One of UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin’s top priorities is keeping the university affordable through need-based financial aid, she said Thursday in a speech at an event formally welcoming Martin to Wisconsin.
Less important, she said, is an unrealistic goal of keeping tuition flat or decreasing it.
She said the university must raise more money for need-based aid and envisioned a sliding scale of college tuition.
“Those who can afford to pay more should pay more,” Martin said. “Those who can afford less should pay less; and those who cannot afford to pay anything should pay nothing in actual dollars but should be allowed to contribute to their own education through work study.”
Bret Bielema had a priest, the Rev. Mike Burke, give him a ride home after losing to Iowa. Too bad the third-year coach isn’t Catholic.
“He felt he needed to console me,” Bielema said. “I’m the only non-Catholic head coach that has a priest that’s worried about me.”
There’s a lot of worry in Madison these days. Wisconsin has lost four straight in the Big Ten for the first time in 12 years.
Gary K. Anderson, age 54, passed away very unexpectedly from natural causes on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008. He was employed with UW Hospital and Clinics for several years in the pharmacy department.
Quoted: “It’s close in a way that Indiana has no business being close for a Republican,” said University of Wisconsin pollster Charles Franklin. “It shows that McCain is in big trouble elsewhere in the country if he’s in trouble in Indiana.”
Quoted: “Banks and huge corporations seem to be the tools of the problem right now, rather than the solution,” said Byron E. Shafer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin. “Small business is somehow much more human: You can imagine yourself as a small business; you can’t imagine yourself as a big business.”
MADISON â?? The national economic downturn could put a chill on state salaries and lead to fewer state workers.
Gov. Jim Doyle has warned that the state budget could be heading into the red by $3 billion. Todd Berry, president of the research group the Wisconsin Taxpayer’s Alliance, said the state’s finances could have repercussions on state jobs.
Quoted: “If the Republican is only winning Indiana by 1 or 2 points, he’s in serious trouble,” said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the director of the Big Ten Battleground Poll. “McCain still has a chance to get to 270 electoral-college votes, but it’s a narrow one.”
Quoted: Charles Franklin, co-director of the Big Ten Poll and a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wasn’t quite as bold. But he also has difficulty seeing McCain pulling out a victory.
MADISON, Wis. — A long and sometimes infamous tradition in Madison, the annual Halloween celebrations along State Street date back to the 1970s.
In the last few years, the city of Madison has transformed the large outdoor party that has sometimes been marred by violence and property damage into “Freakfest,” a city-sanctioned event that requires admission and features live music.
The city’s involvement with the annual Halloween celebration was prompted by riots on State Street in 2002, 2003, 2004 and the use of pepper spray to disperse of unruly crowds in 2005.
Quoted: Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that while Bachmann’s comments did not harm McCain’s campaign directly, he said her comments confuse the general message coming from Republicans. Burden said the party does not have a clear leader or image at this point in the election. “Bachmann’s comments do reinforce the point made by Sarah Palin this week that Republicans view some politicians and some parts of the country as being more ‘American’ than others, a strange point of view.”
Barack Obama is leading John McCain in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota, according to a new Big Ten Battleground Poll. “Obama is clearly winning the Big Ten battleground,” says Charles Franklin of Pollster.com. The results.
The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin is hoping that a controversial report siding with the tribeâ??s plan to open a grandiose $808 million off-reservation casino and entertainment complex at Dairyland Greyhound Park in Kenosha will help push the federal government to approve the proposal.
The $50,000 report, funded entirely by the tribe, has at least one Kenosha-area lawmaker and longtime Kenosha casino opponent, the Forest County Potawatomi Community, raising questions about the reportâ??s validity. The controversy is heightened by the fact that the study came out of the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s La Follette School of Public Affairs, which is known as an objective institution.
As the race for the White House enters its final days, the Big Ten Battleground Poll shows Barack Obama holds significant leads over John McCain in eight crucial Midwest states.
Remember the long-running controversy over the construction of Monona Terrace? How about the drive to build the South Beltline, an even more contentious public debate?
Author: Pete Nowak is a professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the UW-Madison.
Quoted: “When the bandages came off, they were able to recognize faces and navigate on their own,” said Josh Vrabec, who is now chief resident at the University of Wisconsin Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences in Madison. “It was just an amazing experience seeing the amount of good you could do in a short period of time.”
John McCain faces double-digit deficits in eight Midwest states, including Minnesota, with only 12 days to make up the difference, a poll released Thursday showed.
Barack Obama has substantial leads in the eight states that are home to universities in the Big Ten Conference, according to a poll sponsored by those universities. The states include three carried by Republican President Bush in 2004 and crucial in this election – Ohio, Indiana and Iowa.
Quoted: “With the fundamental factors so to their advantage, this election was always about Barack Obama and the Democrats reaching a threshold level of credibility with voters,” said Ken Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and co-director of the poll. “It appears Obama has and this race has popped nationally and here in the Big Ten.”
Lively drumbeats and performances by the University of Wisconsin Wind Ensemble began ceremonies to give a warm welcome to new Chancellor Biddy Martin.
Along with welcoming Martin to her new position, the event also gave her the chance to address opportunities she sees for growth within the university and challenges she sees in the universityâ??s future.
The U-W Marching Band has made some changes in its travel arrangements, intended to cut down on inappropriate behavior that lead to its suspension a few weeks ago.
Band director Mike Leckrone says members are moving on after the week-long suspension, and had a great experience playing during Sundayâ??s Packers game. He says everyoneâ??s working to prevent further suspensions by minding how they behave on the road. (8th item.)
Madison (WKOW) — It may currently cost less to fill up your tank, but politicians continue to push for a break from foreign oil.
That means coming up with more eco-friendly ways to power America.
Thursday, some of the leaders in renewable energy are meeting in Madison to discuss how to make Wisconsin greener. (Video.)
MADISON (WKOW) — As the race for the White House enters its final days, the Big Ten Battleground Poll shows Barack Obama holds significant leads over John McCain in eight crucial Midwest states.
One of the co-directors of the study, University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin, sat down with 27 News to explain the results and discuss what’s ahead for both candidates on November 4. (Video.)
Enjoy that brisk, â??cleanâ? October air this Saturday at Camp Randall, Badger fans. UW officials are publicizing the homecoming game as the Big Tenâ??s first â??carbon neutralâ? football game ever. The event aims to raise awareness about the problematic dependence on carbon-emitting energy, as well as encouraging recycling and conservation.
UW-Madison students and faculty gathered at the Kohl Center Thursday with the Wisconsin Alumni Association to officially welcome Chancellor Biddy Martin to the university.
In her keynote address, Martin identified tuition costs, faculty salaries and diversity issues as specific concerns.
According to Martin, costs are becoming a problem for universities across the nation.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison welcomed its new chancellor at a formal introduction Thursday evening at the Kohl Center.
Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin outlined the tremendous challenges she sees not just for higher education but for the nation as well.
Martin addressed students, faculty, staff and alumni on a variety of topics.
UW-Madison Chancellor Carolyn â??Biddyâ? Martin urged the state to give the university flexibility and modest investment needed to sustain its greatness in troubled economic times Thursday during her first public address since taking the helm of the stateâ??s flagship university.
Martin addressed a crowd of hundreds in the Kohl Center during a reception to welcome the campusâ?? 28th chancellor. Martin, who received her doctorate from the UW and formerly served as provost at New Yorkâ??s Cornell University, officially took over for Chancellor John Wiley on Sept. 1.
While Martin described her first two months on campus as â??joyful,â? she also described the difficulty of setting an ambitious agenda for the future of the UW amidst grave economic uncertainty. Gov. Jim Doyle announced last week the state could be facing a budget shortfall of more than $3 billion.
Lana Mae Turner, age 67, passed away on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008. After graduating with honors from Madison East High, Lana worked at the University of Wisconsin Education Department.
Q. Are people having more hearing problems today because they are spending so much more time with iPods, cell phones and other gadgets?
A. “That depends,” says Daniel Stoppenbach, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at UW-Madison. “Noise-induced hearing loss appears to be related to how loud and how long an individual is exposed to noise.”
The University of Wisconsin Foundation’s endowment for UW-Madison is down about 18 percent, or about $300 million, since the stock market began dropping precipitously this fall, said Sandy Wilcox, foundation president. That means the foundation, which is the official fundraising arm of UW-Madison, will be able to give less money to facilities, student financial aid, and faculty and research support, Wilcox said. Continue reading
Quoted: “There really does need to be a formal separation between the committees that are spending the money and the candidates,” said Ken Mayer, a political science professor and expert on campaign finance at the University of Wisconsin. Under the law it’s supposed to be independent speech.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people
Your 18-year-old is finally out of the house, attending college.
And this is a critical time for you to be talking to him or her about drinking.
The first six to eight weeks of a college studentâ??s freshman year are perhaps the most dangerous when it comes to excessive drinking, according to Susan Crowley, University of Wisconsin-Madison director of prevention services. Students are on their own for the first time in their young lives, and they often donâ??t have friends or family members to keep their behavior in line.
It looks like the University of Wisconsin at Madison may finally fill the Ambrose-Hesseltine Chair in U.S. Military History, which was endowed by the late Stephen E. Ambrose over a decade ago and named for Ambrose and his mentor, former UW-Madison professor William Hesseltine, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal reports.
A federal grand jury issued an indictment on Wednesday alleging that a former dean of education at the University of Louisville and an associate diverted more than $2-million into their personal bank accounts from a federal research grant and from contracts with municipal school districts.
If convicted on all 10 countsâ??which include charges of mail fraud, money laundering, and tax evasionâ??the former dean, Robert D. Felner, could face at least 20 years in prison.
Find a problem drinker and an enabler is likely hovering nearby.
The roots of Wisconsin’s culture of drinking are sunk deep in the state’s history, its ethnic heritage and the natural inclination of its residents to fit in. But a culture of drinking is inseparable from a culture of enabling – and much of this enablement resides in Madison, embodied in state laws and what is deliberately left out of them.
The Stadium Bar’s beer garden is a very popular place for Badger fans to watch home games.
Normally broadcast on a large screen next to this sign.
But when 10:00pm hits- those fans have to leave.
Madison city rules state all beer gardens downtown must close down by 10 during night games.
MADISON, Wis. — For the first time, there will no University of Wisconsin-Madison fraternity parties the night of Freakfest, Madison’s city-sanctioned Halloween celebration.
UW-Madison said that none of the campus’ 24 fraternities applied for a social event contract for Nov. 1.
As part of an agreement with the university and police, fraternities have to apply by Oct. 15 and take a Halloween risk training course with Madison police.
John Fry is skipping over some of the biggest names in his Rolodex these days. With the economy in a downward spiral, the Franklin & Marshall College president says heâ??s not calling on donors who have fallen on hard times.
â??I think in this kind of environment you have to be very sensitive to peopleâ??s situations,â? Fry said Tuesday. â??Itâ??s been a very interesting two weeks, because on one hand Iâ??ve purposely avoided visiting or soliciting [certain] people.â?¦ On the other hand, I know a significant number of other people who are in better [economic] situations, and Iâ??ve been actively soliciting them.
Chancellor Carolyn â??Biddyâ? Martin will address the university at the Kohl Center today, as a matter of formally introducing herself to the campus and outlining her plans for UW-Madisonâ??s future.
Biddy talked with the Daily Cardinal last month to give us an idea of her goals and visions for the university. She established priorities, focusing the majority of her attention on the early years of her tenure. Her priorities are to protect and enhance the academic values of this institution, to protect academic freedom, recruiting and retaining faculty in order to uphold UW-Madisonâ??s high academic standing, making sure tuition remains affordable while increasing the need-based financial aid program, increasing diversity in the faculty, staff and student body, and invigorating the Wisconsin Idea, which makes sure UW-Madisonâ??s efforts benefit both the student body and the state of Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported that sales of Bret Bielema’s trademark red windbreaker are down. And some anonymous clown has launched a firebretbielema.com Web site.
“Someone in my hometown finally got the Internet,” the Wisconsin coach joked Tuesday. “I heard a great comment by (Penn State coach) Joe Paterno a couple of weeks ago when he talked about the ‘Internet mob’â??nameless, faceless people who can go out and say anything they want.
The subsidy hasn’t been paid since February 2007, but it might pay out this month, said Ed Jesse, dairy economist at UW-Madison. That’s because the new version of the subsidy approved in May takes into account recent higher costs of cattle feed to allow for farmers’ expenses for the first time, making it more likely to pay out.
Many communities are poorly equipped to analyze proposals, said Matthew Mayrl, who in December 2006 penned a 27-page report on TIF practices in the state for UW-Madison’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy.
While the Nazis slaughtered 6 million Jews in Europe, they also tried to “re-educate” homosexuals and stop the spread of homosexuality among German men. That campaign is the subject of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945” traveling exhibit now at UW-Madison’s Memorial Library and an online exhibit viewed by 374,000 people since 2002.
Annettie Marie Montgomery, age 64, of Portage, passed away on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008. Among other jobs, Annettie worked as a unit clerk for the General Clinical Research Clinic and as a receptionist scheduler in the Pain Clinic at UW Hospital.
Raymond A. Kubista died of heart failure on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008. After World War II, Ray found a job with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation on the UW campus. The institute eventually became the privately funded Covance Research Inc., and Ray was the head of its Food Microbiology Department by the time he retired in 1986.
The classic three-legged stool approach to retirement security of employer pension, Social Security and personal savings is looking wobblier than ever these days.
Traditional pensions are fast disappearing, the long-term outlook for Social Security is cloudy and retirement accounts have been walloped by stocks’ steep decline. The turmoil in financial markets has wiped out some $2 trillion from Americans’ retirement accounts since the middle of 2007, the Congressional Budget Office said earlier this month – more than 20 percent of their value.
“This is certainly the most uncertain time in many decades for people approaching retirement,” said John Nelson, co-author of “What Color Is Your Parachute? For Retirement” with Richard Bolles of the best-selling “What Color Is Your Parachute” career guide.
Nelson, 49, a retirement researcher and lecturer in consumer science at the University of Wisconsin, created a retirement model that has been selected for the retirement readiness program for federal employees. His Retirement Well-Being Model is a research- and philosophically based tool designed to factor in health and happiness, as well as finances, as people plan and set goals for retirement.
Quoted: But one University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business professor said it’s questionable whether a stimulus package would have the desired effect.
“It’s not clear a stimulus package will work. I think what the fed chair is saying is if we want to avoid an unemployment rate of eight percent its worthwhile considering stimulus packages,” said Morris Davis.
College career counselors are intensifying efforts to help students. Ms. Steinfeld’s group is inviting recruiters from smaller employers around New York, soliciting job postings from NYU alumni and scouring newspapers to find companies that are expanding. This week, the career center will hold an information session on “alternatives to Wall Street.”
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the number of companies attending a September career fair fell to 225, from 232 last year. Leslie Kohlberg, director of career services for the College of Letters and Science, is encouraging students to seek individual counseling, visit employers and develop a back-up plan — or two.
“Things have been so good that students were able to rely on even some of the least-effective job search strategies,” like sending résumés via email and searching online career postings, she says. “They can’t really afford to do that now.”
Quoted: “Nobody wants to be the education president this year,” said Gloria Ladson-Billings, an education policy professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Comcast is levying the second rate increase throughout the country. It will add a little revenue during an otherwise difficult year, he said.
Quoted: How significant is Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama? It probably won’t sway big numbers of voters, according to UW political scientist David Canon
Quoted: UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin said other states, including more populous ones such as Ohio and Florida, appeared to be much tighter in current polls than Wisconsin. In an interview Monday before the Obama campaign had released Obama’s personal reasons for the decision, Franklin said it made strategic sense for Obama to focus on those states.
When Nate Lustig lost the lottery for student-section Badger football tickets in 2005, he turned to a year-old online business called ExchangeHut.com to buy seats for campus athletic events at market-rate prices.
Within a year, Lustig and friends John Tucker and Corey Capasso bought the company for $6,000 from founder Matt Stamerjohn, who was graduating from UW-Madison.
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both have solid records of supporting promising but controversial research using embryonic stem cells.
