Category: UW Experts in the News

Noted: Bill Bland, a soil science professor at UW-Madison.

Quoted: Kathy Cramer Walsh, a political science professor and pollster at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she expects higher than usual, though not record, turnout for a primary, given the open governor?s race and voter worries about the lingering high unemployment.

University of Wisconsin professor Charles Franklin discusses the results of Tuesday night?s primaries. (Video.)

President Barack Obama has again nominated former state Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Butler Jr. to replace John Shabaz as U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Wisconsin, the White House announced Monday. Butler now teaches at UW-Madison.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin said it would make more sense to hold Wisconsin?s primaries a little earlier.

Quoted: “We watch behaviors on TV we will never engage in,” says Jonathan Gray, who studies media and culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Think of Steve Carell in The Office, George Costanza in Seinfeld, or Larry David. A huge part of ?cringe comedy? ?Sarah Silverman or South Park? is that we feel uncomfortable but we love it.”

Quoted: The GOP would like nothing more than to put a Republican in Obey?s seat. ?The symbolic significance is obvious; it certainly would signal a tectonic shift in the landscape if Republicans were able to pick up that seat,? says Kenneth R. Mayer, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin?Madison.

Quoted: Competitive primaries and big spending on political ads are traditional boosters for turnout, said Barry Buden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Combining those factors with a general dissatisfaction toward government at all levels, particularly for Republican voters, could send normally apathetic voters to the polls today, Burden said.

Story by the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, whose partners include the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication.

Noted: UW-Madison’s bomb-sniffing dogs and Sgt. Aaron Chapin of the UW-Madison Police Department.

Quoted: Tim Osswald, a professor of mechanical engineering at UW-Madison.

Quoted: Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor.

Quoted: ?It?s a good year to own a TV station in Wisconsin,? said Ken Goldstein, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who tracks political advertising.

Quoted: Polls have shown both GOP candidates this year, Mark Neumann and Scott Walker, defeating presumed Democratic nominee Tom Barrett in the general election. However, UW Political Scientist Charles Franklin says you can?t count Barrett out just yet.

Quoted: “The best indicator for Feingold is that almost none of the polls out there have him above 50 percent, and that?s that threshold an incumbent needs to be at,” Ken Mayer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Noted: Rohany Nayan, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, said the event will differ from all the recent coverage of events in the United States which threaten Muslims and their religion.

Letter from Carolyn Heinrich, Verona, director, UW-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs.

Quoted: But while any good plan isn?t dependent on a sole creator, losing a key player doesn?t help the process, said Paul DeLuca, the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “It?s going to be great to have the president back in Madison,” said Evan Giesemann, chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison College Democrats. “He obviously has a lot of fans here, and it will be great to hear his message.”

Quoted: ?The underlying problem is that the Europeans are overrepresented relative to the size of their economies, and the developing countries are underrepresented,? said Mark S. Copelovitch, a political scientist who studies the I.M.F. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Quoted: Dr. Phil Farrell, who works in pediatrics and health sciences at U-W Madison, kicked off the gathering by calling Wisconsin?s infant mortality rate a national disgrace

Noted: “He?s walked in every parade held in the state,” said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The key to answering all of these questions will be accurate dating of the core. This will help to correlate the Songliao records with their marine counterparts. “Without a precise timescale, the values of any other pieces of information that can be recovered from the core would be diminished tremendously,” says Bradley Singer, a geochronologist at the University of Wisconsin?Madison.

Quoted: “Have certain messages go directly into folders that you can look at just when you want to,” said Joanne Cantor, director of the Center for Communication Research at the University of Wisconsin?Madison and author of “Conquer CyberOverload.”

Noted: German immigrants to the Badger State between the 1830s and 1930s actually found little reason to master English, “appearing to live and thrive for decades while speaking exclusively German,” concluded Miranda Wilkerson, then an assistant professor of German at Western Illinois University and Joseph Salmons, a professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

John Hawks, an anthropologist and geneticist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says we?ve created a lifestyle that is at odds with the one natural selection provided us with. Consider, for example, what ate when we were hunter gatherers, long before we started farming.

Quoted: Professor Hakk? Ogelman from the physics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States told the Daily News that he agreed with Hawking. ?I have great respect for Hawking,? he said. ?The universe does not need a creator to be created.?

Quoted: “The whole notion of ?Vote against Snodgrass by Gillette shaving cream? — it?s just not going to happen,” said Kenneth Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who specializes in political media.

Quoted: “In a year like this, which is bad for Democrats, he has a legitimate shot at winning. In fact, I think he?s probably going to win,” said Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Analysts at UW-Madison say working Wisconsinites have ?little to celebrate? on this Labor Day.

Quoted: Neumann?s decision not to go after Walker was unusual, said UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin.

Quoted: UW-Madison Political Scientist Charles Franklin says the race has been a very difficult one to handicap, since there?s been almost no recent public polling directly comparing the two candidates. He says that creates a situation where conventional wisdom can ?run away? and we just don?t know what the outcome will be. 

Quoted: Jeanan Yasiri, executive director of the UW-Madison Center for Nonprofits.

Quoted: Shubha Ghosh, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor who specializes in commerce issues.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

Quoted: Kenneth Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who specializes in political media.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin political scientist Ken Goldstein, who studies political advertising.