It's been a productive summer for me on this blog (and pretty much nowhere else). This is the tenth consecutive Wednesday I've posted, and readership has slightly picked up to about 100 a month on this, the parent site, with maybe a dozen more at the duplicate on wordpress.
Now I'm leaving St. Louis to return to Beloit, Wisconsin to start my senior year at Beloit College. I intend to keep as steady a stream of posts as I can. I'm also hoping to entice some like minded people to write here with me, broadening the range of topics I can cover and hopefully making regular readers of their respective families and acquaintances. While I'm studying, I hope to perform what services I can for
two outstanding candidates- Secretary of State Doug La Follette is up for reelection, and Susan Happ is the Democratic nominee for Attorney General.
La Follette has been SOS for over thirty years, during which time Republican state governments have significantly reduced the scope of the office's powers. There are still some significant procedural powers though, mainly an ability to delay enactment of bills by several days-weeks, depending on the time in the session, La Follette's use of which was part of the (alas unsuccessful) effort to halt Walker's union-busting in 2011. More importantly, La Follette has a very impressive record in public service- running Proxmire-type campaigns without traditional fundraising to show he means business on campaign finance ethics, and producing some transformative bills during his time in the state senate, including the first Wisconsin subsidies for both birth control and wind energy.
His campaign site can be found here http://www.douglafollette.com/
I know less about Happ, but she was endorsed by Emily's List, earned La Follette's support, and was not the choice of the conservative wing of the party. She's a big supporter of treating substance abuse issues as a social problem, not a criminal one, which means fewer people in jail, more people in treatment, less money for the Prison-Industrial-Complex, more recoveries, and fewer lives ruined all around. She was the only AG candidate to come demonstrate in support of the first Wisconsin same-sex marriages. Needless to say, she opposes Wisconsin's new restrictions on voting, which is probably the most important issue which will confront the AG's office. All of that I like.
Her campaign site can be found here
http://www.susanhappforwisconsin.com/
There are three other candidates I'm actively following from a more remote distance. Zephyr Teachout is challenging Andrew Cuomo in the primary for NY governor, largely out of disgust with his Union-Busting education policy, lax environmental regulation and gross corruption. Her campaign site can be found here. http://www.teachoutwu.com/
The other two are already certain to be the Democratic candidate in their respective races this fall.
Shenna Bellows is running for Senator in Maine against media darling Susan Collins, hitting her hard on women's right to choose while also calling for expanded public healthcare, restrictions on student debt, and opposition to the Patriot Act and attendant destruction of the Right to Privacy. She was state leader of the ACLU for the better part of the last decade, and was a leading figure in the protests against the Hobby Lobby decision. Crucially, she has also come out in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Her campaign site can be found here http://bellowsforsenate.com/
Finally, Jason Carter (President Carter's grandson) is running for governor of Georgia, and may actually win! This would be exciting in itself, but what's truly encouraging is that one of his central messages is opposition to new voting restrictions, and it's selling well even in the South. Should Carter pull this off, it could provide an effective template for regaining the franchise for the communities targeted by Republican legislatures across the country, and with it everything from gun control to union rights. His campaign site can be found here- he's talking a bit less about voter access now, which could be discouraging but everything else is still decent for a southern candidate, and we've already seen it's important to him. I might end up being disappointed on this one, but I'm still hopeful.
https://carterforgovernor.com/
Well, I think that's everything for now. I'm working on a piece about medicine R/D and the role government must play in it, but it's not ready yet. Hopefully I'll have that in order for next Wednesday, the 27th. Nothing like calling for compassionate government (at least domestically) on LBJ's birthday.
Solidarität, Genossinnen und Genossen.
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