BARRON, April 22, 2006—More than 130 Democrats gathered at Rolling Oaks Supper Club to meet their elected representatives and candidates, and vote on numerous platform resolutions submitted by local party members at the 7th Congressional District convention. Congressman Dave Obey, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager and Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton headed the long list of candidates who spoke at the convention.

At the convention, which coincided with Earth Day, most speakers mentioned conservation of energy and natural resources, tying those topics to Wisconsin’s late Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day and conservation leader. Nelson, from Clear Lake, died in 2005. In his keynote address to the crowd of 130 delegates and visitors, Congressman Obey said that, in memory of Nelson, he just finished a Wisconsin speaking tour on global warming, which is “more than just more tolerable winters; it also means changing drought patterns, destroyed rain forests, depleted fisheries and altered coastlines. What happened in New Orleans becomes the rule.” More about Obey's speech below.

The AttorneyGeneral primary race and Assembly prospects
Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager cited the many environmental cases that her office was pursuing, as well as the Wisconsin Methamphetamine Project, child internet safety, elder abuse and ID theft. The Attorney General's office has also been pursuing pharmaceutical pricing regulation, gas and other energy price regulation, open meeting laws and basic consumer protection. "No matter how powerful you are," Lautenschlager said, "you have to obey the law."

Moving on to her primary campaign battle with Dane County challenger Kathleen Falk, Lautenschlager tackled the question "Am I electable?" She cited two liabilities. First was her 2003 OWI citation-"that stupid, stupid choice"- and her professed outspokenness. Her strengths, she countered, were her decisive wins in traditionally Republican districts, and her ability to win in both urban and rural environments. She is the only proven candidate and the only one to have won a statewide race. Lautenschlager added that a recent St. Norbert's poll showed her as the clear primary and general election winner. But more than polls, she said, the voters cared about her work.

Assemblyman Gary Sherman followed, speaking on behalf of Lautenschlager's primary challenger, Kathleen Falk. He touted her strong progressive roots, and her track record on land use and the environment, having spent a number of years working as Public Intervenor on environmental matters. Sherman filled the crowd in on the Republican primary candidates for Attorney General and said that Kathleen Falk is better equipped to withstand what "the orcs" surrounding the Republican candidates will throw at her.

With respect to the Assembly race, Sherman said that 2006 may be the Democrats' last best chance to halt the GOP juggernaut that is trying to hammer through the lengthy, flawed "Taxpayer Protection Amendment" (a.k.a. "Son of TABOR"), and the draconian Voter ID legislation calculated "to steal Wisconsin" for the Republicans. Several Assembly races stood out as more crucial than others: the 87th, 28th, 67th and 29th districts. The good news is that an unprecedented number of Democrats are running for seats, stretching GOP resources very thin. 86 candidates have declared by April, and that number promises to climb to 95 by June.

Jauch and Kreitlow on State Senate possibilities
State Senator Robert Jauch of the 25th Senate District cited Nelson's value of caretaking, and how there is a role for government in taking care of children's interests, the elderly, the environment we pass along to posterity and democracy itself. Mentioning the upcoming GOP "Reasserting Marriage" ballot initiative, Jauch remarked that, if anything, marriage is under fire from the Republicans whose policies wage economic war against struggling families. He added that, far from being the progressive beacon that it once was, Wisconsin is becoming the "Mississippi of the north," because of Republicans' intolerance of dissent of difference. He urged a return to the values of Bob LaFollette and others who worked to make Wisconsin a shining example for the other states. Of all the State Senate races, Jauch cited Pat Kreitlow's bid as the most important, and the most credible since Zien took office 17 years ago.

Pat Kreitlow, running for State Senator in the 23rd District, opened by remarking how his opponent, Dave Zien, went on the air claiming to work 18-hour days. Kreitlow compared and contrasted Zien's days and salary to those of working families everywhere in Wisconsin and referred his audience to his blog article on the topic. "Dave Zien understands the security of a concealed weapon, but he does not understand security in health care. And Dave Zien has had 17 years in which to provide you with tax relief. He hasn't. I will. That's why I am going to win." Kreitlow stressed how critical funding, volunteering and getting out the vote will be more important than ever in 2006.

The Doyle-Lawton team
Governor Jim Doyle, who makes a policy of personally wishing each deploying soldier well, had to send a new Wisconsin unit off to Iraq on the convention day. Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton spoke in his place, summarizing the Doyle-Lawton list of accomplishments: restoring fiscal responsibility to Wisconsin's government; improving what was the highest per-capita deficit in the United States; implementing the SeniorCare prescription drug program and many others.

Lawton pledged a commitment to an "affordability agenda" for Wisconsin, seeking catastrophic insurance coverage for everyone in the state, and expansion of BadgerCare, and a long-term care effort that saves $452 dollars per person per month while enabling the frail elderly to continue living in their own homes. There is the "anti-dumping" legislation that targets employers such as Wal-Mart with policies that shift employees into local health care programs for the indigent. Doyle is also pursuing The Wisconsin Covenant, in which 8th graders sign an agreement with the state to take college prep courses and get at least a B average. In return, they will receive an affordable university or vo-tech education.

Lawton pledged to fight the legislature's efforts to "draw us back into the culture wars," with hot-button issues such as gay marriage, the death penalty, concealed carry, and criminalization of taxpaying residents by way of unforgiving immigration laws. She hopes to see at least one house of the legislature flip to the Democrats "so that the Governor can lift that hockey mask" when dealing with them.

Dave Obey on Nelson's legacy and life under GOP mismanagement
Remembering Nelson on Earth Day
On Earth Day, Congressman Obey said, he asks himself "What would Gaylord want?" and has concluded that Nelson would want Democrats to create a national focus on the all-encompassing issue of global warming. In his last conversation with Obey, when asked what he wanted people to think about, Nelson replied, "I wish people would understand that when there is a 50-percent increase in population, there is a 50-percent increase in everything else, too: pollution, famine, diseases" and other problems that decrease the quality of life on earth. Obey went on to give a litany of newsworthy environmental events happening today.

On his speaking tour around Wisconsin to commemorate the life of Gaylord Nelson, Obey has been talking about the alarming rate of climate change. He stressed that the question is no longer whether global warming is real, but the scale of the warming disaster about to unfold. Glacier core samples tell us that atmospheric CO2 is higher now than it has been in 300,000 years. Hurricane intensity has doubled in the last 30 years. The Larsen ice shelf, calculated to last 100 years, fell apart in just weeks. Western cities have had record high temperatures during the last two years. The salinity of the oceans is changing, and so is the rate of heat transfer from equatorial to polar regions. Glaciers everywhere are receding and the Gulf Stream, which moderates European climate, has decreased by 30 percent in the last 30 years. "Let me quote FDR in his first inaugural address," Obey said, "when he said that it `requires action and action now.' But we're not going to get it with a scientific illiterate as president of the United States."

Obey went on to suggest options for action, including teach-ins on global warming. Quoting the Nature Conservancy’s John Sawhill, Obey added that "`in the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy.’"

Life under the primitives
Moving on to Washington news, Obey noted that there is a disconnect between what he hears on Main Street and what he hears under the Capitol dome. On Main Street, people have been talking about kitchen table issues such as education, pensions and health insurance. But under the Capitol dome? Obey heard Tom DeLay call to the faithful to fly back to Washington and save Terry Schiavo.

And Obey pegs DeLay as the catalyst for Sandra Day O'Connor's "dictatorship" speech. Early this year, Obey said, he was at a Supreme Court Justice luncheon, sitting at the side of DeLay, who was sitting next to Justice Scalia and close to Senator Arlen Specter and Justice O'Connor. Referring to her centrist votes, DeLay told O'Connor, "We're coming after you." Taken aback, O'Connor replied that the separate branches should be able to have their differences without acting to "damage the institution." DeLay's reply was, "Why?" Having "run up against one of the primitives in the person of DeLay," Obey said, was what prompted O'Connor to speak out in public about the potential slide into dictatorship a few days later.

Congress this year will be enacting 283 billion dollars in tax cuts, and 42 billion of those dollars will be going to people who make over a million dollars a year. The intended checks and balances have dissolved under one-party rule. The Bush administration is isolated, Obey says, and an unqualified disaster. "Six of them in a room sit down and talk to each other and think they've conducted a public opinion poll." Moreover, there are no levers that Democrats can pull to counterbalance a government completely dominated by a Republican party that does whatever it pleases. Obey cited the new bankruptcy laws as a good example of the disaster. While he believes that personal responsibility should enter into every bankruptcy decision, the new laws work against individuals, who usually declare bankruptcy for reasons of unemployment or health care bills. Airlines and other corporations, on the other hand, make out very well under the new laws when they go broke.

The Medicare Part D bill is another example of GOP skullduggery. "Albert Einstein couldn't figure it out without bringing in a couple of mathematicians," Obey said, while noting that the bill was defeated within the usual fifteen minutes allotted the House for a vote on a bill. But Republican leaders held the voting open for a half hour, breaking the rules in doing so—and the bill still lost. After an hour it was still losing, so the Republicans held the vote open for a total of three hours "and several broken arms," until a few votes switched. Only then did Medicare Part D pass.

Similarly, with this year's ag appropriations bill, someone slipped in a provision, unnoticed, unvoted upon, that loosened the definition for organic foods, and it passed without any scrutiny. "It was Washington's immaculate conception," Obey said. "No one knows who did it. I suspect who the lobbyist was, but I have no proof, so I can't say. That's what passes for the democratic process under Hastert, DeLay and Bush and company."

Obey went on to recap the 2001 Cheney energy task force, which pulled 50 Big Energy representatives together with one environmental representative and one consumer representative. The resulting energy policy and energy legislation reflect the Bush administration's complete bias in favor of the energy industries.

"Raving incompetence"
Turning his guns on the Bush administration and particularly Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Obey referred to the Iraq occupation as "the mother of all screw-ups," and to Rumsfeld''s critics. "There's a reason why six generals are chewing on Rumsfeld's leg, calling for his resignation. There is precedent; MacArthur did it to Truman. Curtis LeMay did it to Johnson. But I have never seen such a collection of heavy hitters arrayed against an official as they are against Rumsfeld. And they are right, but late. I called for his resignation two years ago. And I didn't do it because I disagreed with his policies—which I do—I did it because of his raving incompetence."

On the question of going into Iran, Obey said that it is "absolute madness. We lack the resources. Attack Iran by air, and we destroy our credibility for a generation." Obey declared that Iran is the only winner of the Iraq war, and that we should not validate the "loonies" running that country by acting on their claims.

In his peroration, Obey asked, "When will people say `enough'?" and sais that while the Democrats would win easily if the election were held today, we should count on the Republicans' raising every single hot-button issue to divide the American people, and we had better be prepared. "If we let the Republicans win this time, we deserve it."

Obey also put in good words for the soundness of Governor Doyle's fiscal policies, and pointed out that he was still cleaning up after sixteen years of Tommy Thompson. And he mentioned that Senator Herb Kohl was a key player in all things rural and agricultural, and deserved re-election to his Senate seat.

Assembly candidates
Roberta Rasmus, who is running against Jeff Woods for the 67th Assembly District, pledged to help lawmakers "get back to the business of responsible government" and promised to take Democrats' values to Madison. Tim Swiggum, running against Scott Souder in the 69th Assembly District, promised to focus on the needs of families, ethics in the legislature and health care. In the 87th Assembly district, primary contenders Dewey Floberg and Judy Reese spoke about their plans. Floberg promised to represent local values in Madison, and Reese spoke about health care and education funding. The 87th seat is currently held by Republican Mary Williams. Long-time incumbent of the 75th Assembly District, Mary Hubler, noted that her district was new to the 7th CD, and acknowledged the many public figures, past and present, from the area, including Gaylord Nelson from nearby Clear Lake.

Resolutions
The delegates debated and voted on resolutions advocating topics such as a living wage, The Wisconsin Covenant, developing alternative energy, and several resolutions urging the impeachment and censure of President Bush. A number of the censure resolutions expressed solidarity with Russ Feingold's efforts. One of the highlights was Barron County's own Dr. Bannister, presenting a health care resolution based on his own plan, Health Security America. The resolutions advancing to state advocated: censure and impeachmnt Bush and Cheney; development of alternative energy sources; campaign finance reform; withdrawal from Iraq, civil unions, reproductive rights and health care reform. Dr. Bannister's resolution was one of those approved.

The DPW convention will be held in La Crosse on June 9th and 10th. Delegates from the 7th CD will have the opportunity to attend the state convention as well.

The 2007 7th CD will be held in Wood County.

--Lizbeth Ager