Does Tammy Baldwin versus Eric Hovde, a key Wisconsin election race, come down — just as much as abortion rights — to a bag of potato chips or two? Or as I’ll deal with later, an old MTV clip. As the epic “One,” the peerless one and only from Metallica, was the main one that got MTV’s groundbreaking music videos going.
Eaten in a nursing home, feeling chippy rather than chipper, when restricted to a bunch of mush — like my dear friend I have referenced, who is going in to cure her colon, and now has conditions — or maybe mashed potatoes, as we are in the spud state? Even with chips, it all comes down to small potatoes. But this election is anything but …
Baldwin is as Badger Blue as they come — and Harris is back in Madison in the ultimate party zone, you know, the good party, and the southeast part of the state that brought us the ever-popular-there Steve Miller and his band, recently honored in his hometown for longtime achievement. And as has been pointed out blatantly, Hovde is or has been from California and has a mansion there, as well as in Florida, maybe not many miles from Mara-Lago.
The distinction painted is rich vs. liberal. Again we see this theme.
(So, on these pages in the next days you will see a lot of political notations, slotted in because this is important. And because this being at its start a music column, there’s a whole lotta lyrics fodder.)
But back to those chips. In video clips.
Hovde was attacked in full force by Baldwin, and He and His shot back with a recent ad saying that Baldwin was living High off the Hog with her Wall Street girlfriend. The person(s) in the video clip rang out back and forth between Baldwin and her beau, and a female narrator, switching at will. One of the last images shown was of a grocery bag filled high, and at its overflowing top some potato chips, a WalMart signature brand.
It isn’t immediately clear, unless you are watching, who bought these groceries, but on further inspection, it’s the narrator. I thought the splicing to and fro was confusing, and in that way like an old MTV video. The implication was that because of Baldwin, this poor woman was having to buy WalMart brand food. At first glance, I thought it was Baldwin buying Great Value, and I further thought if that’s defined as living high off the hog, so be it. And if such needs to be done by a constituent, too, that’s not so bad. At least the two bags shown are full.
Ads for Hovde have criticized Baldwin for her voting on Fentanyl bans, probably because there was a troublesome rider attached, since she is the one who helped sponsor a bill going after dealers of the drug. (Hovde managed to find one mother whose child had died of an overdose, and only gotten a letter of remorse from Baldwin, and nothing more. All the candidates, on both sides, seem to be great at finding lone wolves, as my family has pointed out.)
It is worthy of note that out in California, Harris had actually gone after drug kingpins and reduced crime, despite Republican claims. You can’t just hold people who are arrested, until you bring sufficient evidence against them, (and there aren’t nearly enough investigators in California to make that quickly doable.) No matter how severe their alleged crimes, violent or not. That’s what Guantanamo Bay is about. So again, we can solve it with more feet on the floor. Even if they are just Legal Beagles. You get what you pay for. Or if taken conversely, don’t pay for.
I think Baldwin and the Democrats are missing an opportunity in their stance on abortion, but that may be by direct choice. I thought that when the court decisions started mounting, and the Republicans became more and more hard line, the Democratic response would be to take a more centrist position and appeal all at once to the vast majority of Americans, not distance themselves as best they could, as far distant as they could.
It is has gone largely unnoticed that even under Biden/Harris current policy, you cannot get an abortion under all but the most extreme medical circumstances after six months, presumably to give a woman ample time to determine that yes, she is pregnant. And they have not done a good job at all to make that distinction known.
I will now reference an earlier ad by Baldwin that shows that even Democrats can resort to tactics that could be seen as vile. It said that Hovde did not want older Americans to be able to vote. What Hovde actually said was that, factually to a large degree, nursing home residents generally don’t live very long — although a half-year is probably a low-ball — so it’s unlikely most of them can find a way to vote.
The fact-back, as confirmed by a couple of volunteers with the League Of Women Voters locally, is that there often are means availed for nursing home residents to be able to cast a ballot, even including polling at their living facilities.
My take on the upshot: Baldwin took liberties with what she had suggested early, but Hovde was wink-and-nod trying to discourage the elderly from voting because they would not be in favor of his policies.
As long as we are on the past …
I was a reporter for the Hudson Star-Observer when Bill Clinton had gotten caught getting laid with Monica Lewinski, then denied it, before eventually fessing up. He was scheduled to address the issue to the American people for the first time, and I decided as an entertainment reporter to take in the common man angle. I went over to what was then Pudge’s Bar, had a seat at the rail, and waited to see what I’d find.
Next to me was a man from all places, Australia. He was working by day for a few weeks with his company to fix the Interstate 94 bridge. But this was evening, so the Aussie thought he’d go quaff an ale.
He was aghast about what transpired on the TV, for a reason you might not expect …
He talked freely during a rather long speech by Clinton, saying that in his home country, if the prime minister had an affair, no one would too much care, but if he lied about doing it, his political career would be toast.
History would not look on him kindly if like Donald, he had his Stormy Daniels. Non-consensual would be even worse for the PM.
But back to those bad photos on political ads:
One banking against border czar Harris does not show her as much of a czar at all, aiming to show that her vice-presidency was costing the average American lots of money out of their wallet. One was shown folded open with no dollar bills, not even ones or fives. But wait a minute, on money: There is a great big fold running down the middle, and three more to hold credit cards, and they all looked like … great big ol’ dollar bills! (At least the main one.) And even if they are indeed credit cards, they provide purchasing power, even if draining your own personal finances held, like the Republicans claim the presidential Democratic administration has done.
Even if some of the claims against Baldwin — saying her spending plans are too extreme, although even like with Trump (and yes I said this) they’d help certain segments of the population and may be good ideas in principle — have a grain of truth, they would not aid a large enough number of people to cost a lot of money to the taxpayer. And by comparison, if all of those who regularly eat out would simply skip a steak or two a month—even if it’s simply sirloin vs. pricey porterhouse — and instead donate that money, it would largely end hunger across the country.
And if that is a concern, what is spent at the grocery store and at the pump, what about this about grain? Funding to Ukraine has been blocked or ended, and this and the parts of Russia impacted too by the war mean that the price of wheat is affected. Hey, that’s where we get bread and ethanol. Yes, that more affordable fuel.
Back to bad choices
A second such ad, for Alison Page and her stance favoring abortion rights, says there are some things as out of place as politicians in your doctor’s office — and it shows three elephants, presumably a mom and dad and baby, out in a clipped green pasture in front of a big ol’ red barn.
It has been a while since the signs trumping Trump were small – you know, common man Democrat not Donald size – like the one or two initially, that I saw basically lost in the middle of a field of cedar shrubs of forest-like proportions.
One of the Dem signs I could not ignore: Vote for Democrats. They vote for us (or US?) If they can arrange a way to semi-accurately impersonate you.