I Like Wisconsin, the Land. I Know Wisconsin -- People Populating those Lands, Across the State.

 There is no way on god's green Earth -- not in this current political climate, not after what we have seen on our screens in these past few years -- that Wisconsin is legitimately going to elect Mandela Barnes, a nice black Democrat, as the junior senator to represent the state.  If every registered black voter in Milwaukee and Madison and environs came out to vote for Barnes, there are not enough Dem votes in the state to outvote the overwhelmingly white, conservative male rural and manufacturing vote.  There just are not enough public employees drawing government salaries, "suburban" moms caring about diversity and feminism, and non-farm workers in higher tech fields (Wisconsin does not have this sector, the way Chicago and Minneapolis do, outside of the research schools that do not generate employment or investment dollars to produce products here.)

The pollsters have a job to do:  selling the idea that Barnes is "up" over Johnson, the incumbent white male conservative senator.  Selling the idea that Barnes is a credible candidate.  It's not his skin color, it's his politics and his party.  This state gambled on Barack Obama:  white people can indeed elect black candidates... But oh, those times were so different politically.  Nobody is big hearted like that anymore, willing to give another guy a chance and hope for a lift for all.  They've hardened their hearts after the cities burned and justice did not seem to be served.  Whites believe they are targeted under the new identity politics, seen as enemies to others, obstacles to progress. But white people are still a pretty big voting block in many of the Midwestern states...

When the results roll in in early November, don't look to the scholars in Madison to explain what is happening with the vote throughout the state.  Most of them there are "captured", willing to attend the dinners, accept the "research" dollars, feed their own families, make the statements, and smile pretty for the pictures... but understanding what is really happening on the ground in the state where they work and purport to serve the people via The Wisconsin Idea?

You can't really inherit that without putting in the work -- throughout the whole state of Wisconsin.  None of your parents' friends on faculty can "gift it" to you and your husband either, when you marry into a faculty job --  the second-generation (plus the wife) riding a father's sociology profession.   A Yale degree is an amazing amazing thing, much less two!, but it really doesn't help you understand how the old farmer -- and his sons and their wives -- will be voting in November.  Meetings and "talks" are fun (aren't they? you host so many!) but when you surround yourselves with like-minded thinkers and speakers, you ... miss out on what is going down around you.

Like, the State of Wisconsin went down, so quickly! I remember when they were competitively ranked with Minnesota in terms of education and investment.  (So sad what Scott Walker did to that state, while the people in Madison stood by and let him... Evangelical "hope for the best!" Leadership while the educated bleated and followed their secular leadership. Busy raising babies, maybe.)

Winter will come to Wisconsin this year.  Already it appears, womens' rights have been lost because the alleged scholars simply haven't been able to put up much of a fight on behalf of the vulnerables -- the scholar let their guards down;  the people pay...

Same as it ever was, except we pretend in America that education is based on merit, that it's the great equalizer, that if we put our smartest and wisest in the top leadership roles, that they will bring victory to the team, overall.

Don't sell out the state, and set up citizens there for a election blowout in November -- with an ensuing recount controversy -- because you have no idea the value and peoples who have created the environment here that lets you artificially prosper and try and import values that you've not yet "sold" on the streets of the state.  Work to get buy in.  Work.  It's not just happy children and smiling mothers who vote, afterall.  Get to know the people if you take their pay.