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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7.06 on this Tuesday morning, August 5th.
Nice to have you here up north.
Parker Olson is our producer.
Down in Madison at Studio A2 meteorologist, Brittany Merlot, joining us as well on what it is.
It's still a little hazy out there, but not nearly as smoky.
around here on Lake Wissota, Brittany, and I sense that is going to become a trend everywhere.
Eventually a welcome welcome trend.
How are you today?
I'm doing pretty good.
You know, I was looking at these trends thinking this has got to be the longest period consecutive that we have had this air quality alert in effect.
And it is.
I thought so.
Because when it was particularly bad in 2023, and it was,
but
it was definitely felt like it had a shorter duration.
Two-day waves, that's all it was.
It was June 27th through 29th, and then it was July 14th through the 16th.
We've had this ongoing since July 29th a week now.
Yeah, this is...
It's sad, of course.
It's tragic for the folks up north, compounded by certain people trying to politicize all of this.
But needless to say, yes, the lingering impact, it's the whole difference of, you know, being around a heavy chain smoker for two days versus somebody who, you know, only smokes half a pack, but for 10 years, there's a big difference in exposure here.
And it's not good for people.
In fact, let me jump over to comments online from Rob and Tiger Tim.
He says good morning from Tigerton partly cloudy 57 yesterday had mowing jobs in Wittenberg the shifter on my lawnmower popped out and I had to push it on to a trailer and Take it to John Deere and Marion finally got it fixed then back to Wittenberg, but he also writes here I got bothered by that smoke yesterday I felt dizzy and tired and now he's got more mowing jobs in Tigerton today
and I
can affirm again I don't have any respiratory issues or anything like that, but it
It really gets people feeling draggy after a while or headache or, you know, your eyes burn, whatever the case is.
Yeah.
I mean, you think about this is burning particles of whatever's in that forest, whatever it's burning and it's making its way here.
It's, it's inflaming, you know, while you're ingesting that.
So.
Be careful.
Take it easy.
Stay inside if you can.
I know it's summer.
It is the worst thing to hear.
Stay inside, especially when it's so dry and nice and comfortable out there.
Temperatures right now 52 degrees in Watoma, 66 in superior and Racine.
So those lakes are holding on to some heat.
You're warmer if you are by a great lake right now this morning.
We're also seeing patchy dense fog in places.
So be careful out there driving that visibility will clear in about an hour or two.
But the air quality alerts.
still in effect until noon.
They keep renewing it at noon.
I have a feeling it might be extended until tomorrow in certain places of the state.
Maybe they'll let it expire in spots.
It is starting to swing much further off to the east.
The high pressure system that brought it here is now moving off to the east and it's really hanging over New York right now.
So we're really seeing the tail end of it.
But all of Michigan, parts of Minnesota and Indiana, and of course, all of us here in Wisconsin are still in that alert until at least noon today.
So as the high pressure continues to move, another low pressure system is building off in towards Wyoming and Colorado.
It is going to send a warm front our way, which means more clouds headed our way, more mugginess and humidity and also more thunderstorm action, especially as we push into the end of the week and into the weekend.
So it's going to turn hot and humid.
These are the final few days of.
if you decided to open your window with this air quality alert that you can do that.
Of course today we're going to hit highs in the upper 70s to low 80s.
We're pretty much going to put that on repeat for tomorrow too.
We do a small chance of spotty sprinkles far north again late tonight.
Otherwise tomorrow we're looking at some light showers and storms possibly west in the state in the morning and then more are going to start later on in the evening.
We'll tell you more about that tomorrow.
All right.
I was deciding whether to finally open up the house a little bit and I thought, well, I can do it for, like you said, a couple of hours, but then
as soon
as the temperature gets to, you know, a certain level where your air conditioner would kick in anyway, you know.
Is
it is it even worth
it?
I don't know.
We'll see.
Alicia puts up on YouTube.
I've had headaches for a week straight.
I've started
having a, you know, a hard time breathing.
Rob adds looking forward to winds from the south to get the smoke out of here.
So, I mean, we're, we're all anticipating.
There's still time.
There's still time to save summer.
The middle of summer, it's been, it's almost like, you know, it's been raining all the time.
Not going to wash out, but like a smoke out.
It just hasn't been the same, but there are still, there's still people going, oh, Zoomer's almost over.
Now it's August 5th, kids.
We got, we got a little time.
We have about a month.
Yes, so
we can do this.
Brittany, thanks so much.
We'll talk to you next hour.
Sounds good.
Quick reminder, there's so much more coming up on Civic Media today.
Certainly we've talked about Matt Nair on air with Jane and Greg following this program from 9 to 11.
And then after Tom Hartman is the Todd Alba show from 2 to 4.
And at 2.30, Todd's going to be talking to Kyle LaFond.
He's the founder, president and CEO of Natural Contract Manufacturing and American Providence.
He is a member of Main Street Alliance and he is going to be talking about tariffs.
just as we did with Sean Fetaplace from Main Street Alliance as well, that these tariffs are catching on with other Americans in the sense that they're saying, oh wait, this isn't just hurting
You know, other countries, this isn't hurting foreign companies.
This is hurting everybody.
Consumers, small businesses, small manufacturers that need to import some of their materials to make the things that they make.
This is having a wide-ranging impact and Todd will be talking to his guest Kyle LaFond about that later this afternoon.
And then Matt Rothschild is guest host on the Maggie Don show from four until six today across the Civic Media radio network.
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom.
Learn more over at couriernewsroom.com.
Plenty of newsletters and video series and things like that, including a newsletter called a newsletter called Control Alt-Right Delete by Melissa Ryan.
A new edition is out called the Media Capitulation Index.
It's a tracker that rates media conglomerates on a scale from independent to vulnerable to compromising.
to capitulating, to obeying, to propaganda.
The group Free Press has also released a companion report to the tracker called A More Perfect Media with deeper analysis.
And here's some of what they found in evaluating 35 different media companies.
Free Press found that media owners capitulated to the Trump White House in four main ways, one through payments to Trump in the form of legal settlements,
production contracts, campaign contributions, and other donations.
Second, by rolling back their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion practices when it comes to hiring and community outreach.
Third, through editorial manipulation and censorship, pressuring their newsrooms to soften criticism of the administration, firing staff, even pulling content that might anger the president.
Have you noticed by chance the articles that look at Fox News Channel and how if you watch that channel, there basically isn't a Jeffrey Epstein case anymore.
There used to be, but it's mysteriously disappeared.
And then fourth, media companies are attempting to curry favor with the president during ceremonies like the inauguration, private dinners at Mar-a-Lago, meetings in the White House,
as Melissa Ryan puts in her newsletter, as consumers, we have economic power.
Trackers like this one help us use it.
We can choose what media companies we support with our wallets, with our ears, with our eyes.
And so for all of that, you're going to want to look at Melissa Ryan's newsletter control alt-right delete and you get you can get a link to it over at couriernewsroom.com to learn more.
It's a 714 right now.
The Milwaukee Brewers have just been on a tear.
What is it?
Four in a row now, Parker, after beating Atlanta last night.
Final score there was three to one.
The three coming from Isaac Collins, a three run homer, Quinn Priester,
surrendered a first pitch of the game home run but after that allowed just one other hit and that's how you ended up with a three to one win over Atlanta.
Trevor McGill pitched a perfect ninth inning to get his 25th save of the season.
Freddie Peralta is pitching this evening.
Pre-game coverage begins at 540 on several civic media stations.
It's just fun to watch.
That should be their new memo.
It's just fun to watch.
And I could be wrong.
It almost feels like we must be way up there in the number of home runs given up on the first pitch of the game.
I feel like we've done three, four of those.
It wouldn't surprise me if it was five, actually.
But then things settle down after that.
And it's been a beautiful thing.
It is.
So much so.
Who knew the
I did.
I did.
I did.
Yes, I had a sense that was the case anyway.
Of all the recent headlines here that we're still playing catch up on, for example, there's a new state Supreme Court justice.
Did you know that?
Yeah, Justice Susan Crawford.
And you'll go, wait, wait, wait, the election was back in April.
Yeah.
but she wasn't inaugurated until August 1st.
That's when Supreme Court justices began their new terms.
And so it was only this past Friday that Justice Susan Crawford took the oath of office for a 10-year term, keeping the court under a 4-3 progressive majority with the retirement of Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
And so now the next few elections feature a conservative justice defending their seat.
There are no liberal leaning justices up for election until April of 2028.
So throughout this period here, the next.
two and a half years, three years basically, the court will be under progressive control barring, you know, some kind of personnel change amongst the progressive justices that are already there.
Crawford is a former Dane County circuit court judge.
This all took place in what's called an investiture ceremony.
That's what they call the oath of office when given to judges held in the rotunda of the Wisconsin Capitol.
Quoted here in an article from Spectrum News, Crawford said, quote, I'm proud to take my seat on this court.
I'm ready to meet this moment.
And most of all, I'm ready to get the work for the people of our great state.
You will recall that in April, she defeated Waukesha County judge and former state attorney general Brad Schimmel by 10 points.
And if you noticed anything in your social media feed, if it's got any kind of a political flavor to it,
There was a lot said Friday, Saturday about the way that Justice Susan Crawford beat the world's richest man, Elon Musk, and beat him soundly for the tens of millions of dollars that he spent in a race that topped the $100 million mark.
The world's richest man could not buy a state Supreme Court seat here in Wisconsin.
uh again the the spending there topping more than a hundred million dollars uh and Crawford went on to say I just promised to uphold two constitutions the U.S.
Constitution and the Wisconsin Constitution even when the issues are politically charged deeply divisive or hard to untangle that's always been the job so congratulations again to the new Supreme Court Justice Susan Crawford who is now officially on the court after that swearing in back on Friday.
We got plenty to cover yet this hour.
A local update is coming up next for some of you.
For others, we will be visiting with Dan Hagen from NewsWatch 12, WJFWTV and Rhinelander.
Talk about his vacation.
He's back after taking a little bit of time off.
And then later in the hour, we will be talking to Jim Payne, the mayor of Superior.
They are kicking off a new network so that folks in the city, small now, but eventually growing to the whole city, can have better access to high speed broadband internet.
Private companies aren't necessarily willing to serve every corner of Wisconsin.
And so in some cases, there are local governments that are stepping in and helping make networks more possible so that we can enjoy high speed internet throughout the state.
despite Republican restrictions that were put in place years ago.
That's coming up.
Live from the heart of America's Up North from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this a place to spend part of your mornings.
Powered by Up North News, I'm Pat right now.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
722 on this Tuesday morning and happy to welcome back to the program Dan Hagen from NewsWatch 12, WJFWTV and Rhinelander.
After a little time off, Mr. Hagen, good morning and welcome back.
How was your vacation?
Good morning, Pat.
Yeah, it was incredible.
I went up to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula.
I'd recommend that anyone go.
There are these huge rock cliffs basically along the shore of Lake Superior in this special spot and different
um metals basically in the groundwater they're leak out onto these cliffs and they form different colored rock faces and it's uh it's really beautiful
i i can admit i had not heard of this at all pictured rocks and now as i'm looking it up it is just it's gorgeous
yeah i was shocked i hadn't heard of it either um i bet
If this was in the east coast or the west coast, people would be all over this thing, but it's here and it's a hidden treasure, I think.
Yeah, I mean, we've heard, yeah, everybody's seen the caves up at the Apostle Islands, but there's sea caves there and rock arches, and geesh, all manner of things.
And really, I mean, the Great Lakes overall is...
I'm gonna go ahead and say it's underappreciated as a tourism destination.
I mean, maybe people have one place they like to go, Ashland, Bayfield, Superior, Mackinac Island, something like that.
But you could do worse than making pretty much a circle tour around the Great Lakes.
There is so much to see.
That is a fantastic idea.
There's a lot more I could see too.
And yeah, Lake Superior, it's a special reservoir.
I think it's got like 10% of the...
world's fresh water right there, you know, um, so we're lucky to have it.
Yeah.
So you left the, uh, the folks back there at news watch 12, they, they kept the place running without you.
Just fine.
And, uh, I was looking at some of the stories that have been covered and it appears we've been on animal watch lately here.
And, uh, where do you want, you want to start with the bear?
Yeah, let's start with Jughead.
Um, Jughead.
Jughead.
Uh-huh.
So Jughead, this is a bear that was found in Bayfield County just by a person who saw a bear with a jug.
On its head, clear
jug.
You'll have to see the pictures.
And it took about a week for another person to call it in on your cable, Wisconsin.
And they called the USDA Wildlife Services.
They came, removed the jug and tranquilized the bear, removed the jug, released the bear in a new location.
And they think it'll be fine.
It lost a lot of weight.
It was able to drink water by fully submerging its jug head.
in water.
There are some holes in the jug, which allowed it to breathe as well.
But hopefully it should get some food and some water and be ready for winter.
We'll see, though.
Good.
Well, we started on the lighter side, but there's also some serious stories in there.
And again, people who are hunting and
either being very neglectful or at the very least not paying attention to what it is that they're killing.
And that always can cause an issue for people that are tracking wildlife.
Yeah, some tragic stories here.
A swan was illegally shot in Lang Laid County.
So it reached out to the DNR about that.
They're investigating it.
They didn't want to give any more details.
And then a loon was hit in Hayward and in Annago, Wisconsin.
There is an animal, really it's called raptor education group.
And they usually deal with birds.
So that loon, that baby loon was taken to raptor education group.
an air sac was punctured because of a possibly being hit by a boat.
So they're going to do what they can to restore that loon to full health and then release it into the wild.
And again, all we can tell people is just to be careful whether you're hunting, recreation, whatever the case may be.
And now we'll come to the unexpected
fun technical part of the show because it turns out the listeners are picking up on it.
Adam, noting on YouTube, Dan's mic has turned him into Barry White for some reason.
This is a
girl.
That was perfect.
That was really well done.
I and I can't take credit for this.
It's not me playing a prank, but Dan is on a new headset.
mic thing that I sent him.
You'll recall the day that I was stranded in Canada when my flight was canceled.
We continued to do the show on a Monday morning.
So I had to race out and find a microphone and it found this headset microphone sent it to Dan while he was away.
But apparently it's it's got a either a pitch or a synchronization problem or something.
And you've got this little Barry White thing going on over here.
Um, yeah, I can kind of overcompensate if you want me to, to get rid of it, talk a little higher, but, uh, I think it's, uh, just my dulcet tones
are coming
through finally.
Uh, no, it, it, it happens regardless.
And they said, I, it could be the headset.
It could be the settings.
It could be the wifi.
Uh, and in fact, if you want to unplug this and talk to your, to your computer, Mike, we can certainly test that out and test out that theory or not.
So let's, let's do this live radio.
Okay.
How do I sound?
Do I sound a little tinier?
Oh, no, it's it's not the headset.
Yeah, it's actually you're you do sound a little tinier obviously that's a good microphone But yeah, I think there's something in the in the Wi-Fi there and it's funny because that we were just talking about how in superior Mayor Jim Payne is gonna be on in a half hour less than a half hour now to talk about getting broadband service We've covered this in Boulder Junction previously You know high-speed internet service is important everywhere Rhinelander included and it's something
We in big cities might take for granted, but it's something you guys really need up there, don't you?
Yeah, we get a lot of rural areas that do not have broadband access.
And you've probably heard that a lot of the kind of funding has been clawed back a little bit because of new initiatives from the federal government.
So they're basically trying to do the cheapest option possible.
You know, Knight of County leaders have wanted
you know, fiber optic cable stuff in the ground, but they might have to opt for like a satellite service because it's cheaper, which some people here are pretty upset about.
Yeah.
How do you like that?
We finally send him a good microphone and now it's his own local internet service that trips him up.
And so no, Tony, I did not send him the trick candle of microphones.
We will be just fine.
We'll address it and have better connections on the way.
We're just happy that you're back, that you had a wonderful time up there.
I'm happy to learn more about a new potential destination in the Great Lakes.
So again, you can catch what Dan's doing over at NewsWatch 12 in Rhinelander and
And right here with us on Tuesday mornings.
Thank you, sir.
Great to have you back.
Thank you, Pat, and everyone have a good day.
Very white.
That's what I was going to say.
Thank you, ladies.
Thank you, ladies.
All right.
All right.
We will talk more about what might make up the next, the qualities in the next Wisconsin governor that's coming up next here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
The Midwest Farm Report is up next.
Remember, you can stay up to date on what we're doing at UpNorth News by heading to UpNorthNewsWI.com.
And while you're there, sign up for our daily newsletters.
We've got a weekday issue.
We've got our Sunday mornings with Pat Krightlow, Politics Newsletter that also includes our question of the week.
And the question that we asked this past Sunday deals with what is now happening in Texas, where Republicans are, again, looking to rig their congressional maps further to
put Democratic representation in the single digits in Texas, along with dozens of Republican members of Congress from Texas.
Texas is a red state, but it ain't that imbalanced.
But that's how they want to make the maps.
Democratic legislators are saying, you know what, before you ram this through, we're going to deny you a quorum for a time.
Leave the state and call national attention to this because it is what it's corruption.
is what it is, and call attention to it.
Now, folks in some blue states are saying, hey, two can play at that game.
Maybe in California, though, redraw the congressional map and, you know, get five more Democratic seats to offset five more Republican seats in Texas.
The question is, should they?
Is it the case of, you know, two wrongs don't make a right?
Or is it the case of you got to do this because otherwise it's bringing a rubber band to a gunfight?
What do you think?
A lot of responses coming in already to our Question of the Week in our newsletter.
Sign up for it over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
There's a lot that's going to be said between now and next August about the Democratic primary for governor and who would be the strongest candidate.
And should that candidate be
You know, a fire breathing liberal, should it be somebody who is extremely moderate and hits a lot of bipartisan tones?
Will a democratic primary be a healthy part of that process or will it lead to a party that is fractured by those who want to go more to the left and those who want to go more to the center?
There's no shortage of discussion about it.
Certainly over the weekend some of that talk was being heard in Milwaukee where former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke held a town hall at the Washington Park Senior Center in Milwaukee.
O'Rourke now has a voter organization group called Powered by People that is putting on these community conversations in spots all over the country.
speakers this past weekend included Devin Remaker, the new chair of the State Democratic Party.
Former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes and others also spoke at this.
And again, the talk turns to whether Democrats have been too conciliatory.
Have they been too willing to play by the rules?
What is it that's going to go into making the next
nominee for Wisconsin governor on the Democratic side as strong as possible.
Well, to hear State Senator Kelder Royce talk about it in the Cap Times, there's so much conversation about it that she's wearing out her AirPods because of all the phone calls that she's been taking with friends and family and strategists and consultants and colleagues and donors.
And she talked to the Cap Times newspaper in Madison all about it lately, including this line.
I would say I'm very likely to run.
I've had so many encouraging conversations with folks all around the state, and that's been really exciting and gratifying, Roy's said.
Now, that was not a full-fledged commitment, but it does take a lot to say I would say I'm very likely to run, especially when you consider there's already Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez who's in the race, Milwaukee County Executive David Crawley says he's going to announce that he's in the race.
And for Kelda Roy's, this would be her second time running for governor.
The last time she ran was among nearly a dozen Democratic candidates in 2018 when that primary produced Tony Evers as the nominee who beat Scott Walker and then served in another term as well.
But at this point, again, we don't have 12 Democratic candidates in the race yet, but we might.
And Kelda Roy says she's not going to rush into making a decision or an announcement.
She told the CapTimes quote, I don't think anybody needs a 13 month primary.
We're going to have a robust, crowded primary.
We have a lot of good people interested in running and I think that's great.
But I wouldn't be surprised if the field isn't even settled until the end of the year.
Which I, let me have one observation on that.
And that's waiting until the end of the year.
And again, it's all about the money.
Part of the reason that candidates are urged to get in earlier and earlier is the need for donations, the need for these multi, multi-million dollar races that are run.
And if you wait too long, the donors are going to be happy with somebody else.
It shouldn't necessarily be this way, because let me explain the timetable for you real quick here.
Nominating papers.
aren't even due until June 1st of next year.
It's on June 1st of next year that we'll find out how many people turned in nominating petitions with enough signatures from voters that they qualify to be on the August primary ballot, June 1st.
So theoretically, somebody could announce their candidate in mid-May and for two weeks collect a ton of signatures and get on the ballot.
But it doesn't work that way anymore because, again,
people need those donations, and so they try to get in as early as possible.
But Senator Keldoroy is saying, look, it doesn't have to be next week.
And Joseph Pecky told us as much last week when I told him, hey, I thought we'd have a lot more candidates for governor in this first week after Governor Evers announcing he wasn't going to run for a third term.
And Joseph Pecky said, no, no, once once you've got the first one or two candidates in there really isn't any value.
in being, you know, say the third candidate in the race.
Just announce when you think the time is right, once you've got all your ducks in a row and you're ready to start asking donors and voters for their support.
So back to what Kelda Royce had to say to the CapTimes, she said, you have this kind of dichotomy.
between how horrible things are at the federal level and the way the states are under attack by the Republican regime.
We have an incredibly dangerous and authoritarian government in charge in Washington, DC.
But we are also at a point of incredible hope in Wisconsin, where for the first time in a generation, we could have a democratic trifecta.
We just can't afford to waste that.
And I, of course, take interest in that being a member of the last Democratic trifecta, which happened in 2009.
After the 2008 elections, when Barack Obama was elected president, you had Jim Doyle as governor, you had a Democratic State Senate that I was in, a Democratic State Assembly, but...
At the same time, you also had the great recession kicking off thanks to a whole lot of factors from outside the state of Wisconsin.
So it's been a long time since Wisconsin's had a democratic trifecta where the economy also hadn't been previously tanked by right-wing policies.
But as a result of that potential for a democratic trifecta, you've got people like Kilda Roy's and everybody else who might enter the race.
wanting to be extremely careful and plot out your moves carefully and think about your words carefully.
But in that same CapTimes newspaper, there's also an editorial that notes that the 2026 gubernatorial nominee, in their opinion, must embody progressive values with Republicans veering toward
pro-Donald Trump cultishness, the Cap Times writes, the Democratic nominee in 2026 can unite voters on behalf of economic, social, and racial justice, and a climate agenda that creates jobs while saving the planet.
The Cap Times writes that in past elections, we've endorsed many of the prospective 2026 contenders.
As the race heats up,
We'll be looking in particular for a Democrat who is ready to run a winning progressive campaign and once elected to serve boldly.
They talked to State Representative Francesca Hong, a Madison Progressive, whose endorsement has been enthusiastically pursued by many Democratic gubernatorial prospects, and she describes such an agenda well when she says, quote,
With Governor Evers opting not to run for a third term, Wisconsin is headed for a crowded Democratic primary.
There's a real opportunity here, not just to hold on to the governorship, but to reimagine what kind of a state that we want to be.
She said we can learn a lot from candidates like New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zoran Mamdani, who ran on a bold vision built on grassroots power and grounded in care.
She said we need a candidate who understands the power of
building a diverse and radically welcoming coalition.
How do you like that phrase?
A radically welcoming coalition.
We need someone ready to lead with a vision that puts people first, starting with what working class people are actually facing every day.
That means real affordability and long term care, childcare.
and health care.
That means protecting public education, investing in affordable housing, and finally advancing progressive taxation rooted in our state's history.
And it means being willing to name who's been hoarding power and who's been left out for far too long.
Again, that's all from Fran Hong, Democratic Assembly member from the Madison area.
And the thing is, the things that she's talking about, affordability in long term care.
Affordable childcare, affordable health care, protecting public education, and having progressive taxation, you know, where all the special favors in the tax code don't go to the wealthiest taxpayers?
How the heck did that become a partisan agenda?
There was once a time when Republicans fought for those things too.
They simply differed with Democrats on the degree.
of which to go there, the methods in which to go there, but Republicans used to consistently fight for things like affordable health care and education and things like that.
So will a primary be good or bad?
Well, coincidentally, one more article to share from the Cap Times, it's a column by John Nichols, the associate editor, who writes a column saying primaries are good for Dems.
And again, that's not a universal thought that's out there.
But John Nichols writes, there's an ocean among many political consultants and pollsters that crowded primaries only cause frustrations for the eventual nominee and the party.
They tell us if partisans could just coalesce early around a single candidate for a top post, it will be easier to focus the message of party nominees, build campaign war chests, and take on November rivals.
But with Evers deciding not to seek a third term, Democrats are all but certain to see a multi-candidate primary that will feature many of the most prominent figures on the party's crowded bench competing with one another.
But the fact that there will be a number of Democratic primary candidates is not a problem.
It's a measure of the party's renewal in recent years, and it's a strength going into the 2026 race.
And he writes, it's also very much in keeping with the party history over the past five decades.
And he goes on to list things like how Patrick Lucy came out of a primary in 1970, how in 1982, Tony Earl came out of a very tough three-way primary with Marty Schreiber and former Lucy aide Jim Wood.
In 1992, there was Russ Feingold coming out of a three-way primary and then defeating Republican Senator Robert
Robert Casten, Jim Doyle himself, back in 2002, became the nominee only after a primary that included Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee Congressman and future mayor Tom Barrett.
So John Nichols writes, Democrats who win competitive primaries do not always go on to beat Republicans in November, but primaries have rarely, if ever, been an impediment to party prospects.
So I would conclude by simply saying,
We're going to have a large field.
Embrace it.
The same goes for Republicans.
You're going to have a large field.
Embrace it.
Talk about the issues.
Talk about not just who espouses your principles, but also who can win.
Way at all.
Come up with the best nominee possible and show Wisconsin how you would best take care of them.
A local update is next.
With others, we'll talk to Superior Mayor Jim Payne about expanding broadband service up in Northwest Wisconsin.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
752, we're back now.
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom and our new DC correspondent, Cam Stevenson, has a DC newsletter called Below the Beltway.
You can read it at Beltway.News or through CourierNewsroom.com and his latest column is about what's happening in Texas.
Texas tries to oust elected officials through legal gerrymandering and illegal schemes, again, below the Beltway from Cam Stevenson of Courier Newsroom.
All right, let's let's turn to our way up north segment and talk to Jim Payne again mayor of Superior all about what's happening in the northwestern corner of the state and this time around we're going to be talking about high speed internet and the things that local governments can do rather than simply sitting around and waiting for the private sector to discover that you're there.
Mayor Jim Payne, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
I'm doing well.
How are you, Pat?
I'm great.
It's so nice to see you here.
I know that Superior is not the first, but definitely the latest in communities that have been looking for ways to kind of move the process along of making sure that your residents have access to broadband, which is the term for high speed internet.
So what is happening right there right now?
What is it that you're kicking off?
Well, we're certainly not the first to recognize the need for high speed, reliable and affordable access to the internet, but we're the first
City in Wisconsin the first community of any kind to create a publicly owned.
Open access broadband network there is no other network of our kind in Wisconsin and it's a unique public private partnership where we own the actual network the physical network.
And we sell internet access to private internet service providers who in turn sell it to customers so they compete.
freely on our network the same way multiple delivery services UPS FedEx U.S.
Postal Service compete on the roads that the city builds.
So it combines public infrastructure with private competition.
And that I'm glad to hear that explanation because when I first heard about it it made me wonder about a law that the Republican led legislature passed several years ago that essentially was a ban on
municipal networks, especially Wi-Fi networks, again, not wanting the public sector to compete with the private sector.
A lot of people were upset by that, saying, hey, look in some of these smaller communities, the private sector isn't coming up here anytime soon.
They're only going to want to serve the big cities.
So why block local units of government that want to provide this kind of service?
it sounds like you have found the right path through of you're not the internet provider, but you have made it easier for the private sectors to come up here and extend service that they otherwise wouldn't do on their own.
Does that sound about right?
Almost.
The biggest difference is people don't have to come here to provide the internet.
People are already here that can provide the internet.
So because
All we require people to do is be an ISP.
They don't have to own this gigantic physical network, a multi-million dollar investment.
That allows small businesses to go into business selling the internet to customers.
So one of our first ISPs came from Duluth, Minnesota right next door and is now headquartered in Superior.
It's a really small business.
They only serve this community on our network.
So what we did is rather than
uh, have a giant monopoly, which was what almost every city in the country has.
Selling us internet at whatever price they want.
Our monopoly spectrum, they actually raised the price of the internet during the pandemic.
That was a kind of, we just saw that as unconscionable.
How can you exploit people that way?
So what we did is we combined what I thought is the best of the political philosophies on the left and the right.
We, we believe in private sector competition to lower prices and increase innovation.
But the public should own infrastructure.
We shouldn't allow the private sector to control infrastructure that is vital to modern life.
And so that's what we did.
We just combined the two and we're two weeks in and it's already a hit.
And is it a network that is accessible to everybody in the superior area now or is it starting in one area and building out?
No, we started in a pilot area, one neighborhood.
It's actually my neighborhood.
I'm talking to you on it right now.
And the
So it was meant to show skeptics that this could actually work.
One of the early successes, though, is our construction costs actually came in so far under budget that we're building out much faster than we had originally planned.
So we will be lighting up the next neighborhood already this fall.
And how is it that the city was able to afford to do its part of this public-private partnership?
Joe Biden, really.
The ARPA dollars that came to every community in the country.
What a lot of people forget is that
the ARPA dollars which have been used for so many different things across the country were primarily meant for utility infrastructure and the first utility described in that law is access to broadband.
And so we just took them at their word and we used it to build a network.
And so the first five million dollars plus of this network was covered by that bill.
So President Biden had this American recovery plan and had a mission for it.
And you took that literally and seriously and made it work.
It sounds like perhaps the most textbook case of ARPA funds doing what they were intended to do at the time.
Exactly.
In fact, we've been trying to build this network since before the pandemic, but the pandemic proved every single argument we made correct.
When we had to send
people home from work, send children home from school, and they did not have access to the internet.
That meant they didn't go to school, Pat.
That's what it meant.
And people are still trying to pretend like that didn't happen.
We lost a generation of kids that should have been educated and weren't because they didn't have access to this vital public infrastructure.
The Biden administration gave us money to solve that problem, make sure that never happened again, and that's what we spent it on.
That's incredible.
And you said another neighbor is coming.
How long do you think it might take for most if not all of the city to be served?
That's a political question.
You asked me.
I'd like to get it done in the next two years.
But, you know, we have to prove that it's a success.
I think we're already doing that.
Like I said,
We need to get to a 10% take rate.
10% of the area should be customers by the end of the year.
I think we're going to cross that in the next month.
And if we can show real success by the fall of next year, I think we'll have justified moving quite a bit faster than our original forecast of five to seven years.
Superior Mayor Jim Payne with a great update from way up north.
Jim, thank you so much.
Good to talk to you again, Mr. Mayor.
Have a wonderful day.
Always fun.
Thanks, Pat.
All right, coming up in our next hour, we'll be talking to Chad Holmes from 98.9, WXCO, about the stories that he's following there.
And then later, Civic Media news director, Shaly Pittman will join us and we'll talk about the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and what the attacks on it could mean for voting in Wisconsin as well.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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