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Now for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7 0 6 and nice to have you back here up north on this Thursday morning.
September 11th, 2025.
We'll be talking later this hour with Brian Kennedy, the mayor of Glendale in Milwaukee County.
all about running for local office.
He's the national head of a group called Democratic municipal officers and they work to recruit and train the next generation of candidates who serve as mayors and village presidents and city councils and town boards and things like that.
So if that interests you or maybe you're thinking about recruiting a friend to do that, then give a listen later this hour.
And of course, if you can't stick around, then we invite you to listen to us as a podcast head over to Spotify and follow us that way and you can
catch up with shows any time that you like.
It's a very foggy morning out here on Lake Wissota, and we are definitely not the only place a dense fog advisory will be in effect until nine o'clock for a big chunk of the western half of Wisconsin, basically draw a line up from Phillips, I'm sorry, not from Richland Center through Tomah, up to Neilsville, Medford, Phillips, Ironwood, Michigan, and Ashland, and all those points west of that line.
are in a dense fog advisory with low visibility of visibility a quarter mile or less in some places and so if you're out there driving go at a slower speed use your headlights and leave plenty of distance ahead of you and the temperatures of course are going to be warming up nicely as Brittany told us before she began her long weekend and we have local forecast updates throughout the day on your local civic media station.
Alright, we were asking we were talking about video game consoles a little bit earlier and because it's the anniversary of the Atari 2600 from 1977 and Alicia already told us that she played on a Nintendo and Tony had Sega but there was also a dreamcast as well and So we are wondering if there were consoles that you remember or consoles that you would recommend if people were going to be
you know, replacing what they have or buying a console for the first time, because frankly, everything has come up a step from the Atari 2600.
So we're recruiting and seeking out your recommendations and your memories on video game consoles this morning.
On a much more serious note, however, is I know you think I'm going to be talking directly about yesterday's murder of political agitator Charlie Kirk in Utah.
And we've we've spoken about that in the last hour and about violence not being the answer and that violence is not is not politics even though some people mistake it for that that there is no good political violence it encourages other people to either engage in violence or to speak in violent tones Like the congressman from Western, Wisconsin Derek van Orden
has been on a tear overnight since the murder of Charlie Kirk in Utah and not not in a good way.
And I can't read all of his tweets because of the swearing that's in there.
But there's a lot of tweets where he says the gloves are off and
threatening things like federal funding.
In one tweet, let's see if from nine hours ago or so, he says, we will be making sure that any institution that celebrates political violence will not receive a single penny of federal funding, gloves are off.
And then there's one where he refers to dirty scumbag reporters who are directly culpable for Charlie Kirk's murders.
Somebody asks, how do you coexist with people that want to murder you?
And Derek Van Orden's response is, you don't.
In other words, in his mind, the de-escalation comes at the point of a gun, apparently.
And this is a man with military experience.
And I don't doubt all kinds of access to weaponry.
There's one where he says you take shots at Rebecca Cook and Congressman Mark Pokan saying people like them would have fit perfectly into the Soviet Union.
They think they're smarter than everyone and that the government should tell you how to live your life.
Okay, here's a couple more here where he simply says the gloves are off as he reposts others.
You've got actor James Woods, who puts a lot of extreme and violent language out there.
And he says, don't call it gun violence.
It's Democrat violence, which Derek Van Orden reposted and said, correct.
He refers to disgusting the chaos that broke out on the floor of the House of Representatives.
The cast that broke out when fellow Republican Lauren Boebert of Colorado insisted on a spoken prayer rather than a moment of silence.
In other words, she wanted special treatment for Charlie Kirk compared to all of the other moments of silence that were held for victims of all political stripes.
Most of them innocent victims.
But Lauren Bulbert wanted something different, and when people disagreed, needless to say, there was a woman from Florida, the Republican, who started shouting F-bombs at the Democrats, just not one of the more graceful moments on the floor of the U.S.
House.
Here's another one about Derek Van Oren saying, the gloves are off and these horrible vultures claiming to be journalists must be held accountable.
Here's one where he says, in response to somebody, F these bags of scum.
Let's see, there's another, the gloves are off.
Here's one where Nicole Wallace from MSNBC speaks on how political violence has often been committed by Republicans and people who consume conservative media.
And Derek Van Orden puts it up and says, this is the problem.
This garbage is the problem.
Here's one where he says of another podcast host, I would love to have coffee with this piece of and then uses the S word there.
Once again, we get another shot at Mark Pokan, where he says to somebody, you and your golden corral fat
F-Buddy Mark Pocan do not seem to understand how far out of touch you are with everyday Americans.
You people are culpable for Charlie Kirk's assassination.
Here's another one where he pledges zero tax dollars.
Here's one where he says, I don't think the SOBs, and he spells it all out, of course, that are celebrating this horrific crime have ever watched the movie The Unforgiven.
They called the wind and they are about to reap the AI-empowered whirlwind.
These people want a Nazi fascist country.
We're not gonna do that.
These are all from a congressman, all right?
Here's an F this terrorist referring to the show TMZ.
When somebody asks, why are you surprised?
Derek Van Ordnery posted and says, because they hate God.
Here's one where he says to another journalist, you are directly culpable for this assassination and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
I am not sure that you understand what you and your horrible people have done.
Gloves are off you effing mayonnaise person.
And oh wait, more have come up.
He's still going.
Wow, there there.
I refreshed the screen and so many more have come up calling people scum.
Every every chance he gets more scum, more green with people who called other people scum.
And I know I have one or two others.
Oh, no, that was just a scum again.
This one you sowed the wind, you punk.
Again, Derek Van Orden essentially threatening violence.
To other people, here's more scum.
He says of another group saying this is the left, meaning the political left.
This is the left.
They are about to get a right, you know, as in a punch.
All right, I hear some of you calling for mercy and saying, look, how long are you going to be rereading?
Are you just going to read Derek Van Orden's Twitter feed?
In this particular case, yes.
And you know, it's something I've wanted to do for a long time.
But I knew it wasn't gonna necessarily make for great radio Except now in this kind of context I mean Derek Van Orden talks like this all the time usually in drips and drabs, but occasionally these late-night rants where he goes off in tens if not dozens of tweets
calling people names, sometimes not directly, just reposting other people's things and referring to them as scum or using the F word for them.
This is his primary constituency.
These are the people he most wants to talk to and the people he most wants to please and the people he most wants to agitate.
And you might say, well, he is just reacting very strongly to Charlie Kirk's murder.
I believe it has gone further than that.
This is no longer a man reacting or reacting angrily to the murder of a political figure that he agrees with.
At some point, you are now using this killing for political purposes.
You are politicizing what's going on, especially when you're continuing to want to agitate so division and more or less encourage violence with all of the times that he
essentially said, you know, that a punchback is coming in some way, shape, or form.
Derek Van Orden was nowhere to be found in some of these other mass shootings that have happened.
And in political violence, he went so far as to do some inappropriate name calling after one particular political violent tragedy.
And you all know this, if you listen to this show, we've talked about this.
So why am I bringing it up again?
Because so many of your neighbors don't.
They see the softball coverage on local TV stations or the quick little write-ups in newspapers.
And I'm not saying there's never been a hard-hitting story done on Derek Van Orden, but on the scale between fluff stories and journalism that tries to hold Derek Van Orden to account, the scales are not balanced at all.
and some of it borders on stenography.
Having seen what a member of Congress from Wisconsin has put out in less than 24 hours since an act of political violence in this country, I am again asking, challenging, Wisconsin media.
to, first off, whenever he does pop up again, because he's not doing town halls, so whenever he does make another spontaneous appearance, if you're able to be there, I really hope your first question isn't about whatever it is he wants to talk about, but whether he thinks this is behavior befitting a member of Congress, or don't wait for him to show up unexpectedly in your community, and call the office right now.
And frankly, a lot of his constituents could call the office right now or at some point during the day.
I'd urge you to look up his Twitter feed just so that, you know, you have it in front of you.
And that way they're not saying, well, you're just going off things that you heard.
No, take a look at it.
And then maybe call his office and remember the people who work in these offices, they are not the members of Congress.
You do not need to unload on them.
But you can make your point of view known and say, I would just like to know if the Congressman thinks that
This is the kind of behavior that he thinks is appropriate in the wake of an act of political violence.
He knows better.
He knows it's not, but he can't help himself.
And those of you who are already fighting about this in the comment sections today, watching this program, you may as well take a step back.
You know where we stand on this and you can only throw sand for so long before we start hitting hide and delete buttons like I wish somebody would have done a long time ago to Derek Van Orden.
I'm Pat Krightlo, this is the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Here's a text from Michael in Wauwatosa.
My first video game system was the Sears version of the Atari 2600.
It was a black and silver wedge shaped box.
It had push buttons and lights.
It was very futuristic looking.
I wish I still had it.
How fun would that be?
Some people hold their game consoles maybe a little too long and I can't remember.
Nintendo has all these different names.
I don't know what Nintendo's original system was called, but
I
know that
Sherry's parents my in-laws had it at their farmhouse I think one of the other one of Sherry's siblings maybe had it originally but for a good Decade after everybody else was no longer using it in America We were all still using it to play like Mario Brothers the original Mario Brothers and and duck hunter remember duck hunter with
Oh, yeah.
See, that's the thing.
I'm sure that those are still out there in some way, shape, or form, but they're so much more technical now.
They can do so much more.
I get that.
But they should have a level where it's like, you're a man in your 60s who played on the Atari.
Here's the version you might prefer and go with that.
Yes.
It sports the Texas Rangers beat the Milwaukee Brewers six to three yesterday afternoon to complete a three game sweep of the Brewers who still have the best record in baseball.
And it's only the first time they've been swept in a three game series since the season began with that 0-3 start against the Yankees.
Things were looking good for the Brewers at the start.
There was a lead off home run from Bryce Terrang.
Next man up was Jackson Churio.
He hit a home run.
So it was quickly 2-0 in the first inning.
And you got Freddy Peralta on the mound who had, you know, was tied for the most wins with 16.
He was going for a 17th win.
Didn't get it.
He allowed five runs on a season high 113 pitches in five innings.
I'd tune the game in somewhere in the fifth inning and there's the pitch count for Freddy Peralta was at like 105, 106, 107.
Like what are you guys, what are you doing Murphy?
But obviously, you know, it's like we got to save the bullpen and this game is out of hand.
Yes.
And we've, we have seen this before of the Brewers that, you know, again.
the, the elite teams, if you will, kind of know when to peak and others, they just get on a hot streak and they go and go until they essentially burn out.
I mean, look at, look at Freddie Peralta.
He'd gone 30 consecutive innings without giving up a run.
But then the Rangers, Jake Berger, homered off him in the second inning and then homered off him again in the fifth inning.
Yeah, when his pitch count was in the hundreds at that point and the Brewers to be fair We've talked about this before more bad luck.
They are hitting some balls that are like lasers.
But they go right where the outfielders are standing.
It's like you almost have to try
To to have luck that bad at one point christian yelts.
I mean that would have been a home run or at least a you know A triple in so many other areas center fielder gets there just in time and as he's going back to the dugout jogging back He's got his hands up to this guy and he looks up to the sky.
I
what what do I got to do to get a hit here?
And so
Mike Clemens has a report that I think that we've been running today The pat murphy's been saying like, you know, it's not that we're For lack of trying or anything.
It is not that we've
are taking our foot off the gas.
We're hitting the ball.
We're just not finding the results, which absolutely sucks.
And it's not fun baseball to watch.
Exactly.
And so the the Brewers are still up five and a half games on the Cubs.
I know the Cubs were playing Atlanta.
And I'm just quickly trying to look up whether the Cubs won or lost yesterday.
They won.
They beat Atlanta three to two.
Yes, because they've made a lot of ground to try to get a wild card spot.
And so they are, I mean, they're motivated.
And again, it's not like the Brewers are dogging it, but Texas was motivated.
Coming into this and it clearly paid off for them.
So brewers are off today coming back home for a series against the cardinals game tomorrow Will be at 635 the pregame on several civic media stations So it's st.
Louis at home This weekend and then they stay home to start the week hosting the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday of next week And then they hit the road next weekend in st.
Louis
So we've got a bunch of games coming up with the cardinals here over the next
I know.
Let's see, we've got the Packers playing tonight against the Washington Commanders at Lambeau.
Coverage begins for the pregame at five o'clock this evening on four Civic Media radio stations.
Let me tell you what they are.
WRCO in Richland Center, WCQM in Park Falls, WRJN in Racine, Kenosha and WAUH in Watoma.
And then we've got, of course, the Badgers are playing on Saturday at Alabama.
I don't think I'm gonna have you look for something.
I've never on the show talked about betting lines.
Okay, it's too, it's too tempting to go down that rabbit hole and all that.
But I will ask out of curiosity if you can look up.
And again, Alabama, not what they used to be.
But with the badgers going to Atlanta, I'd love to know what the what the odds
makers are
saying about that.
20 and a half.
So the Badgers are 20 and a half point underdogs going into it.
So you're saying there's a chance.
The pregame begins at 9am Saturday on stations in Richland Center, Amory, Wisconsin Rapids and Rippon.
And then of course, there's all the high school football.
that's going to be coming up as well.
And we'll talk to chat homes about some of that coming up just after eight o'clock as well.
And he'll tell us the kind of stories that he's following in the Wasaw area from our civic media station out there.
Now coming up in just a bit, we'll hear the Midwest Farm Report, and then talk to Brian Kennedy about running for something.
Would you like to represent your area better than say Derrick Van Orden?
Because that's the kind of folks we're going to get until more people like you decide.
It's time to run for something.
That's coming up.
I'm Pat Cradle, live from the lake here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Up North News is a separate entity from Civic Media, but we sure appreciate this partnership that we get to do every weekday morning from 6 to 9 a.m.
But you can follow my team over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Sign up for our newsletters there, including the weekday edition and the Sunday morning politics edition that I put together.
Again, we'd love to have you as a subscriber, UpNorthNewsWI.com.
A dense fog advisory is out until
At least nine o'clock for much of western the western half of Wisconsin So take it easy out there on the roads and again forecast updates throughout the day on your local civic media radio network station I really like doing segments like the one we're about to start here with Brian Kennedy because first as a reporter and Then an elected official at the state level and now in my capacity here
I could not possibly express enough admiration for the people who run for local office.
I got my start covering county boards in Eau Claire County and Chippewa County, the Chippewa City Council, and then I've been to more county board, town board, village board meetings than I could possibly count over the years, either covering them as a reporter or speaking as an elected official.
It is thankless work and yet
people continue to do it because of a certain level of satisfaction and service they give to their communities.
So having said all that, perhaps you might be interested in running for local office and want to know where to begin.
I got a guy.
for that.
From suburban Milwaukee, let's get down to Glendale and talk to Mayor Brian Kennedy, who's also president of the group Democratic Municipal Officials, nationaldmo.org is the website.
I'll put that up on screen on social media and just a bit here.
Mayor Brian Kennedy, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Matt.
I'm doing great.
How are you this morning?
It's good.
Good to see you.
It's been a while.
It's great to talk to you.
And especially about this
particular subject.
I mean, I've, I, of course, have now expressed my admiration for local officials.
You're one of them.
But I'm sure you would agree with the concept of people serving in their hometowns and what it is that you appreciate about them.
Yeah, you know, running for local office is basically because you want to serve your community.
There's really not, for most of us, this is a part-time gig, you know, we all have day jobs, but we feel like there's a way that we can give back to our community.
You know, most people don't understand that when you run for school board or you run for city council or, or run for mayor, that, you know, you're basically saying, I'm going to give up my nights and weekends to try and serve my community and I'm really not going to get paid very much for it.
You know, when I first ran for this position, Mayor Glendale paid about $5,000.
You know, my wife is like, why are you taking a job that pays a dollar an hour?
Because that's what it felt like as much time as I gave back to the community.
But, you know, there's a lot of good that we can do and there's a lot of great opportunities to help shape what your community will become in the next 10 or 15 or 20 years by decisions that are made today.
And I will, from a political standpoint,
I'm going to put it this way.
We need all kinds of folks who are willing to run for local office and you do not have to be a died in the world Democrat or a died in the world Republican to serve in local office.
The vast majority of all of us are correctly described as somewhere in the center left to center right part of the spectrum.
But if people in that very large part of the spectrum don't serve, then that creates a vacuum for people on the fringes to get in.
And we, I know, Brian, you've seen the danger on school boards and other places where the only person who runs is somebody who shall we say service is not exactly their primary motive.
No, you're absolutely right.
You know, one of the reasons why in Wisconsin our local elected offices are all nonpartisan is because there really isn't a Democratic way to pave a road or a Republican way to pick up the garbage.
We're talking about providing services to our community that involve, for example, making sure you have clean drinking water, making sure that the parks are well maintained, so you have a place to take your kids or your grandkids to play, making sure that our schools have the funding they need so that, you know, the libraries are well stocked, their class sizes are small enough that the teachers can meet the needs of all of
the students in the classroom.
We're not talking about setting agendas that are necessarily partisan.
But the thing I've noticed, and one of the reasons I got involved with Democratic municipal officials, or DMO, is that the people it seems like whose political philosophies are about serving their community and wanting to give back are more often than not.
on the left or the center left.
We don't necessarily engage in this because we've got some great agenda.
We just want to make sure there's a place for everybody, everybody feels included, and that people's needs are met.
And so that's why I think you see so many of Donald Trump goes after the Democrat cities, but I think you see so many of our municipal offices being held by Democrats across the country.
It's because our natural inclination is to create community and to create a space for everyone and to meet people's needs.
Yeah, another way to put it would be, you know, service driven.
And you and I have both met and befriended people who are to our political right, who are amazing people because they have that service component about them.
Again, we're not going to agree on everything.
We're not supposed to agree on everything.
We're supposed to work together.
But you only work together.
if people with differing opinions still at least have service as one of their central values.
And if people go, why do you keep doing this?
Why do you engage in politics, talking politics, serving politics?
Brian, it's because I genuinely see those people and I know you still do today, people you don't always agree with, but there are just so many good people who want to serve their hometowns.
No, absolutely.
You know,
Years ago, I made friends when I was the state American Federation teachers president, I made friends on the other side of the aisle in the legislature.
I now serve on the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District Commission with a good friend who was a Republican member of the state assembly.
And we, in terms of developing our policies around, how are we managing stormwater runoff?
How are we making sure that we're reclaiming the water before and fully cleaning it before it gets returned to Lake Michigan?
We're on the same page, we're about serving.
So Jeff Stone, who I didn't always agree with when he was in the legislature, was a Republican member of the assembly.
He and I now serve and sit next to each other at the MMSD meetings and we're on the same page about serving the community.
And you're right, there are people in both parties.
But I would say DMO finds itself with a very large audience because I think you just see a lot more of that service component from people who were about building community and not
necessarily about pushing through some sort of an agenda.
We were talking to Glenda Mayor Brian Kennedy, talking about Democratic municipal officials, the group, their website is nationaldmo.org.
And in looking at the website, Brian, I mean, there's no shortage of
trainings out there and seminars and other things for people thinking about going into, you know, politics or public service in some way shape or form.
And yet you guys, you're basically, you're giving it away.
You're, you're put right there on the website.
It says, um, you know, here is a campaign starter kit and you click on it and it comes a five page Google doc of things to keep in mind.
So I mean, I
can't imagine a better place.
I'm not saying it's one stop shopping, but this year looks like it should be the first stop for somebody interested in running for office.
Certainly.
And you said it's funny.
Wisconsin, Wisconsin Democratic Party has probably the best outreach for local folks that want to run for office.
You can get so much help and assistance from our state party that most state parties in the country do not have.
And that's where National DMO comes in.
And what we offer is essentially for those people in all those states where their state party just isn't really equipped to offer them the resources to build a local campaign, we offer free resources.
goal here we recognize if you're running for school board you're probably running on a budget of $500 to run a campaign that's some yard.
signs and some door hangers, right?
And then you and your friends are going to go out and knock doors together.
So we've tried to help at DMO to how do we put together the right kind of trainings and the right kind of resources that we can offer to Democrats who want to run for local office.
And that's even if you're running for a nonpartisan office like we do here in Wisconsin, you know, I'm still a member of the Democratic Party.
And so anybody who is a Democrat who wants to run for local office has access to this training, the training materials that we have.
When I was
say this summer we did something we've never done before, we offered an all-day candidate camp.
collaborated with the DNC training department.
And on a Saturday in July, we had a seven hour training where we essentially walk through all the different aspects of how do you put together your messaging?
How do you build a database of supporters?
How do you fundraise?
How do you talk to people at the doors?
What should your website look like?
What kind of things did you focus on?
And we went through a whole day of training.
We had 545 people from across the country registered.
We'd never seen anything like that before.
And even some of the reddest places, like Kentucky and Tennessee, 545 people, 15% of the people who registered were from two of the reddest states in the country.
So we're making significant outreach to teach people how to run for local office and to recognize that it's not that hard.
It just seems daunting if you've never been a part of the political space before.
And so we've tried to create these very user-friendly, easy materials, trainings that have been recorded.
You can watch and a whole bunch of other resources.
including even access to vendors that will charge a congressional or a gubernatorial campaign a whole lot of money, offering free or almost free services if you're running for local office because they recognize we're building a bench here.
Yeah.
And on the website, you can find things like getting your campaign started, creating a logo and building your website and how to get started on fundraising and voter contact and mail and email programs and merchandise and even polling.
And again, connecting to other folks, like you said, maybe your state Democratic Party or others.
As you look back now, Brian, and I forget how long you've been involved in public service here, but if you could go back and talk to yourself as a
very first time candidate.
Is there one thing that you would tell yourself that you to do differently or to focus on more or to sweat about less?
Yes.
Don't look to national messaging when you're running for local office.
talk to your neighbors, talk to the parents of your kid's friends, talk to people at the grocery store, knock some doors, find out what people actually think.
One of the things I think we have seen far too often is we have this national messaging machine that tries to tell Democrats what they need to say.
And the real answers here, honestly, are found at the local level.
Because if I talk to my neighbors in Glendale, it's going to be different than if you're talking to your neighbors in Chippewa Falls.
we have different local concerns.
And so I would say, listen to those people and craft a message for your specific campaign that is very local.
And I did want to add one other thing about DMO.
DMO isn't just about getting elected.
We have two sides to this organization.
Once you are a municipal official, we actually have a policy arm that combines with National League of Cities, with National School Board Association, where we hold events and we hold trainings, where we share best practices
across the country.
So policy language that might be implemented in a suburb of New York City, I might find in one of these trainings and say, hey, that would be really great for Glendale.
And then somebody who is on a city council in suburban Kansas City might say, hey, I want to take that same language.
So we do share best practices across the board.
DMO wants to help you get elected.
And then once you're elected, wants to help you be effective when you're in office.
But the thing is, while we look at those national ideas, you still have to tailor them to your own specific municipality and the messaging that works in your community.
Yeah, you're not running to be, you know, Donald Trump light or Barack Obama light or anything like that.
This is as hometown service as it gets.
And that's why there are all these resources that are put forth by Democratic municipal officials at national dmo.org again national dmo.org
and Brian Kennedy, the mayor of Glendale down there in the Milwaukee area, is the national president of the group and was kind enough to join us today to talk about getting your thoughts together about maybe running for office.
Brian, thank you.
It's always great to connect with you.
Thanks for sharing all these resources.
Hope you have a great day.
Thanks, Pat.
Appreciate you having me on your show.
You bet.
Anytime.
And again, national dmo.org is the website address coming up in our eight o'clock hour.
We'll talk to Sean Malley about your money in the markets.
Joseph Pecky about some of the big headlines of the day.
Chad Holmes will tell us what he's following from our Civic Media Station in the Wausau area.
That's all coming up after the eight o'clock news.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Hey, we're playing football tonight.
And by we, I mean, all of us, because we're all Green Bay Packers.
You know, the Parker's got his packer shirt on.
I'm wearing green.
Todd lives in Wisconsin.
So, I mean, we're all all together on this.
I've been wearing my
green so often, I haven't washed it, I guess.
That's the problem.
with the pack.
Well, on these short weeks like this, I mean, I'm sure some people tonight will be like, Oh, wait, I haven't done the laundry since Sunday.
Well, put on that smelly jersey tonight and join Civic Media on several stations pregame at five o'clock for the Packers versus the Washington Commanders.
Although I still like the Washington football team better myself.
But anyway,
Todd, I
did I wouldn't mind getting back into that like like soccer, you know, soccer has a lot of like, isn't it
Is it like Madison FC or FC Madison?
Yeah, Ford, Madison FC.
Yeah, there's a charm to
Yeah, I don't mind that so much.
Anyway, Todd Albus here.
You can hear him weekday afternoons from two to four across the Civic Media Radio Network.
And yesterday, last last evening, we were chatting back and forth during IdeaFest as I was anchoring some of the coverage.
Last night, you're going to anchor some of the coverage tomorrow night.
Did you hear our discussion an hour ago about needing the dump button for Governor Tony Evers?
I did not.
I was in the shower yet at that time, but, uh, I heard, I heard the first couple of minutes of, um, in the first five or eight minutes of, of Evers last night.
And so I get where you're
going.
He's, he's all folksy and everything, but it just makes it that much more effective when he uses a word that maybe isn't radio friendly, but he, he, uh, he was described by, by others as being very carefree.
Uh, again, that, that.
feeling of liberation that comes when you're going out on your own terms.
And I think that that worked out very well for him last night.
And again, Civic Media will have more IDFS coverage on Friday.
I've never been to one of these events.
They get all these great national guests to come in as well.
I don't know if you've ever been to one of those sessions, but I just I love the idea of an idea fest and just bringing these speakers in.
Well, number one, I want to thank Governor Tony Evers publicly on air because it's taken a lot of heat off of me for me and my guests who may slip once in a while.
All I got to do is say, hey, the governor
does
it.
So I appreciate the governor setting the bar here on civic media for words we can and can't use.
But yes, I actually went to, and here's me guys.
I think you'll appreciate this.
I could have gone, and Luke Mathers, a great operations director, said, hey, we got tickets if you want to go.
I could have gone and seen Stacey Abrams.
I could have, oh, I guess I would have been helping the anchor on Friday for Tim Walls.
I could have gone and seen Pritzker.
But no, here's the one I went to last night, or Wednesday.
part of me Tuesday night was Tom Oates, the great sports reporter and writer for a longtime Wisconsin State Journal, and Mike Lucas, longtime announcer for the Wisconsin Badger basketball and football team.
Now is back at the Capitol Times.
They did an idea fest and recorded one of their podcast episodes along with the former Wisconsin men's hockey coach, Tony Granato.
And it was really cool.
It was really cool.
It was down at the old Italian workman's club down in the Green Bush neighborhood here in Madison.
And number one, the pizza was fantastic.
But number two, just listening to Tony Cronato, and I think it's a great example of.
People like us get so wrapped up in politics and government, and it's kind of partly what we're paid to do.
But it was a great reminder, and you guys have your packer stuff on today.
There's lots of life lessons to be learned from sports, from how you get along with teammates, how you go through adversity, how you...
understand and get along with people that you don't necessarily agree with or not from your same background.
And Tony Grinnell also spoke openly about his battle with cancer and going through that as Mike Lucas has had.
So it was just a good reminder that it doesn't always have to be from a Republican or Democratic platform to learn political lessons.
Sometimes it can be found in sports.
Yes.
Yesterday, you and I both had on Milwaukee County Executive David Crawley, newly announced Democratic candidate for governor.
Because of the limited window that I had with him, I wanted to get in one question about affordable housing because he'd been up in the Chippewa Valley talking about the issue.
And of course, it's an issue in the Milwaukee area as well.
So because of our limited time, were there other topics that you got into that you took away from your interview with David Crawley?
I thought it was really prepared.
I thought that I went there, I guess you'd say, and said, look, you happen to be a person that's black.
I happen to be a person that's gay.
We have people running that might happen to be women.
And my former party, the Republican Party, which I don't know too well, is really good at honing in on the things that divide us and using that politically to win the latest former governor, Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes in his campaign for U.S.
Senate.
They darkened the pigment of his skin.
They exaggerated things.
I said, are you prepared with
an inoculation plan politically.
And, you know, understandably, he wasn't going to give all of his cards on our little show, but it seemed like he did.
And he said, look, we're going to go after these attacks right away.
We're not going to let them sit there.
And I think that's the right way to do it.
You know, I think if I had a criticism or critique of Mandela Barnes' gubernatorial or US Senate race, is they waited too long.
They didn't address these things head on.
And if you look at Tammy Baldwin, they've done to her in the past.
whether it's her sexuality or whether it's these false things revolving around transgender issues in the last campaign, she went right after him.
So that's not who I am.
Wisconsinites know that.
Quit lying about my record.
And I think Wisconsinites respect that when you look at them and tell them the truth.
Yeah, I mean, basically, Mandela Barnes, you know, whether it's a fair criticism or not as for other people to say, but he did essentially get swift boated, which is that you you get attacked, and then it takes just a little too long to come back.
Although I would argue he was just overwhelmed by all the money that literal billionaires were putting in to reinforce their message over and over again.
That's an indictment of the system.
But the larger point is that
David Crawley has probably learned these lessons, as will anybody else who gets in the race, is that you can't wait to turn the other cheek.
By the way, rhetorically, I might hasten to add.
Yes.
I didn't bring this up in the interviews.
It wasn't appropriate for the day, number one.
But so far, I haven't been able to find a website yet.
I just think if you're going to run for governor, you should have a website that says David Cross.
So you could, like people like us could say, Hey, where can you get more information?
I had a hard time finding the two minute video.
So maybe his communication team should beef up a
little bit.
It's a good video.
I'm sure you can find it all over YouTube and social media, but okay.
Point taken, Crowley campaign.
Listen in.
Todd Alba, listen to him this afternoon, two to four.
Thank you, my friend.
Thank you.
Have a great
day.
All right, you as well.
And again, we will talk to Chad Holmes and Joseph Heckey and Sean O'Malley all in the eight o'clock hour.
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio
Network.
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