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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Good morning.
It is 8.06.
It is nice to have you back here up north on this Tuesday morning, September 23rd, 2025.
We have our political Tuesday tag team coming up.
Cam Stevenson from the nation's capital and courier newsroom and the below the Beltway newsletter talking about what's happening with the potential for a government shutdown and much more.
So, Cam Stevenson on the way, followed by Dan Schaefer at 835.
Civic Media's political editor, founder of the Recombobulation Area, talking all about Wisconsin political news.
But before we get to all of that, we welcome back meteorologist, Brittany Merleau, along with Parker Olson, who's producing things down in Madison Studio A2.
From Rob and Tigerton, it's sunny and 53 in Tig, it's sunny in Tigerton.
It's sunny in Wausau.
I don't see a cloud, not any fog.
I don't
know if it's sunny
here.
Locked in with... You don't have a window, Parker.
You can't tell.
It could be raining frogs
right now.
I can see windows, but I can't really see
much.
Rob says he'll be back mowing grass after being off for three days because of the rain.
Yeah, that's that sounds about right.
Let's see.
Well, so you have to say, oh, you want to wish a happy birthday to his brother-in-law, Dave's birthday was yesterday.
He watched the Lions defeat the Ravens last night.
Let's see that.
I'm not going to put that kind of I'll invest in Packer games, but I'm not going to be doing Monday Night Football with the Lions.
Seriously?
Yes.
They're good
now.
They are good now that I'm not going to
not like watching the Browns play against the Packers.
Well,
yeah, please.
Alicia says it's cloudy in Green Bay.
So now that we've given you just the most higgledy-piggledy sky condition forecast possible, Brittany, where does it all go from here?
Well, it's all going to lift and clear and we are going to see, unfortunately, more clouds south.
So Madison, Milwaukee area and down that way, you're going to stick with more clouds because that front is parked right over Racine, dipping down into northern Illinois.
But the good thing is that it dips.
So that means all of the rain is going to be staying south of the state.
So we're only looking at chances of maybe a spotty sprinkler to midday.
And it looks like that stays up north mostly.
Then tomorrow, those spotty sprinkles wrap over Lake Michigan and stay southeast by Milwaukee Green Bay and into the Fox Valley.
And then the whole system clears on out of here and a high pressure moves in, giving us nothing but abundant sunshine for the rest of the week into the weekend.
And even into early next week, it is going to be gorgeous.
So we've just got to be patient with this fog in the mornings.
This is going to happen again tonight and maybe tomorrow night in places.
After that, the winds start to pick up and the fog should not be a problem, but we are looking at high temperatures today in the mid sixties north to mid seventies south.
It will be mixed skies, more sunshine north, more cloud south, and then tomorrow a little bit cooler sixties statewide.
All right.
Well, I heard on local Eau Claire media.
this morning.
They were almost apologetic like it's the first day of fall.
And like, well, but it's not going to be fall like it's going to be really warm today.
I'm like, why are you apologizing for warm weather?
Oh, I'm sorry, it's not snowing yet.
I mean, they may as well have said like, no, it can be the first day of fall.
It does not we don't need highs in the 40s yet.
Okay, yet.
No.
We just want the fall colors and some sunshine.
That's what we want for fall, right?
And that's the
thing.
We, you know, we mentioned that yesterday.
It's, it's kind of a nerve wracking time that you, you don't want anything to happen storm wise that, you know, blows the leaves off before we get all the nice change of colors.
It's so true.
So I'm glad we have this dry stretch ahead, but those colors pop and big systems stay away.
Pop colors, get the crops off the field.
Exactly, Brittany.
Thank you very much.
Have a great day.
Hey, let's talk newsletters for a sec here because they're, I mean, it
It's the thing right now is you get to your email box and you subscribe to the ones that you like.
It's like a morning paper or an evening newspaper.
But you get the sections that you want to read and you don't have to get ink on your hands and, and throw the rest away.
So that's why we talk about our daily newsletter and our weekly newsletter on Sunday mornings.
You head over to up north news wi.com, you click subscribe in the banner on top of the homepage and sign up for for one or both of those.
Civic media has a new daily newsletter filled with links to show highlights and more.
Go check that out.
Civic media today.
dot substack.com.
Yes, I'll say it again.
Civic media today.
.substack.com is out there.
And of course, Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom, lots of state outlets, podcasts, newsletters.
And if you want dispatches from Washington DC, well, Cam Stevenson puts one together from Capitol Hill.
It's called Below the Beltway.
And you can get details at beltway.news or couriernewsroom.com or just listen for the next eight minutes or so as we talk to Cam Stevenson from the nation's capital, Cam.
morning.
How are you?
Hey, morning, Pat.
I'm
doing all right.
How are you?
Good.
Good.
I mean, I always feel like we have to start with, you know, you taking your family and uprooting them, moving them from Arizona to the nation's capital.
I feel like we get this almost like this reality series of, you know, cam moves the cam cam to the capital.
The
family
is there.
How goes the adjustment?
I know you were you were like in temporary quarters for a while.
Are you in your your new digs?
Not yet.
Not yet.
It's a slow
process in the housing market right now.
So between finding, well, long story short, finding someone to buy our place in Phoenix so we can find a place out here.
It's
a process, but
gives us a chance to explore, figure out the neighborhoods and see what part of the city we like.
There you go.
And we can play a role in that.
If anybody is interested in buying Cam's house in Phoenix, just reach out to us through the radio station and we'll get you connected.
We don't just do politics.
We can do a little HGTV stuff here while we're at it.
Okay.
But you do have your day job, working as national correspondent for Courier Newsroom and looking at the recent addition of Below the Beltway.
A few different topics.
topics in there.
We've talked about the potential of the government shutdown at length already today.
So let me set that one aside for a moment.
In the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing, there has been what I'm calling a backlash to the backlash, where people said, look, we get that you're you're angry and upset that not everybody's a Charlie Kirk fan.
And that some people are actually speaking out about what Charlie cook, you know, Charlie Kirk stood for and said, but
the backlash to that is coming awfully close to infringing or trampling upon people's First Amendment rights to freedom of expression.
And you point on it below the beltway that, you know, attempts to limit free speech didn't just happen recently.
And don't just happen to late night TV hosts, they happen in places like our classrooms.
Yeah.
And actually, you know, your our conversation last week is kind of what inspired me to look into this.
is when we were talking about Representative Van Orden and his just aggressive, blatant use of his platform as an electric representative to call for people to be fired, for called people to be silenced, because they use their free speech.
I wanted to look into, one, the legality of that, which is dubious, depending on which court you take it to, I guess, but really how we got to the point where that was socially acceptable.
And what I found is a lot of these attacks on free speech and attacks on honest intellectual conversation started in the classroom with attacks on public schools.
Now, in Wisconsin, are there...
What's the public private school situation there?
Are there vouchers?
Yes, we have a voucher program that is undergoing explosive growth right now.
And I know we've talked to you about the Arizona aspect of that.
It's just gobbling up such a growing part of the state budget and yet without the kind of oversight and transparency that the public schools get.
Yes, yeah.
I mean, really, it's a way
It's a way to funnel taxpayers to corporate school companies, essentially.
And the way that they do that is one, by convincing state legislatures to let people use public tax dollars to subsidize private school, which sounds like you're all very familiar with.
But what we don't look into too much is how it got to the point where there are enough legislators and enough people on board for that to even become part of the system.
And it really started
a couple decades ago with just sowing distrust in public education, sowing distrust in teachers, calling into question their ability to teach, while simultaneously taking away their ability to offer a strict classroom, where parents were simultaneously being hands off while expecting their teachers to do everything.
This was
This is actually a very well coordinated plot by members of the far right to erode public education.
And this serves two purposes.
One, like I mentioned, it allows these private for-profit corporations to set up schools, take public tax dollars, and then either shut down or close out, you know.
certain populations that they don't want in their schools, usually divided by race and economics.
And two, it allows them to essentially filter whatever they want their kids to learn.
They teach false history, they teach incorrect civics, they give poor examples of what leadership looks like.
And so by the time these kids go through high school, we have
Honestly, the free speech problems that we have now where people don't want to hear what they've been told is bad.
People resort to violence, like what we saw with Kirk, and we see that public schools in Arizona anyway, and unfortunately, I imagine this will happen soon in Wisconsin, is that public schools are going to start to close because they won't have enough money and they won't have enough students.
Yeah, we're talking to Cam Stevens, national correspondent for Courier Newsroom about, you know, that topic and more.
And I also wanted to take note of something you wrote in Below the Belt way about.
President Trump again sending American troops into now a third American city without real justification that of course would be, you know, Memphis coming after Washington DC and Los Angeles.
He continues to, you know, threaten to do the same with Chicago.
And so tell the folks a bit about what you wrote about the decision to send troops into Memphis.
Yeah, so I've been
interested in this topic for a lot of reasons.
One, I live in a city that's been occupied.
And two, it's something that Trump has wanted to do since his first term and is now finally actualizing that dream.
But what we're seeing is that once the National Guard gets to these cities, they aren't doing anything.
Honestly, they're ridiculed online for that because they sit around or they're
you know, picking up litter or what have you.
But what I was wondering is why they keep sending troops if they can't do anything.
And according to law, they're actually not allowed to do anything because military is forbidden from from exercising domestic law enforcement.
It's it's not their role.
It's not what they're allowed to do.
And it's not what they're doing.
Despite what the Trump administration is saying, they, you know, they can't help with
addressing crime, even if that was the goal.
And so what I wanted to look into is, since they can't do that, why this expansion of troops?
So I spoke with elected leaders in Memphis, in DC, and in California.
And what it seems to be is that they are essentially stationing troops similar to how military
strategically stationed troops prior to combat where they see places where they're expecting there to be conflict and so they're preparing their troops and preparing their forces preemptively so that when there is a conflict they don't have to deploy and get them there that they're already on site.
Conflict or...
midterm elections as the case may be.
And I'm sure we'll be talking more about that later as well.
Cam Stephens' newsletter below the Beltway.
You can get it at beltway.news or couriernewsroom.com for all of Cam's dispatches from Capitol Hill.
We still have in our next half hour Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area talking to us about Wisconsin politics before we wrap things up on a Tuesday morning.
I'm Pat Breitlo.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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.
At Brewer's baseball again tonight on the West Coast 805 pregame begins from San Diego on Civic Media stations in Richland Center Oshkosh Racine Kenosha Park Falls and of course WBZH up north here in Hayward.
Rolling on with Cam Stevenson National Correspondent for Courier Newsroom again you can get below the Beltway at Beltway.News or through CourierNewsroom.com so let's get into again Congress being off this week so
the possibility of a government shutdown in the middle of next week is a little higher than it has been recently.
Again, it's not a certainty, but certainly what I'm reading way out here in the heartland is that Republicans are still not willing to negotiate with Democrats about restoring some of the healthcare cuts.
And Republicans still don't sound like they can agree amongst themselves to pass a budget.
Is that kind of the situation right now?
Or do you sense that there may be movement in one direction or the other based on what the few people in DC this week are talking about?
You know, I'm not sensing any movement, to be perfectly honest.
The house, they did pass something last week that failed in the Senate.
The house is where I would expect to see some sort of...
not bipartisan, but some sort of compromise where they could get a few Democrats on board.
The Senate is a lot trickier and without Senator Thune, the majority leader, having any interest in compromising or working with Democrats, I don't see this going anywhere except a shutdown unless Democrats cave in and give in without any compromise, which is what they did last time.
Well, and that's that's part of the
The uncertainty here is, you know, who backs down?
We've got the, you know, the taco acronym for Trump always chickens out.
And the fact of the matter is he lost every shutdown showdown in his first term.
Even when there was a shutdown, he would eventually cave on those things in this current Republican majority in the house.
You've had these hardliners who have caved in after all.
I mean the freedom caucus always talking about the the debt and deficits and yet
After all the protests, they went along and voted for this budget that puts another $4 trillion onto the national debt.
So I mean, all of their supposed opposition turned out to be completely toothless.
So even though there's supposedly going to be all this pressure on Democrats to cave to avoid the pain of a shutdown, the fact of the matter is Trump and congressional Republicans both already have a track record themselves of
talking big at the bar, but when push comes to shove, I mean, there's no confidence here that anybody is digging in their heels and they're never gonna move.
We really could see anybody collapse on this current situation I would gather.
Yeah, I think that's the most frustrating thing for me personally and I imagine for millions of people who will be affected negatively impacted by a potential shutdown or
by the Republican budget that they proposed is that the people who are making these decisions seem so focused on the us versus them aspect of it, the idea that we need to dig in our heels because we can't compromise, we can't give in and let Democrats have a single win in this budget.
If Republicans allowed the smallest concessions,
They could keep the government open.
People could get paid for their jobs.
People could get health care.
And they could still get so many of the things that they want.
But because they see if this is a zero-sum game, they won't allow those compromises to even be entertained.
And I think that's really what makes people hate this process so much, is that it becomes this very
unenjoyable football game where you're just watching people
just it literally has gotten to the point where unlike you know you're not too old to remember this compromise is impossible compromise is now a dirty word compromise is a sign of weakness when we we've all grown up knowing
compromise and negotiation are signs of strength.
They are signs of maturity.
They are signs of being able to differentiate various shades of gray.
And when it's all black and white, if it's either or if it's win or lose, rather than win half a loaf or win the full loaf or nothing at all, we are not well served by this.
And it's not like the public is demanding
a shutdown that the public is not demanding.
Yep, you guys shut down the government and you just stick stick to your guns.
I'm sure you've seen this in Arizona polls.
We've certainly seen it in Wisconsin polls that we often compromise in our in our day to day lives.
And these folks in Congress kind of know that people expect them to do the same.
Yeah, well, it's I really like I'm really glad that you pointed that out because there's a third of people who maybe want the Republicans plan.
There's a third of people who want
Democrats plan there's you know third people who are paying attention or whatever it but instead of picking either of those plans they pick the third plan that nobody wants which is a shutdown which just hurts people and so I think I Hope that's not what they do, but I don't see any Motivation from people that I've spoken with to reach a compromise because like you said it's a dirty word now.
It's something that appears weak
and it makes them feel like they're not part of the team as much as they should
be.
Well because again you could be primaried and that's been the thing especially on the republican side but to the democrats as well they're not immune to this to being challenged in a primary for
for the sin of compromise.
And it's what's really complicated things here.
And it's why we're going to continue to follow this with Cam Stevenson and his both Beltway newsletter, go over to beltway.news or couriernewsroom.com to learn more.
Cam, we'll talk to you next week.
Thank you very much.
Yeah,
thank you, Pat.
Looking forward to
it.
All right.
Have a great day.
And when we come back, we'll turn to the Madison side of things here and talk to Dan Schaefer from the recombobulation area and things that the Wisconsin legislature is talking about that could affect things like, for example, Election Day in Wisconsin.
That's important stuff.
Dan Schaefer tells us all about it next.
I'm Pat Krightloth.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Tomorrow on the program, we will be talking to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jill Underly.
She gave the State of Education address at the State Capitol late last week, and so we will be talking to her about some of what she had to say about the State of Education, and maybe if there was anything that didn't make the final cut, other things that she wanted to say in her remarks under the Capitol Dome.
So we'll have her on.
We will also have a guest who's an expert in
public health policy.
Kathy Hempstead is her name.
She's a national health policy expert with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation talking about health care tax credits and what they mean for individuals across America, especially now that they're in danger of being slashed by that, you know, big bloated boondoggle that Donald Trump passed.
Or maybe they'll get restored because that's what Democrats want to avoid a government shutdown.
Regardless, Kathy Hempstead will talk about that.
She and Dr. Jill Underly state superintendent tomorrow here on the program.
But this morning on the program, we have Dan Schaefer.
He's the political editor for Civic Media.
He's the founder of the Reconbobulation Area, the Reconbobulation Area.News.
Mr. Schaefer, good morning.
How are you?
Mr. Kratlow, good morning to you as well.
Always wonderful to join you here on Mornings with Pat Kratlow.
Where do we want to start here?
Where do you want to start today, Pat?
I want to start with a new package of bills, or maybe it's a single bill by Republicans about elections that essentially wants to swat a fly with a howitzer.
The swatting the fly, the very easy thing to do.
would be to allow for monday processing of absentee ballot envelopes not the ballots themselves but verifying the names the addresses the witnesses all all that kind of stuff so that then you can open them or on them on tuesday on election day that should be just a clean bill should have been done years ago to get rid of that tired talking point about you know late night
ballot counting in Milwaukee and other big cities.
It got close last time, too, as a standalone bill.
It passed the assembly and hit roadblocks in the Senate.
So it did have some inertia to get that done, unfortunately, didn't get across the finish line.
It did not.
And so now, to hear Assembly Minority Leader Scott Krug tell it, they've got a bill that'll do this.
Oh, but by the way, there are some strings attached.
Here come the Howitzers.
Dan, why did they make the so complicated app add web cams on municipal websites pointed at drop boxes and law enforcement accompanying any visits to ballot boxes to move ballots?
It's almost like they're not serious about wanting to do the easy thing that they have to throw all these hard things on there, too.
Well, they haven't been able to do the easy thing.
That's part of the problem here.
And I guess if nothing else, I have to give them credit for...
you know, if if something fails, try something different.
And so I they're trying something different.
I'm not sure I want to see some more of the details on what exactly they're proposing for drop boxes, what they're proposing for for law enforcement.
You know, I think there are so many of these election related issues on the right that just comes down to telling your voters the truth about these things and telling your voters there is no conspiracy about late night ballot dumps in Milwaukee.
There is no conspiracy about
about ballot drop boxes, there is no conspiracy about, you know, the chain of
I'm blanking on the word here, but there is no conspiracy and just like the possession of the ballots and all of that.
And so much of that since 2020 in particular has just come down to being honest with your voters about this, being honest with your supporters.
And, you know, so things don't spiral out of control.
And we end up with ridiculous Gableman investigations that spend millions of dollars and do nothing.
Just like part of it is just you just need to be more honest with your voters about the reality.
of these things.
But you know what, if that's not breaking through, I don't know if I'm going to end up agreeing with all of these measures that Krug and others are proposing here.
But I do appreciate they're trying.
They're trying to get this absentee ballot thing across the finish line.
The GOP has concerns.
Again, I don't think they're that legitimate about drop boxes.
Maybe there's a simple way to address this, to quell some of those concerns.
Maybe there's a simpler way than what is being proposed here to...
address some of those concerns, but I do appreciate that they're trying, you know, I appreciate that they're trying to get something done and I appreciate, I always appreciate lawmakers who are taking a more pragmatic approach than just trying to do and say things to get headlines.
Well, and that's where I appreciate having you on, that you're essentially giving the benefit of the doubt to the Republican authors saying, you know,
let's find a way to get the early processing done, that might also address some people's concerns.
And that that is definitely a glass half full way of looking.
And I, I completely admit that I'm taking the glass half empty view of it that says, we don't want that we want to continue the conspiracy.
So we're going to add on some stuff that also claims, you know, ties into conspiracies that drop boxes are not trustworthy and things like that.
So will something result from this that would
Pass and that would survive a veto by Governor Evers or is this all just for show I Guess that's that's why you play the game as the as the coaches like to say it's why you hold the fall session and you see what comes
out and
And I think too, you know, I'm waiting to see the full rollout of this.
You know, this has passed the assembly.
Representative Krug is in the assembly.
Are there going to be any Republican state senators who are going to be getting on board with this too?
Because that's where things stalled last time.
If we're looking at the practicality of the path forward for some of these bills, like the early count bill passed in the assembly.
It didn't in the Senate.
So are there going to be people in the Senate joining for the rollout of this bill?
I think that is an important important factor to consider as well
It really is because it's something that you know, those of us who watch or have been in the legislature Know very well, but most others do not is that the the difference in caucuses the
the assembly republicans and the senate republicans are frequently not on the same page maybe not on positions but on strategy or on specifics and the same can be said of house republicans and senate republicans in the us capital and by the way same goes for democrats it's just that we're talking about republicans because they're in control right now and i don't know how to explain it any other way than to say turf
you know these are turf battles between two different caucuses of the same party and we see it a lot in the state capitol in this case especially with assembly republicans and senate republicans
yeah and and that's it's such a good point there is you know this level of disarray regardless of what are what which legislative body you're looking at um but i think one thing that in in among the republicans here you know the
Robin Voss has been the longest serving assembly speaker in state history, and he has been remarkably effective at getting his caucus to line up behind him on so many issues over the years, this being another one.
But in the Senate, I think we're seeing...
Man, it has really been much more all over the place, especially lately.
Like we had in the budget, you had the assembly minority leader and the Senate president, both Republicans voting on opposite sides of the budget bill.
And I think it was the first time in a really, really, really, really long time that that had been the case.
And I think that is indicative of some larger tension and disarray that might be the case in among Senate Republicans.
I think that is where.
you know, if you're if you're looking at the outlook here for the next, you know, year plus of governing in Wisconsin, you know, I think the assembly might be able to get some things done with the Republicans might be able to pass some things in the assembly.
But are they going to get anywhere in the Senate when they have the Republicans very much not on the same page?
The Democrats are waiting to flip the Senate and win the majority there in a year from now.
I think that, you know, they're
already announced a number of very strong candidates that would have the opportunity to do that.
You know, I wonder what kind of reaction we're going to see in the Senate.
And by the way, this next point is very inside baseball.
I'm going to admit that first and foremost.
But if you want to know if the two caucuses from the same party disagree on something at the moment, watch for the sign of one of them passing a bill.
and then adjourning, gavling out a session because that means.
the other house, the assembly of the Senate, can't amend it and send it back to them because they've already gone home.
It's like, nope, this is here to final offer, we're going home.
If you ever see that, instead of waiting for each other, working out their disagreements and all that, if you don't see that, there is there is dissension.
It's why you see those headlines, Democrats in disarray or Republicans in disarray.
And it's it's goofy.
And again, it's a theme we've hit several times here is we all have to compromise on our day to day lives and yet
our politicians have sometimes the toughest time doing it.
We're talking to Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation Area and Political Editor of Civic Media.
Since our last conversation, there's been another candidate coming in for Governor.
Francesca Hong announced last Wednesday, two days after Senator Kelder Roy's got in the race.
What's your assessment of the gubernatorial field and whether...
whether we're at a static state now or if we may be seeing more changes in the number of candidates in the near future.
Yeah, for one, I think we're going to continue to see more candidates.
I think this is going to be a pretty big field.
But just to, you know, we talked a little bit about Roy's announcement when I was on the show last week.
So let's talk a little bit about Representative Hong's announcement.
So I wrote this too early breakdown of the governor's race that you can read over at the recombobulation area.
And I kind of had a big four of top contenders, which included Sarah Rodriguez, David Crowley, Kelda Royes, and the one candidate who's one of the candidates.
rumored to be announcing but has not yet announced an attorney general Josh Call.
Not sure what's happening with his political future, but that's a conversation for another time.
But I had listed Francesca Hong's potential candidacy on that list, and I characterized her as the wild card, because I think that is the type of energy that she's going to bring into this campaign.
She actually, I think, has embraced that a little bit.
She talked about wanting to be the wild card in a few different interviews during the rollout last week.
You know, I one of the things about her and her candidacy that's that's already evident and is going to continue to be evident is that she's going to be just working really hard.
She's announced this statewide tour.
She's having events all over the place.
She's been super active online.
And I think that is just going to put pressure on the rest of the field to up their game a little bit because nobody's going to outwork her.
You know, nobody, you know, having restaurant jobs in my past as well.
Nobody's going to outwork somebody who's had a service industry jobs and working in.
restaurants.
So I think she's just going to make everyone else in the field work that much harder.
And I think that's ultimately a very good thing.
Yes.
And she is the one who, again, when we say wildcard, you say, well, what do you mean by that?
Well, at some point, these candidates are going to have forums, if not full on debates.
And Fran Hong is among those, especially those in the socialist caucus, who have come out and said, not just we want to hike in the minimum wage, we want it to be $20 an hour.
And now this is just an example, and I'm putting words in her mouth, but she's the kind of candidate who
at a forum would hear somebody give an answer, yes, we need a higher minimum wage.
And she would just write out, say to that fellow Democrat, say it, just say $20.
Why won't you say $20 an hour?
And you know why they won't, because they don't want to be pegged down to a specific number.
But Fran is the kind of person who'd be like, say it $20, because otherwise maybe it's just $8 an hour.
That's not going to work.
And she's the kind of candidate who's going to hold fellow Democrats to the fire.
Yeah, and I also just think it's just almost the blocking and tackling of a campaign.
And she's just going to be out there talking to people and meeting with people and going all over the state.
And I think that is going to make everybody else just kind of up their game in these things.
And I think that competition's a good thing.
Competition brings the best out of us.
And I think that is part of why we want to have a primary like this.
Yeah, and that's where I think, again, even though more candidates may be coming, I think even with the ones that are in already, it may not be much longer before we start to see these kinds of forums where they can, again, what it was that you like to say, iron sharpens iron.
That's
right.
You get that through just these kinds of things.
We're talking to Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation area, and we will have some final news and notes with Dan and more from Lake Wissoda.
Coming up next, I'm Pat Rightlow.
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.
Tomorrow on the program we will have State Superintendent Jill Underly also Kathy Hempstead from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on health care tax credits that Republicans and Congress and Donald Trump want to cut.
They are at the center of the debate over a potential federal government shutdown.
So all that and more tomorrow, but we're continuing things today here with Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area, Civic Media Political Editor, and also a guy who's doing a lot of stuff with a newsletter.
And that would include Civic Media's new daily newsletter, Civic Media Today on the oneandonlysubstack.com.
This is a project that's kept you busy, young man.
Sure has.
Sure has.
We've kept a lot of us busy.
We've been putting a lot into this brand new newsletter.
It's Civic Media today.
We're really excited about it.
And it is just going to be a really terrific way for people to connect with all things across the Civic Media extended universe.
There is links to live streams.
Spotify, podcasts, links to all of the news that we have from all over the state led by our news director, Shaly Pittman.
And I think this is, you know, for, for those of you who may only listen to, you know, mornings with pack right low or may only know one other show on the network or something like that, this is a great way to engage with the huge amount of content that we produce every day across the civic media network.
And it's, I think it's going to be a really, and we have a little bit of
fresh news to start things off each day with this newsletter.
And I think it's just going to be a great one-stop-shop to connect with everything, all things civic media.
And I say this as somebody who, you know, we've got an up north news daily newsletter, we got a weekly newsletter, I've got so many other newsletters that I like to look at.
But I mean this very sincerely.
This is one of the best designed best put together newsletters of all the ones that I get in terms of links to the shows, links to stories that you're working on.
Obviously, we'd love if people subscribed all these shows as podcasts as well.
But if you're not,
and you still want to see what seem to be some pretty important clips, you got to go see this.
It's civicmediatoday.substack.com.
Again, civicmediatoday.substack.com.
being put together by Dan Schaefer and a cast of thousands all across civic media land.
There among the stories you'd see there and others places would be more campaign announcements, not just for governor, but also for seats in the state assembly and the state Senate.
It was a busy one last week.
You know, Kareen Hendrickson announcing on our show here that she was running in the 17th Senate district, making her the third Democrat seeking to unseat Howard Markline, the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.
But we are definitely in campaign announcement season this time of year, aren't we Dan?
We sure are, and those have really been ramping up in recent weeks, and a couple big ones in here in the southeastern Wisconsin area over the past few days.
So last week, Democrat Trevor Young announced that he would be running for state Senate in District 21.
Young is currently, works for the city of Racine, and he previously served as an alderman in there in his hometown as well.
Trevor is a young guy, so this would be a big shift in that representation in that district.
The guy who is currently the incumbent there, State Senator Van Wangard, who has been there in quite a long time.
And this is as close to a 50-50 district as there is going to be in the State Senate map next year.
Last year in the election, Kamala Harris won this by one point, Tammy Baldwin by two points, currently represented by a Republican incumbent.
fan Wangard who is also
about the same age as Tony Evers.
So we don't know if he's going to be running for another four year term there as well.
So certainly, you know, and this is one of the top pickup opportunities, potential pickup opportunities for Democrats on the state Senate map next year.
There are three districts, one by Kamala Harris last fall that are currently represented by Republicans that have not seen elections under new maps.
So this is one of those three.
And I think this is really going to be one to watch.
I'm really interested.
see if Wangard will run again.
And I would be the first to note that his predecessor, Democrat John Layman, I served with him in the state Senate in that area, obviously not the exact same district with the new maps, but it would not be unprecedented to have a Democrat serving in that Senate district again for the first time in several years now.
From a state Democratic Party standpoint, there's a new
What do we want to call this?
Well, they call it the governor's readiness project.
What is it that they're doing to help prepare the candidate field for 2026?
Yeah.
So the Democratic Party of Wisconsin made this announcement yesterday that seems pretty interesting.
It's called the Governor Readiness Project.
And I think this is basically recognizing that there is going to be a big field in the campaign for governor and that without wanting to put their thumb on the scale for any particular
candidate throughout the primary this is mainly the main focus here is to get the whoever the democratic nominee is ready for the general election in November 2026 and I think part of this is because Wisconsin's partisan primary is in August so it doesn't give people that much time to run in the general election you know I do think a long-term thing we should think about is moving that partisan primary to the April spring election to just to give candidates a little bit more time to run in the general but
Perhaps that's a conversation for another time, but it's interesting to see the Democratic Party of Wisconsin be especially proactive about this.
And Tony Evers is getting involved, a number of kind of top officials from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, including Chair Devin Remaker, are getting involved.
And I'm gonna be interested to see how this plays out in practice, but I think being this proactive about it is just really smart planning.
it is because there's going to be a wealth of primaries in all of these legislative districts in some congressional districts.
And the worst thing that the Democratic Party and I'm sure Republicans as well have done at the state and county level is just sit on their hands and wait until there's a nominee and do virtually no preparation, no messaging or anything.
So like, for example, the Eau Claire County Party could do a lot to help facilitate the three Democrats running in the third district and not just
sit there.
So if the state party is showing that level of interest, activity, messaging and preparation, that is a net positive for them.
Rean Boer from Dan Schaefer at the RecompopulationArea.News and certainly through Civic Media.
Dan, thank you.
It's always good to connect.
Have a great day.
Thanks, Pat.
Be well.
All right.
Thanks to all of you as well for being part of our Morning Powered by UpNorth News.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
See you back here bright and early 6 a.m.
tomorrow.
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