Kagen Campaign 8th CD breakaway

Not many people know that Dr. Steve Kagen is also an accomplished bike racer. Cycling is a tough, demanding sport that mixes equal doses of teamwork with a demand for solo performance. Watching the three Democratic candidates in Wisconsin's 8th CD contest, especially Wall and Kagen working together for the common good, has been encouraging to everyone who intends to see John Gard return home in November... err Peshtigo, Sun Prairie... where does Gard really live anyway?

When Gard failed to show up for a well planned 8th CD debate in Sturgeon Bay a few weeks ago everyone, including Terri McCormick his Republican opponent in the primary, spent the evening deconstructing a range of his issues from the current White House administration's lies and failure in Iraq to Gard's efforts to block stem cell research and ethical campaign reform in Wisconsin. Gard probably made a smart decision, choosing to record a no-show in Sturgeon Bay rather than race that day, only to get dropped by the pack.

In every bike race strong contenders are tempted to break away, sprinting off the front of the peloton, then going it alone to maintain and extend their distance from the pursuing melee of the pack. When that racer is an Anquetil, a Merckx or a LeMond they have an unusual combination of strength and endurance built upon years of training. Dr. Kagen is proving to be that kind of contender and he has just broken away from the pack...

The Washington, DC, newspaper Roll Call reports that Dr. Steve Kagen now holds, "a commanding lead over his two Democratic opponents." The article refers to a poll conducted by Fairbanks, Maslin, Maulin and Associates that shows Kagen leading his opponents with 46% support of the likely voting Democrats surveyed. Former Brown County Executive Nancy Nusbaum trails with only 20% support and business consultant Jamie Wall garners a scant 3%.

Perhaps the most telling figure in the poll, though, is Nusbaum's high negative rating, particularly in her base of Brown County. Nearly half of likely Democratic Primary voters in Brown County have an unfavorable opinion of Nusbaum. Brown County will account for 35 percent of the primary vote.

In contrast, Kagen has 59% support in his home county of Outagamie and his strongest supporters are women, particularly those over 50. The poll also shows that Kagen has potential for continued growth. His experience as a local doctor and his well formulated plans to reform health care are squarely in line with voters across the district.

What I like to hear are the voices of so many of my Door County Republican friends who are now telling me they are "Independents" - a sure sign that they are freeing themselves up, getting ready to vote "smart" instead of loyal, looking for progressive leadership regardless of party affiliation.

Top 10 stories...

Concerned that some issues continue not to receive sustained media attention or slip off the radar screen, the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) has unveiled a new list of "Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About."

In a similar vein I'd like to ask readers to post your own nominations for Wisconsin's most important but least covered news stories of the year so far.

Divine Strake?

...an odd name for the return of big bomb blasting at the Nevada Test Site. The planned event, now set for June 23, will set off a 700-ton ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb (like what was used to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Bldg.) that opponents claim will kick up radioactive fallout left in the soil from previous nuclear bomb testing conducted from 1951 to 1992. A fifty-mile shock wave followed by a 10,000-foot mushroom cloud may also revive other sleeping giants, launching a new wave of Godzilla sci-fi and hours of TV replay. Maybe it will rain...

OK, so what's a strake? "A device for controlling air flow over an aircraft. A strake is also a part of a boat or ship used for generally the same purpose in water rather than air. It is a strip of planking in a wooden vessel or of plating in a metal one, running longitudinally along the vessel's side, its bottom or between them on the turn of the bilge," explains GlobalSecurity.org (a site that tried to spawn 4 simultaneous pop-up windows so I won't link to it).

The real Divine...

And I thought it was a DIVINE typo but it's worse. It's part of a plan of DIVINE inspiration. The pop-up spawners above report, "DIVINE STRAKE is one of several 'DIVINE' efforts under the Hard and Deeply Buried Target Defeat (HDBTD) program. DIVINE WARHAWK consists of deep underground operational tunnel facility defeat demonstrations using advanced weapons at the White Sands Missile Range. DIVINE HELCAT was a 2004 reconstitution exercise to determine reconstitution time for the C3I tunnel facility at Nevada Test Site (NTS). Also in 2004 planning began for DIVINE HATES, which is a WMD production and storage tunnel complex functional defeat effort."

A Heritage Foundation for the left

Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer reports today...

"After national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley delivered a speech unveiling President Bush's new national security strategy, departing audience members were handed glossy, red-white-and-blue booklets titled "Integrated Power: A National Security Strategy for the 21st Century."

"The booklets, however, outlined not Bush's strategy but that of the Center for American Progress, a three-year-old left-of-center think tank and refuge for Clinton administration alumni. Rather than issue a paper and hope it would be noticed, the center dispatched aides to personally deliver its rebuttal."

Baker explains the Center devotes 40 percent of its budget to communications. "It has its own blog, television booker and a campus affiliate that sponsors publications, speeches and a national tour with the bands Foo Fighters and Weezer."

"This is a new kind of model," says Lee Edwards, a Heritage fellow. "This brings new meaning to the term 'advocacy think tank.' It's gone where no think tank has gone before."

Ed note: I have been getting their e-mail newsletters on a regular basis... full of gritty facts that turn around a specific theme that lends sharp focus to each release.

Funded by George Soros, and affiliated with the Open Society Institute.