On, Wisconsin. The Bernie Ball is in Our Court (Update)

It’s up to us to bring Bernie a win in Wisconsin on April 5. Not only that, but to continue down ballot to elect Democrats in our local elections and put Joanne Kloppenburg on the State Supreme Court to replace odious Scott Walker appointee Rebecca Bradley. Bradley, appointed by Walker to 3 continually higher judgeships in 3 years is desperately trying to present herself as a moderate while the usual dark money groups are attacking Kloppenburg unmercifully with lies and innuendos.

Every 4 years, local officials (city, town, village, and county) are elected during the Presidential Primary or mid term elections. When voters turn out heavily (as they do when we have an active Democratic Presidential Primary), Democrats win. In 2008, we cleaned house! In 2012 when there wasn’t a Democratic Primary, we got creamed.

From over 40 years of phone banking and canvassing, I can tell you that the excitement of an active Presidential Primary makes it easy to motivate people to come out to vote. It’s been pretty easy lately as people are excited for Bernie Sanders to win here. On the heels of this weekends electoral blowout for Bernie, The Bern has been put on steroids!

Bernie is coming to my town tomorrow (West Allis, a small suburb of Milwaukee) and I’ve already RSVP’d. I hope I feel well enough to attend (standing in long lines for hours and extensive walking are no longer options for me). He already held a rally in Madison last week attended by thousands and thousands of his supporters.

Wisconsin is an Open Primary state (welcome, independents!). However, we have voter suppression laws in effect now that require very specific photo IDs to be shown at the polls in addition to the time-wasting “sign the poll book" requirement. That said, we continue to have new voter registration at the poll site. Unregistered voters need to bring photo ID and 2 items to “prove” they live at that address (2 pieces of mail sent to the new voter at that address are sufficient).

OK, Sconnies, it’s up to us to keep the momentum moving forward. On, Wisconsin. Feel The Bern.

Addendum: By the way, somebody is polling big time. Last night I got a call (first time evah!) from the Marquette University polling group. They were looking at not only the Presidential Primary, but also match ups in November (Sanders vs. Cruz, Hillary vs. Cruz, etc). It was quite an extensive poll. I’ll be looking for the results.

UPDATE (blushing): H/T to Demeter Rising in the comments:

On, Wisconsin. The Bernie Ball is in Our Court...Let's get it done brother and sister Wisconsin people! https://t.co/CObZQYaIHo

 Mark Ruffalo apparently reads DK. Thanks for the tweet to spread the word! I want a Wisconsin rising April 5.