4.05.2006

Polls in Packerland

I'm always entertained by the politics throughout the state of Wisconsin, seeing as Milwaukee and Madison are mostly left-leaning, the entire Fox River Valley is very right-leaning, and many other rural areas are fiercely independent.

But when I checked in on the Green Bay area election results, I found several news items to be quite entertaining.

First, an incumbent on the Brown County Board lost his seat. By a landslide (1187 to 176). To a college student.

The biggest winner was Adam Warpinski, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, who blew away embattled County Supervisor Earl Van Den Heuvel with 86.5 percent of the vote on Green Bay's east side.

"I think the voters in the district wanted change, and they supported my effort to bring change to the board," Warpinski said.

The board had censured Van Den Heuvel for making racist comments under an assumed name on a local radio station. He was arrested for drunken driving just last week. [ed: emphasis added]

In better news, Green Bay just elected its first ever black alderman. While that is a somewhat of a sad statistic (even worse is hearing that she was the first black woman to ever even run for a seat), it is fantastic to see some diversity in the city's representation. Additionally, she will be the only woman on the board. Congrats!

And finally, often right-leaning Appleton voted to uphold the state's strongest smoking ban. Very, very interesting. I believe that area consists of a strange mix of the religious right, the educated left, and the libertarian-leaning independent. To see Appleton vote to uphold the ban (by a very slim margin) was a bit surprising. I thought the civil-libertarians and pro-business feeling up there would side in favor of bar owners.

posted by brian at 11:17 PM | Permalink

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