A world undone

By Bill Kraus

This title of a wonderful book on WWI has come home to roost.

I listened to a UW political scientist tell a Milwaukee audience in the early fall of 2010 that there would be a Republican tsunami in November of 2010 that would turn out even unbeatable Democrats in Washington and Wisconsin.

The reasons he gave were widespread fear, uneasiness, disappointment with the way the world was going, and an unusually strong urge for major changes, new ideas, straight talk.

After his predicted results came true and the radicalization that followed the tsunami was carried out by the winners, another UW political scientist told this same audience that the independents and uncommitted voters who gave the Republicans their stunning victories a few short months before were now appalled at what they had wrought. The next election, he predicted, would swing the pendulum fully back the other way.

TV or not TV

By Bill Kraus

As we lurch into another multiple election season--there will be at least 4, maybe 5 in Wisconsin this year--one thing is sure. We will be bombarded by TV commercials extolling the virtues and deploring the sins of the several candidates for the several offices in play.

There will be personal contacts, there will be radio commercials, there will be direct mail, there will be phone calls, some by live human beings, there will be billboards, there may even be a few newspaper ads, but TV will be the main medium of information and persuasion.

How did it come to this?

Gradually.

I have been a witness to, a victim of, even a perpetrator in the whole TV era and saga.

My first campaign experience was in 1952, the year that television became a presence everywhere in Wisconsin.

Post-regulation

By Bill Kraus

The first time I realized there were activities that were beyond regulation was when the songwriters tried to stop the development of technology that would make it possible for listeners to tape songs off the radio for their own private purposes. It couldn’t be done.

More recently this same issue has come up vis a vis the also universal and uncontrollable internet. This isn’t settled yet, but it is pretty clear that technology has probably put the things that can be done on the internet beyond regulation as well.

Is the flow of money into political campaigns in the same category?

Could be.

Some 20 years ago Tim Cullen testified before a Legislative Council committee headed by Senator Dave Helbach and Representative Peter Bock that was trying to contain political fundraising and spending otherwise known as Campaign Finance Reform.

Tim used the analogy of a balloon. “There is a certain amount of money that is going to flow into political campaigns,” he said. “If you visualize it as being contained in a balloon, what regulation can attempt is to squeeze one end of the balloon down. What will happen is the money in the balloon will pop up elsewhere.”