For fathers' day, Sara and I took her dad up to Frederic to march in a parade for Shelly Moore. Shelly is the next state senator in Wisconsin's district ten. There's a primary against a fake candidate (Republicans are running false Democrats to stall us) on July 12th. Then Shelly goes on to face a general election against Sheila Harsdorf on August 9th. Me and around 50 other people were there to march alongside Shelly Moore. It was great fun throwing out candy and spending time with fellow Wisconsinites.
We had praise and smiles from most people, aside from one old, fat guy who gave us the thumbs down. There was a Harsdorf float about ten spots back from us with about a ten people in her blue shirts. Maybe the fat guy liked them better. To be fair, our chants were loud, we were having fun, and I suppose it looks a bit odd for a political group to actually have a good time together. It's strange - fighting back as with so many friends brings a smile to my face like I've never thought possible.
In other, otherwisconsinly news, it looks like they're fighting back strong in Ohio!
Ohio doesn't have the same recall powers as Wisconsin, but they do have a citizen's referendum. The referendum allows citizens to put adopted legislation up for a vote before it can be enacted. Petitioners had 90 days to collect 232,000 signatures.
On Thursday, [the reporter] visited the "We Are Ohio" booth in the Netroots Nation exhibition hall. I was told to come back tomorrow as they'd be making a big announcement in conjunction with a rally in Columbus. One doesn't call for a public rally to admit failure, so it was fairly easy to guess they'd collected the needed signatures. I returned on Friday shortly after a sign had been hung under the "We Are Ohio" banner. The sign read 714,137: Well above the threshold necessary to protect the petition from challenges to the signatures.
Ohio will now very likely face a referendum on the same collective bargaining issue we face in Wisconsin. Kudos to our brothers and sisters for making this happen. Now they need to get to the polls and take their rights back. It's not over, but this is a great step toward victory, and we should be cheering in solidarity with the folks in Ohio today. They did it there - we can do it here!
We've got work to do. We have recall elections to win this summer. We WILL take our state back, slowly but surely. Democracy takes time. Volunteer when you can, as often as you can, or donate, if you're one of the few people left in the middle class with an extra ten bucks. We need all hands on deck. On July 12th, and August 9th, and the Walker recall, and Governor Feingold come around, I'd like to give the folks in Ohio something something to congratulate us about. Keep fighting - Wisconsin will be ours!
