Another swing state heard from

A friend of mine forwarded me an article about a little scandal in Appleton, Wisconsin. It seems that the Appleton area paper, the Post-crescent was so alarmed about the mostly anti-Bush letters to the editor that they published a call for more pro-Bush letters to achieve "balance."

Some background: Wisconsin overall is a pretty liberal state. Unions are very influential and Madison is a famously left-wing university town. However, the Appleton-Green Bay area (aka the Fox Valley) is pretty conservative. The Fox Cities (a collection of small cities strung out around the north shore of Lake Winnebago and down the length of the Fox River)were the home town of Joe McCarthy. The area is now the home to the John Birch Society. The cities economies are dependent on paper mills. The biggest paper company in the area is Kimberly-Clark which is so right wing that it makes Coors Brewery look down right liberal. I've heard rumors from people I know in the area that a lot of the paper mill jobs have been disappearing there recently.

CNN et al are all saying that Wisconsin is "in play." That is they think that while Wisconsin voted for Gore in 2000, Bush might pick it up in 2004. If Bush is going to pull that off, he MUST have a huge Republican turn out from the Appleton area.

If the Appleton area is generating mostly anti-Bush letters to the editor that is TERRIBLE NEWS FOR BUSH. The only thing that could put Wisconsin back into the winnable column for Bush is if Nader draws off a lot of support from Kerry (probably in Madison).