Splitting the Tea Party vote

I was happy to see Tommy Thompson make it through the Republican primary in the race for Herb Kohl's old Senate seat. But it's clear that Tommy did not win because the Wisconsin’s Republican Party has become more pragmatic and moderate. Tommy won because businessman, Eric Hovde and perennial candidate, Mark Neumann split the vote of the most conservative Republicans.
Over 60 percent of people who voted in the Republican primary voted for somebody besides Tommy. Tommy, one of the biggest names in Wisconsin politics since the 1990s and a one-time presidential candidate, eked out political newcomer Hovde by less than 20,000 votes.
So I'm not optimistic about the GOP in Wisconsin moderating anytime in the future. Should Tommy beat Democratic candidate, Tammy Baldwin in November, conservatives will claim it was his name-recognition, not his moderate disposition that led him to victory. Should Tommy lose, Republicans will only be more resolute to nominate "real" (meaning radical) conservatives in the future.

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Race-Baiting

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The sharp young man

Paul Ryan's plan for medicare

Since being named as Mitt Romney's running mate, much has been made about Paul Ryan's plan to drastically alter the way Medicare works.

While I think his plan is flawed, it is much better than the Democrats' alternative which is to pretend there is no problem. Medicare is a major driver of our national debt, and must be reformed if we want to restore fiscal sanity to our nation, and preserve Medicare for future generations.

At the same time, most of the gains in spending cuts that Paul Ryan proposes in his budget are offset by tax cuts, many of them to the wealthiest Americans. Despite being hailed a budget guru, Ryan's plans are less about bringing spending in line with revenue, and more about a conservative ideology which wants to starve government and cut taxes.

He doesn’t propose any changes to Social Security, and refuses to cut any military spending. He says his tax cuts are offset by closing tax loopholes (something I wholeheartedly support), but won’t venture to say which specific beloved loopholes need to go.

Most economists would argue that we need both revenue increases and spending cuts from just about every area, including the military to balance the budget. But the budget is a medium term problem. Right now we are stuck in a period of slow growth, and cuts like Ryan proposes, could damage our fragile recovery. Many sensible economic thinkers believe we need another period of government spending (stimulus) to jump start the economy coupled with real plans to cut long term spending to control our deficit.

Of course, no Democrat in government has been brave enough to propose anything like this at the national level. They would rather just attack Ryan’s budget.

Ryan’s plan might be flawed right-wing ideology, but it’s better than nothing—which is precisely what the Democrats are offering.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/phil_hands/hands-on-wisconsin-at-least-paul-ryan-has-a-plan/article_efd31d9c-e61d-11e1-8ab5-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz23XOzaukR

Evidence of Global Warming:

WEAC's Change of Heart

I must say, I'm really excited that WEAC has decided to change its position on merit pay, evaluating teachers and breaking up the Milwaukee School district. Making sure that our children have good teachers and that those teachers are compensated for their effectiveness not just their longevity is crucial to improving our nation's embarrassing education system.

That being said, it would have been nice if WEAC would have agreed to these reforms because they thought they were effective methods of better educating our children, and not just survival tactics employed to appease the angry conservatives in charge of the state government.

This cartoon also reminds me of one of the reasons I love being a cartoonist. I decided that the cartoon should be something involving a James Bond type scene, with WEAC under duress. Then I got to have the fun debate in my head over what would be the funniest and most visually interesting clichéd evil villain method of dispatching an adversary. In the end, I decided that a shark tank was funnier than a laser beam or a ticking time bomb.

In what other job, other than super evil genius, do you get to make that decision?

We are the champions

I drew this cartoon last week, and was hoping it would see the light of day (not like the Bucky Rose Bowl cartoon that we had to kill when they lost).

What a great game, and what a great season. I have to hand it to the Packers. I've never seen a team fight through so many injuries and setbacks and play so well and so passionately.

GO! PACK! GO!

And now, I'm taking a break from drawing cartoons about sports. After the last two weeks, as much as I love drawing cartoons about the Packers, I'm just burnt out. I really don't want to draw another cartoon about sports until Opening Day, but we'll see if I can last that long.

In the meantime, I think our new governor should keep me pretty busy.