Skip to Menu

Northwoods Primary

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Way up north, way on the tippy top of Wisconsin sits Superior. You might not know it just by looking at a map - unless its an election-results map - but Superior is one of the most Democratic parts of the state and one of the most pro-education and pro-labor in how they vote and what they support. In fact, in the Assembly race up there this year, for the 73rd District as Frank Boyle retires, there isn't a Republican candidate. Whomever wins the Democratic primary wins the seat.

Now Frank has been about as good a friend of AFT-Wisconsin and the TAA as anyone in the state legislature. He's been a stalwart progressive and strong voice for education from pre-K through PhDs. With him retiring, we lose a good friend in the Assembly. But we have a chance to make a new friend.

As Frank retires, he endorsed a candidate to replace him in the Assembly, his good friend Nick Milroy. Nick is a Superior city councilor - and he's a member of the AFT family. Both his wife and his parents are members of AFT-Wisconsin as teachers in the Superior Federation of Teachers. The SFT is one of our union's strongest locals and with nearly 800 household members in the district, they are a large part of the voting population up there. Nick's good people too - he's a strong progressive that has said he wants to be a "Frank Boyle Democrat" when he's in Madison. We in the AFT thought that sounded pretty good. So we endorsed him.

Actually, it's more complext than that. There's a candidate running in the Democratic primary that is no Frank Boyle Democrat. In fact, most of the folks in the world of AFT members from up in Superior say she's not much of a Suprerior Democrat at all - she's even running as the "moderate" voice for "moderate" people in Superior. Sounds good on paper maybe, but not to progressives.

In their endorsement interviews, Nick and the other candidate couldn't have been more difficult: Nick spoke about being a progressive voice and leader like Frank had been, making his top priorities public education and getting our state's economy on-track for working families, while explicitly referring to himself as a progressive without running away from an ideological defintion for himself; the other candidate just kept referring to herself as a moderate, didn't stake out any progressive priorities, and just didn't seem like the Frank Boyle Democrat we want.

Two of the leaders of our Superior locals drove down for the endorsement interviews AFT-Wisconsin held in Madison, and both of them voted as part of a unanimous 'majority' to endorse Nick Milroy. So along with AFT, Nick is endorsed by Frank Boyle, the Building & Construction Trades in Superior, Congressman Dave Obey (a progressive leader if ever there was one), and the progressive industrial union United Steelworkers.

When one of the Superior AFT leaders and I were speaking after the endorsement vote, she said she'd be grateful for any help that the TAA could give to help get Nick elected. I said we'd do whatever was asked of us. And we got asked...

This past week, TAA political activist members have called through our entire AFT-Wisconsin membership list in the district, having conversations with member households about the 73rd Assembly District race and sharing with folks that AFT-Wisconsin has endorsed Nick Milroy. We've identified supporters of Nick, and we're getting ready to make the final push for Get Out the Vote (GOTV) in the crutical final 72 hours before the primary election on September 9th.

So we're going to be working to get our TAA members plugged in to help with GOTV in the 73rd Assembly District primary because this Northwoods area is one where we can win for a progressive 2 months out from the general election. We could really use your help on Saturday the 6th and/or Sunday the 7th and/or Monday the 8th.

So can you come on out for a few hours worth of political action to help a progressive win a seat? We can elect someone who is going to be a strong ally of ours - a new friend - in the fight for better pro-labor, pro-education, and progressive policy in the state legislature. Remember, elections don't win themselves - only real people engaged in the real work of political action win elections and build power. Come on out to be a part of it!

Saturday, 1 PM to 5 PM
Sunday, 5 PM to 8:30 PM
Monday, 5 PM to 8:30 PM
First half-hour of each session is training and education

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by TAA Political Action

 

Previous Posts