Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The Race for Spirit (Wisconsin)!

Last night's Primary results in Wisconsin confirmed an astonishing trend. The Hillary Inevitability Mo-sheen is now officially scrapped for a downsized model. And while everyone's parsing the exit polling (somewhat dubious) and the speeches (total theatre), I've actually got something that matters. To a microscopic degree. Nonetheless, the teeny township that I grew up in (Town of Spirit outside Ogema in Price County) is filled with conservative farmers and church-goin' folks that I remember as well as my current ATM password. So last night after polls closed, my Dad passed along the polling results received via my childhood church's treasurer (also the election official for the Town Hall). Please bear in mind - in '04 there were 160 votes cast in the Presidential Election. For this Primary, 120 showed on both sides of the coin. Not a bad turnout. Although, I'm not sure how many neighbors have died in the last handful of years. Anyhoo, here's the tally:

Obama - 42
McCain - 35
Clinton - 20
Huckabee - 20
Romney - 2
Mis-vote - 1

One microcosm doesn't make an election. Unless it's my microcosm. Hillary got stomped by almost every demographic across the Badger State she until recently took for granted. Now everyone's focused forward on the horserace in Ohio and Texas, parsing the intricate nature of delegate allocation and...blah blah blah. Barack Obama just took a district in the strictly rural northern reaches of Wisconsin. A black Senator from Illinois. Where anyone from "down South" is still called a "FIB" (F**king Illinois B**tard). If you need more evidence of a movement beyond the "words" that the Clintons have come to so condescendingly deride, look no farther than the landslide yesterday in the folksy confines of Spirit's Town Hall.

Hope your own constituencies are filled with good ol' church-goin' commies today. Rock on.

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