Then There Were Deuce Pt. 2

Tonight's results in the District Two city council primary:
Brenda Konkel (incumbent): 40%
Bridget Maniaci: 27%
Adam Walsh: 24%
Sherman Hackbarth: 7%
Dennis deNure: 29/50% (no I was not one of the five people who voted for deNure!)

So while Konkel was predictably the top vote-earner of the night, the big victory goes to Maniaci, who snuck away with what could turn out to be a huge win over Walsh. I happened to be at Maniaci's headquarters at Supreme Pizza on East Johnson Street, in a stroke of what was more fortuitous laziness than blind luck (it's a block from my house), when her runners brought back the returns from the final ward of the Deuce. The excitement among her small group of supporters was honestly a little contagious.

Prying herself away from a hug, Maniaci ripped out her cell phone shortly after the news came down and punched in a number from memory. "Hello Dad?" she began. "I won!"

Then she paused for a moment, before finishing, "Well, not WON-won, but I have enough votes!"

Twenty votes, in fact, were what propelled Maniaci ahead of Walsh. Indeed, it seems Maniaci had a serious turnout dropoff working in her favor in Ward 37, compared to the last (mayoral) primary. The area around Tenney Park has the highest number of homeowners in District Two, and Walsh could have hoped for a high margin of victory after targeting his campaign specifically at that subset. But by Maniaci's numbers, there were more than 100 fewer voters who showed up in Ward 37 today than during the 2007 race, and they tied there for votes.

The rest of the math is simple. Maniaci snuck away with a four-vote lead in Ward 39, Walsh took back 13 votes in Ward 38, and then Maniaci absolutely ran away with the Langdon Street-centered, heavily-student 40th Ward. With 37 as an exception, her support grew stronger the closer to campus the voters cast ballots from.

In light of these results, a lot now rides on which way the losing candidates and their supporters break, but I'm willing to say the race between Konkel and Maniaci on April 7 will be a close one no matter what. The turnout will undoubtedly be higher, and seeing as Konkel didn't run away with the race but likely DID draw a high percentage of her fervent supporters out during today's election, she may be near her high-water mark.

Maniaci, on the other hand, has proved she's a viable candidate capable of mounting an effective campaign against four opponents. Her shot at unseating one of Madison's most well-known, passion-inflaming alders now rides on her ability to bring her firepower to bear on one target, siphon support from her vanquished opponents and create an upswell of new interest in residents of the Deuce.

And for his part, THIS blind squirrel is going to enjoy the nut he got away with in last night's post: "It seems likely enough Deucers will want to give Konkel a chance to defend her seat through April that she will be one of the top vote-earners Tuesday. In terms of vocal and visible support throughout the community, Walsh and Maniaci have both run hard, effective campaigns, and now need to hope for an upswell of support to boost them into competition against the incumbent. Maniaci may have a slight edge, but Hackbarth is a wildcard with little shot at a berth in the general election and the ability to spoil it for either Walsh or Maniaci."

Then There Were Deuce

Three of the candidates pursuing the second district seat on the Madison Common Council are going to sleep very well Tuesday night. One of them will dream of miles upon miles of museums stretching off into the sunset, and the other two will sleep the dreamless sleep of near exhaustion mixed with a few conciliatory drinks.

But knowing the people who are engaged in the race, the two winners of Tuesday's primary won't be going to sleep once the votes are tallied. Secure in the knowledge they'll be appearing on the April ballot, whichever pair of candidates emerges from the dogfight victorious will likely begin laying individual battle plans for the run up to the knock-down, drag-out mano a mano match-up.

Okay, I promise, that's the last of the boxing cliches I'll use today.

But in all seriousness, this has been an intense campaign, with each candidate logging untold hours of spare time trudging through Wisconsin's worst weather and banging down doors. The amount of campaign literature I've seen accumulated inside my front door and littering the gutters is staggering, and I've heard through the grapevine from a number of people who have met personally with one or more office-seeker on their own front stoop.

Though in hindsight, I ought to have pledged my support to whichever candidate could have cornered me on my own front porch, as it's become nearly impossible to find me at home during a reasonable hour of the day. Not a candidate came a-calling to my hobbit hole on Castle Place when I was around, and I'm a little disappointed.

With election day upon us, most of the measily six to ten percent of the voting populace who will turn out have a pretty good idea who they'll be voting for. There's not much left for the candidates to do that could sway their opinion, but I know of at least one who's planning a 4 AM wakeup call to distribute one last round of door hangers anyway.

So for the most part, there's not much left for any of the candidates to do but wait and hope. In terms of what they ought to be hoping for, other than enough people to turn out at election headquarters to help finish the cake and cash the keg (interesting sidenote, I personally excel in both areas), I've taken the time to compile a few suggestions.

Though there's no such thing as a sure thing, incumbent Brenda Konkel need only really hope that her supporters are as numerous as they are vocal, both in the community and on the madison.com forums. While it's no news that the four-term city council member has plenty of people, both in the community and the city government, who would like to see her figuratively offed in the primary, in all likelihood it ain't gonna happen.

Konkel could just as easily begin focusing on the next stage of her re-election bid, setting herself up for some kind of tortoise and hare scenario, but she's far too classy for that. She even told me that should the unthinkable happen and two of her opponents best her in the primary, "I'm not going anywhere. I would still be just as active in the community," and that's something of a comforting thought.

That much said, while four individual candidates don't pose much of a obstacle to her reaching the April election, one strong competitor backed by the other three (and their supporters) could create serious problems in the general election. Konkel ought to be paying keen attention to the other candidates in her race and rooting for a narrow defeat to beset the candidate(s) most likely to support her then in April.

As such, she's probably hoping to see attorney Adam Walsh fail in his bid to get that second slot on the ballot. He's been the least vocal critic of Konkel's performance as alder, and held up against Bridget Maniaci with her ties to the mayor's office that sought to have Konkel ousted and Sherman Hackbarth with his no-nonsense distain for Konkel's idealogical stands, Walsh seems the most likely to jump aboard a Konkel bandwagon.

But as one of the two candidates with a shot at challenging Konkel, Walsh has got his own plans. By centering his campaign heavily on homeowners and the Lapham Elementary School, he's taken a gamble in attempting to ignite his own unique base of support rather than siphon it off Konkel. Come Tuesday evening, Walsh will be hoping to have stoked those flames hot enough to drive unprecedented turnout among the district's non-rental denizens, pushing him over the top.

Maniaci, for her part, will be hoping for her own groundswell of voter turnout from the district's west end, where the concentration of the student population is heaviest. She's won endorsements from both student newspapers, with a blurb in the Daily Cardinal and an in-depth write-up in the Badger Herald, and at 25-years-old, is able to level with students on issues like alcohol density and nightlife concerns where other candidates come off as stuffy.

But it's well-known to anyone who's been a student at the UW that the papers' editorial boards represent the student body as well as the State Journal editorial board represents the city of Madison's populace. What's more discouraging for her is that students have a notriously low voter turnout rate for elections where there's no "George Bush" to vote against.

On the gripping hand, candidate Sherman Hackbarth is probably hoping for a particularly low turnout from newspaper readers, something on the order of the effect a plague of locusts. Hackbarth has caught more than a little heat from the press, not only for personally saying the least with the most words in the race, but also for his admitted lack of familiarity with one of District Two's most looming issues, the proposed demolition and redevelopment of a row of houses on East Johnson Street by Renaissance Property Group.

Maybe it was simple bad luck again that lead to his being picked first to answer the question at the neighborhood association debate, or maybe the question was a little poorly-worded, but the other candidates quickly jumped on his missing his chance to take a stand on the project, one way or the other. Maniaci was called on next by the moderator, noting, "I'm actually a little disappointed in Sherman," before proceeding to lambast the project.

Hackbarth's mantra of "I'll weigh each issue individually" is a position more properly staked out by a candidate for judgeship than a city leader, and Deucers likewise feel a little unsure of a candidate who doesn't come down strongly for or against the city's bus fare hike, the Alcohol Density Plan or proposals like RPG's.

So headed into the primary, it seems likely enough Deucers will want to give Konkel a chance to defend her seat through April that she will be one of the top vote-earners Tuesday. In terms of vocal and visible support throughout the community, Walsh and Maniaci have both run hard, effective campaigns, and now need to hope for an upswell of support to boost them into competition against the incumbent. Maniaci may have a slight edge, but Hackbarth is a wildcard with little shot at a berth in the general election and the ability to spoil it for either Walsh or Maniaci.

And for those bound and determined to vote outside the norm, there is, of course, a fifth option. Dennis deNure, who fell unfortunately from the radar screen after a critically-acclaimed appearance on the League of Women Voters' candidates forum, will still be appearing on the ballot, in spite of his campaign slogan, "Don't vote for me."

On a side note, I actually have one of deNure's buttons affixed to my backpack now, because I support the message, not the candidate. But it's the closest I've come in this race to making a political statement, other than saying I think Konkel deserves to be in the April race.

But as long as we're outlining what each candidate will be hoping for Tuesday, let's say deNure is pulling for...... cupcakes.

No Commercials, No Mercy!

While I was able to take my own sweet time with my first two write-ups on the race for Madison's District Two City Council race, interest in the "Rumble in the Deuce" has in fact grown, and I already know I'm not going to have the first scoop on tonight's debate at Lapham Elementary. Kristin Czubkowski from the Cap Times live-blogged it.

I have been one-upped.

And as I was covering it for my real job, my attentions were on my recorder and not my laptop, so my blog coverage of the event won't be out until later this weekend. I guess, seeing as it's going to be late, we'll call it "analysis."

But I was very pleased at the turnout tonight, both among spectators (some thirty neighborhood residents made the trip out, which is pretty impressive for a city council race) and among press. In addition to Kristin and me, Jason Smathers and a crew from the Badger Herald were there, the Daily Cardinal was also representing, and David Douglas and a shooter from Channel 3 put in an appearance as well.

Three newspapers, a TV station and a radio station -- this race has really grabbed some attention, and the primary is still more than a week away! Thankfully, the organizers of the debate had put out plenty of seating, or the rumble would have been between reporters for a place to sit down.

I know I could totally take David Douglas.

Anyway, it's late. I really think tonight's was a telling debate, and I'll explain why eventually. The papers and TV station can do their own things, then look for me to wrap it all up in the next edition of "Rumble in the Deuce" Sunday night. Have a great weekend.

Deuce Coup?

More than a crowded field of candidates with similar platforms, more than a seasoned incumbent unafraid to mince words and more than being arguably the most conservative candidate in an overwhelmingly liberal district of Madison, Sherman Hackbarth had one thing really working against him at the League of Women Voters "Know Your Candidates" taping Friday night: alphabetical order.

On a list of candidates for the second city council district that reads Dennis deNure, Sherman Hackbarth, Brenda Konkel, Bridget Maniaci and Adam Walsh, Hackbarth had the challenge of having to follow up the comments from fan favorite frequent flyer Dennis deNure, who stole the show in terms of entertainment value to say the least.

Asked what he thought needed to be done to tweak the city's Metro bus system, deNure launched into an explanation of his plans to renovate State Street's Peace Park into a carousel park or a ferris wheel park or a cow-petting zoo and the America's Dairyland Museum. At deNure's conclusion and a nod from the moderator, the camera panned to Hackbarth, who paused for a moment, blinked, then managed a noble "...okay..." before getting his legs back under him and continuing with the segment.

It seemed a cruel trick of his birthname that Hackbarth should have to repeatedly follow a man whose opening statement began, "Do not vote for me. Vote for one of the others. Button man here even has a button that says 'Don't vote for me!' My goal is to create a forum for the best downtown plan imaginable, the museum mile program."

Then, he proceeded to list off a sleugh of museum concepts he would like to see settled along State Street. The notes I took from my seat in the audience read verbatim as follows: "Plans for a whole lot of different museums... Seriously, presented like 60 different museum ideas... The guy really likes his museums..."

But for all his oddities, the other three challengers to Brenda Konkel's four-term seat on the city council could take notes on two of the features of deNure's presentation: the formulation of a palpable plan and an ability to make it stick out in an observer's memory. I guarantee there will be people tuning into the city channel's broadcasts and webcasts of the segment just to view and re-view deNure's response to a question about working with neighborhood associations, "At my blog you'll find pictures of Josh Groban. I'm a big fan. I can't wait 'til he plays at Overture Hall."

I'm not saying that Hackbarth, Maniaci and Walsh should all act insane. I'm saying they're up against an established, recognizable, respected firebrand of a candidate with a long record of achievements with the city, and whichever one of them stands out the most will likely survive the primary to face off against Konkel in the general election.

In all likelihood, Konkel is going to carry the most votes in the February 17 primary. While the criticism often levelled at her is she alienates too many people, she has a solid base of support in and outside the district. While I haven't personally made up my mind in terms of who to vote for, I admire her passion and dedication and would like to see her make it through the primary.

She certainly didn't try to play down her record of butting heads, which her opponents have criticized. "I think I've worked hard, I've been strong-willed and strongly opinionated from time to time," she said during the taping. "But I think a strong, passionate experienced (alder) is what we need right now."

It seems likely a lot of uncommitted voters will justify voting for her in the primary just to ensure she has a chance to defend her seat mano-a-mano.

This leaves three very similar, qualified candidates vying for one slot on the April ticket.

I half-joked earlier that Hackbarth is the most conservative on the ticket, but truth be told it would take a microscope to determine who falls further to the right or left on the spectrum. Maniaci and Walsh seem to fly their "lefty creds" higher and louder than Hackbarth, but the latter does live in a co-op. You can't exactly slap a "Ronald Reagan" label on that.

Not that this (or any) race should be about left versus right anyway. What the candidates need are their own "museum miles," a handful of issues and the specific plans to back them up the candidates can hang their hats on.

Walsh has captured some attention by championing the cause of declining enrollment at Lapham Elementary School, saying the neighborhood needs to draw in more young families to fill the school. It sounds great in principle, unless it means driving UW students, young professionals (like myself) and other renters out of Tenney-Lapham like Alder Julia Kerr has tried to do in the Vilas neighborhood.

Likewise, a lot of people admire Maniaci's pledge to rejuvinate businesses along East Johnson Street, turning it into a thriving economic pocket like Monroe Street. But if increasing foot traffic to the businesses entails decreasing speed limits, switching to two-way traffic (as Konkel has suggested) and generally obstructing East Johnson and East Gorham, she could lose a lot of support real fast from people who live in the neighborhood, enjoy what the neighborhood has to offer, but also like being able to get out of the neighborhood in a hurry when they have to for work or other reasons.

Hackbarth, for his part, has shied away the least from criticizing Konkel's combative style, but otherwise has staked his campaign more in vague promises of "effective, efficient public services." It's understandably tough to lay out a point-by-point action plan when one is pledging to act as a conduit of the people's will, but unless a candidate defines which people and what will he's channeling, the electorate is liable to be mistrustful.

Nobody is going to argue with any of these three causes on principle -- they're good ideas for the neighborhood. Rather, where the questions come up is on how to best execute them and which causes to prioritize.

Of course, all these questions would be most easily answered by a substantive debate. Coincidentally, the Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood Association is holding a two-hour candidate forum Thursday, February 5th, 7:00 PM at the Lapham School, 1045 East Dayton Street. While not as specific in answering some of the questions voters might have as would be desirable, the Know Your Candidates forum provides a good primer for the neighborhood forum, as well as some grand entertainment from deNure.

As the candidates and their platforms continue to evolve, the answers to Deucers' questions will most assuredly become more specific. While Maniaci, Walsh and Hackbarth each hold similar views, the candidate best able to connect the dots from where district two is to where district two could be will have the biggest leg up in the race to challenge Konkel.

Special thanks to Emily Mills at the Lost Albatross for developing a Rumble in the Deuce graphic that doesn't suck.

Lay of the Land

Why? 'Cuz I basically figured, "What good is in-depth coverage without a really lame graphic to go with it?"

And please, don't ask me how long it took me. My photo-shopping skills are not what they ought to be.

I have every intention of updating this feature at least on a weekly basis, or as the story warrants. District two has all the elements needed to make it the most interesting city council race in the upcoming spring election, and I'm thrilled to get to cover it as a reporter and vote in it as a constituent.

And the Deucers will certainly get to do their share of voting. Only two of the five candidates for the second city council district will get to appear on the April 7 spring election ballot, meaning the February 17 primary election will be when the real "rumble" happens.

With the primary just more than a month away, that means there's precious little time to get informed on each of the candidates and their stands on the issues. Fortunately, most of them have already posted websites, and I was able to get in touch with all of them in the span of one day, resulting in an A+ in accessability for each one.

The deadline to declare candidacy is barely two days past, but the race is already steeped in some degree of controversy. Word around city hall had been for several weeks that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz was actively seeking someone to run against four-term incumbent Brenda Konkel, and he confirmed it on the record in a newspaper story this week.

There's no love lost between Cieslewicz and Konkel as a result. Anyone who's ever been to a city council meeting has likely seen them butt heads at least once. Konkel has certainly made herself a thorn in the administration's side, and while the Mayor denies he was successful in recruiting anyone to carry out his political hit, he's made it clear he's not displeased to see competition coming out of the woodwork.

Part of the reason Konkel has aroused the ire of the Mayor (and a number of her fellow council members to boot) is the same reason a number of her constituents, including myself, admire her. While I find myself disagreeing with her on some issues, the passion and fire with which she defends the issues she does is unmatched on the council.

Likewise, Konkel wears her dedication to the job of alder and the ideals of democracy on her sleeve. Like a number of alders I could note, she works a job for a living but lives her elected office, spending free time pouring over meeting notes and minute details. Somehow she finds time to constantly update the blog she keeps on city affairs, which has become a resource, not just for her constituents, but for Madison's citizens in general.

As a reporter, her blog sits near the top of my daily reading list (though I do harbor a *little* resentment stemming from the comment about "biased media" in the header).

Most admirably, she welcomes the four candidates that have materialized to try and swipe the seat from under her. "I think it's fantastic for democracy," she told me yesterday, "to see so much interest in a district... and so much youth. I just wish there was this good a turnout in every other district."

In meetings, unfortunately, Konkel's passion is easily construed as combativeness. Her reputation as being obstinate is well-deserved, as much a black mark as a badge of honor. Her attention to detail can be alternately useful and infuriating for her fellow alders. Some constituents, particularly business- and home-owners, accuse her of paying more attention to renters and the homeless than their own middle-class plights.

It's those traits her opponents Adam Walsh, Bridget Maniaci and Sherman Hackbarth are taking aim at now, each in their own way.

"I'm not running the anti-Konkel campaign," Walsh told me. "I respect many of the things she's done. But I think we could do a better job of making sure everybody feels their needs and concerns are addressed -- not just a select minority."

Walsh was the first to declare his candidacy in the second district, and is not, in fact, the missing son of "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh. I asked. He actually joked with me that the shared name was going to "make it hell for anybody Googling my web page."

Adam Walsh is relatively fresh out of UW law school, recently married and is a new homeowner on the isthmus. While he works as a civil rights and criminal defense attorney, he paints himself as a concerned neighbor settling into life as a grown-up, as it were. Walsh and his wife plan to have children in the near future, which he says has instilled in him a desire to see more stop signs, brighter night streets and safer parks in the neighborhood.

Raised in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Walsh says he's enthralled with the idea of sending his kids to a "neighborhood school" like Lapham Elementary. But the school isn't the only unique feature of District Two he has an interest in preserving.

"We need to pay more attention to those businesses (in the East Johnson Street corridor)," Walsh said. "I want to foster them so they, hopefully, don't leave. There aren't any chain businesses in the entire district, and if one of them leaves, that opens it up for a chain to come in."

Walsh isn't alone in that fear either. Supreme Pizza, Madison Food Mart, Pinkus McBride, Burnie's Rock Shop, Cork and Bottle Liquor Store -- 25-year-old candidate Bridget Maniaci identified them all as unique businesses struggling to get by in a city that normally lauds local commerce. In fact, she says she'll be offering free advertising space to any takers on her campaign literature.

It's just one example of the kinds of outside-the-box ideas she says she would like to bring to city hall. While she may be the youngest candidate in the race, as a former intern to Mayor Cieslewicz, she has plenty of familiarity with city hall, and her experiences working on Wisconsin's Capitol Hill and on the Fair Wisconsin campaign lend her a legitimate grounding in politics.

In light of the mayor's grudge against Konkel, assuming Maniaci was Cieslewicz's's pick to run for the seat is an easy leap to make, but she assured me that was not the case. "I had to wait two weeks to get a meeting with Dave to tell him I was going to throw my hat in the ring," she told me. "He was actually pretty surprised."

Likewise, Maniaci insists that just because she's a former mayoral staff member doesn't mean she'll end up as a rubber stamp for the mayor, if elected. As a staffer in the early phases of planning the revamped Halloween on State Street (editor's note: don't say Freakfest, ever!) celebration, Maniaci says putting her foot down became a regular priority.

A fourth-generation Madison native, Maniaci and her family have watched the isthmus evolve for decades. But recently, she's become more concerned by the mass exodus of the student population from her west end of the district, trickling into the growing highrises near University Avenue. While she says the district two area is one she thinks "families would like to live in," the housing stock is old, and some homes are run down from years of neglect by landlords and tenants alike.

The push-pull of development and preservation is clearly a delicate one, and she says a plan is needed. "I'm very keen on trying to rehab the houses we do have," Maniaci said, "but if they really are as bad as some of the owners are saying they are from previous landlords, I don’t have a problem with them coming down. I would, however, really like to see something of a similar size and scale go up."

The need to differentiate between the areas where massive development is appropriate and forbidden weighs heavily on the second district, and candidate Sherman Hackbarth, a real estate lawyer, says there's room for both. The 31-year-old graduate of both the UW-Whitewater business program and the UW-Madison law school has been long active in campaigning for updates to Madison's decades-old zoning code as a member of the Capitol Neighborhoods Association.

Hackbarth says he fretted over whether or not to run for weeks leading up to the deadline, and chose to file as District Two's fifth candidate the day of. He stakes his campaign on a measured mantra: "planning we can look back on and be proud of, public safety and effective services with an efficient price."

While part of his solution to the verging-on-decrepit homes in district two is to attract more homeowners to the area, Hackbarth also insists the relationship between renters and landlords has become too combative to provide productive solutions to many problems. He says the city should work to encourage more cooperation.

"Landlords should feel great pride in getting a rent check front their tenants," Hackbarth told me. "They should take utmost care complying with all fair housing issues, and they should be held to a high standard. But tenants should also be pleased to give their landlords a rent check, to be provided with a place they can call home."

While injustices move both ways, it's the plight of landlords Hackbarth says goes unnoticed in district two, where the current alder admittedly makes her living fighting against landlords. If elected, Hackbarth says he'll make policy based primarily on the needs and wants of all his constituents.

He paints himself as a man without a party affiliation, and he's certainly not one to mince words regarding his perceptions of the current seat-holder's performance. "I think Brenda Konkel needs to go," he said. "I want to thank her for her service. She's dedicated, but we need to reviltalize this district, to stop the political fighting and take it in a new direction. I see myself as a voice for the district, not a one-sided political agenda."

Thankfully, the race for the second district city council seat is not without a little comic relief. I was unable to reach Dennis deNure as I researched this story, but rest assured I will do an entire feature on him when the time is appropriate. He's a well-known frequent flyer in local elections, with unsuccessful bids for mayor and the state senate under his belt. A brief perusal of his website provides a fair enough assessment of the man to convince some to vote for him.

With the mix of candidates pounding the pavement, it's going to be an interesting race -- far more interesting than any city council race has any right to be. All four candidates I spoke with seemed amenable to the idea of a debate, which I would eagerly attend, and I hope I'm not the only one.

The Deucers should consider themselves lucky to have the palette of candidates they do to chose from this year. I certainly won't be making up my mind until election day.

Coverage Plan

Now that the city of Madison has survived a historical election and two months worth of aftermath, I have to breathe a sigh of a relief. We're verging on my favorite time of year...

Election time!

Now, I don't expect everyone to share the diabolical pleasure I derive from local elections. There are plenty of folks who would be hard-pressed to note the last time Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson ran for office, who their school board or city council representatives are, or what the county executive even does.

But the upcoming February primary and the April general election to follow are shaping up to be pretty inetresting in the Madison area, following yesterday's deadline to declare candidacy, and I feel it's my job to help everyone to see the drama that's unfolding right out their front door.

First of all, there are several city council races that are simply going to be steeped in titillation. Foremost among them is the knock-down, drag-out death match that's unfolding to claim the second district seat on the council, which is currently held by Alder Brenda Konkel.

Konkel has no plans to go anywhere, but two lawyers, a former mayor's aide and a crazy guy have their sights set on sneaking the north half of the isthmus out from under her. The intrigue tripled when word got out that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz was actively seeking out people to run against Konkel, with whom his working relationship could best be described as "shaky." It's by far the most hotly contested race in the city, and it's all unfolding right out MY own front door.

As a second district resident, I'll be taking special interest in this race. I already spent between 20 minutes and an hour each on the phone with Konkel, Adam Walsh, Bridget Maniaci and Sherman Hackbarth this afternoon, and I'll attempt to frame up their platforms in tomorrow's blog post. I'll also be writing weekly updates on the district two race, and eventually have to decide which of these people I'm going to vote for.

I'm not sure yet if I will be publicly announcing my pick in district two, but there is one race I'm ready to make a full-fledged endorsement in. I whole-heartedly urge all the east-side residents within district 15 to vote Alder Larry Palm into a third term with the city, as I have no doubt they will.

Palm is a dedicated civil servant, an activist within his community and a man that sticks to his ideals. By contrast, his challenger Will Sandstrom, while endlessly amusing, is far too intolerant, unstable and incapable-of-maintaining-his-focus-on-a-single-line-of-discussion to properly serve his community as alder.

That's not to say it wouldn't be hilarious to have Sandstrom on the council. His farcical 2007 campaign for mayor yielded more than its share of classic moments, but I honestly don't know if I could deal with moments like this (audio clip pulled from a public discussion of changes to the city's zoning code on November 6, 2008) on a bi-weekly basis.



So I suppose, in light of that rant, it's no surprise Sandstrom has chosen to run against Alder Palm in what we can only assume is a well-meaning attempt to make Madison a more straight-friendly community. God only knows there have been plenty times in my five years as a resident I've felt persecuted as a straight white male.

And seriously, there are people who think local politics are boring?

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed by the fact that 13 alders are running for their seats unopposed, and not because I have any particular issue with the way city government is being run, but because democracy is supposed to remain in a constant state of flux. It's clear what we have in Madison isn't the "series of smaller revolutions to prevent the big one" that would be ideal, but there are plenty more local races to dig into, and I'll bring a shovel. Stay tuned.