"Escape to Wisconsin" the bumper stickers used to say. Go "up north" (der hey!) for some hiking, some camping, some R&R: north of the Tension Line where the land is rich with forest and field, and crystal lakes beckon for swimming, boating and fishing. And only in Wisconsin do we fuse our love of the outdoors with our newfound passion for protest.
Governor Walker expected, I am sure, an easy PR coup last Saturday when he attended the 46th Annual Governor's Fishing Opener in Chippewa Falls. Easy stuff: cast a few lines, maybe net a fish or at least pretend that you caught one for the camera, speak to local Channel 13 reporters about your love for all things outdoors, and then get back to Madison in time to ram multiple sociopathic bills through the legislature while fantasizing about the silent majority in your mind.
But it didn't turn out that way. He found instead pirates of protest on watery parade when a flotilla of telegenic activists took to Lake Wissota with boatfuls of signs and lungfuls of chants. "A day out on the lake gets political" claims the top of the evening news. "Governor Walker probably thought that he could get away from the protestors in Madison, but what he found... protestors, just feet from where he was fishing!"
Instead of fish, Walker "reels in protestors in three boats..."
And this, dear Kossacks, is why I so dearly love living in Wisconsin. From tractorcades to water-bourne boats of pacifist pirate protestors, we'll heckle that son of a bitch wherever he goes; from Bayfield to Kenosha, from Prairie du Chien to Sheboygan, from now until his own recall, we'll be there. Whenever he thinks there are easy media moments, we'll be off camera with drums, signs, floats, tractors, boats, boots, and votes.
On Wisconsin!