There may not be any primary contests today in the presidential race, but there is a key vote happening today in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin elects its state Supreme Court judges, and today the balance of power on the court is up for grabs.  If you live in Wisconsin, you must head out to vote today, and you must vote to retain Justice Louis Butler over his scamp of a challenger, Michael Gableman.

Find your polling place and a sample ballot here--more below.

In the spirit of all politics being local, I thought I'd make sure that all of my fellow Wisconsinites had the full skinny on the various Mark Foley connections to be made.  For those keeping score, we can slightly ding Mark Green (who is currently running for Governor), bother F. Jim Sensnenbrenner (running for re-election in the WI-05), and nail John Gard (running to replace Green in the  WI-08).  The connections and links to the good guys are all below the fold.

If you need to know more about the actual Foley scandal itself, well, where have you been, under a rock?  Check the front page, why don't ya!

(This is condensed and edited from two posts done earlier today at my Milwaukee-based blog.)

Cross-posted.

So I had lunch today with about a dozen very nice and very influential people here in the greater Milwaukee area.  Several of them are in the picture there on the right:  In the background, you can see Bill Elliot, who is running for the open Wisconsin 23rd Assembly District.  The woman up front is Bonnie Joseph, among the area's biggest Dem fundraisers.  And the very happy guy in blue--of course!--is Bryan Kennedy.  Not pictured is the reason we were all there at lunch, a guy named Walter Ludwig.

Ludwig, some of you may know, is a former member of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, as well as the head of a PAC known as Project 90.  (He tells me their website should be back up by next week, but for now, there's no link.)  What is Project 90, you might ask?  Good question.

(Cross-posted; all photos, unless as noted, by my friend and fellow blogger Scott Feldstein, who has them at much better resolution at his place.)

It is no secret that former Virginia governor Mark Warner is running for president.  So he's doing what candidates do--particularly candidates who are "unemployed," as he kept reminding us during his speech--he's talking to any assemblage of Democrats he can get his hands on.  And trying to drum up all the buzz he can.

The buzz is where I come in:  A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Warner's Forward Together PAC--and, yes, in introducing Warner, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle did joke about Warner's use of Wisconsin's motto ("Forward!") in the name of his PAC.  Nate invited me to attend the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's Founder's Day (née Jefferson-Jackson) Dinner as a guest of the PAC and to blog the event.  So here I will; follow me blow the fold for more pictures and summary . . .

Cross-posted from my own cheddary blog.

Last Friday morning, I woke up to an email from an old college classmate, who just happens to be working for Wisconsin 8th CD candidate Steve Kagen.   He invited me to join another college classmate and blogger in a meeting with with the candidate and his manager.

Let's remind ourselves what's going on here:  The current Congressman, Republican Mark Green, is racing to be granted the honor of losing a squeaker to Wisconsin Gov.  Jim Doyle in November 2006.  There are two announced Republican candidates, Terri McCormick and John Gard.  The blood between those two is already quite bad, and guaranteed to get worse as the primary heats up and Gard single-mindedly pursues his theocratic crusade and McCormick keeps tacking to the center.

Hey all!

I'm shilling again for the Iron Blog.  I guess there's a dearth of Challengers willing to take on the Iron Bloggers.  It seems like there should be a queue out the back, given that the Challengers are 2-0 in the last two Battles.

Yeah, it's a lot of thankless work, but the audience participation is what makes the Iron Blog tick.  There's an Iron Blogger Republican who needs to be taught a lesson, for example, and an Iron Blogger Libertarian on a losing streak.  Or you could take on me, your friendly neighborhood Iron Blogger Democrat, but you and I probably agree on everything anyway.

What say you?  Email the Chairman and give it a try!

Special bonus offer below the fold!

Have any of you been reading the Iron Blog?  It's like a cross between high school debate and TV's "Iron Chef."  Theoretically, people from opposite ends of the spectrum can gather round the table and duke it out in a peaceful, respectable manner.

Usually, the battled are week-long exercises.  This week, though, instead of one Battle raging across the whole week, there will be a series of smaller Blitz Battles, starting with one about "Honor and Dignity" and "Changing the Tone."  This change is in part to get more people interested in participating, and in part a stalling tactic while we try to recruit more left-leaning participants--see, the Republicans are winning in participation over there.

That's right--we could really use your help.  I'm the Iron Blogger Democrat, but we still need an Iron Blogger Green, for those of you who are of that persuasion.  We also need left-leaning challengers (the Republicans are lining up around the block to take me on) and judges, too.  Judging probably only takes a couple of hours total for the week that you're on, though challenging can take much more.

Check it out, read through some of the old battles, and see what you think.  Then email the Chairman and sign on to help out.