Wisconsin's 5% cut bill "improves", budget does not

Not that this should surprise anyone, but now even the top Republican in the Wisconsin State Senate is admitting the state budget is messed up. It's so bad that these guys won't be able to pass Gov Walker's half-assed "college affordability" package, which Scotty outlined in last month's State of the State address.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says lower budget projections will affect the fate of a package of legislation proposed to address college affordability and debt.

The Juneau Republican told “UpFront with Mike Gousha” the student loan provisions are not the only initiatives that will face difficulties in the Legislature. He said lawmakers will likely turn attention to low-cost efforts that draw on federal programs aimed at alleviating student debt.

“The rumor was that things were going to be a little bit tighter than what we imagined, and they are,” Fitzgerald said on the program, produced in partnership with WisPolitics.com.

He said the original $6.5 million cost of the package will be reduced to around $2 million.

It's not like that package was going to do much anyway, nor would it come close to solving the underlying problem of defunding the UW System. But now the WisGOPs can't even do half of a half-measure because they've screwed up the budget so much. Pathetic.

Speaking of slicing the budget- out of a list of destructive crap that the WisGOPs are going to try to jam through the State Senate tomorrow is an old bill that caught my eye earlier this winter. This proposal would require all state agencies to explain plans for a 5% cut in funding as part of their budget requests, and I immediately called it out as a way that the GOP might try to claim the budget isn't as wrecked as it is in the real world (they'd claim the numbers under a 5% cut would be the "projected figures" and try to claim a balanced budget where it doesn't exist).

Well, it looks like there are a couple of changes to this bill that'll be voted on when it hits the Senate floor tomorrow, as outlined by this amendment put forward by Chris (The Delafield Dumbass) Kapenga.

For purposes of the proposals under par. (b) 1. and 2., an agency shall exclude from its state operations budget all of the following:

1. Expenditures funded by federal revenues.
2. Expenditures for principal, interest, and premium costs on public debt and state-issued revenue bonds.

It also excludes items such as WRS unfunded liabilities and other types of bond revenues, and doesn't include budget adjustments for things such as differences in expenses for programs that MUST be paid for (aka sum-sufficient expenses and related adjustments that happen throughout a budget year).

Basically, it takes out types of expenses that have to be paid for regardless of how broke the state is, which gives a more honest look into just what the budget reductions would be. Don't get me wrong he "5% cut" bill is still cynical, and is clearly intended to diminish the true fiscal train wreck that is occurring, but at least it’d force agencies to be a bit more realistic as to how bad a 5% budget cut would truly be. And that's something we all deserve to know

However, it's funny how the GOP and Governor Walker didn’t use this same standard when they claim the Governor's proposed $300 million cut to the UW was “only 2.5% of the total operating budget” despite the fact that most of the UW’s operating budget outside of state funding, and would be largely untouched by any state aid cuts (or at least should be, since those positions and operations weren’t funded by the state anyway). Now, the WisGOPs are going in the other direction with this "5% cut" bill, and saying certain expenses shouldn't be counted in the cuts. While it's true that it shouldn't be counted, it's interesting that they never brought that reality up when the cut the UW so much earlier this year. Funny how this crew shifts their reasoning when it suits the story they want to tell.

That reality might be worth pointing out on the Senate floor tomorrow, as is the fact that a lot of time and bills are being rammed through on issues that have nothing to do with the state's disastrous budget and failures in job growth. Oh wait, that's EXACTLY why all this is being done, to distract the voters and mess things up as much as possible before the GOP is eventually tossed out of office.

Charlie Pierce on last night's GOP debacle

I caught bits and pieces of the GOP's shitshow of a debate in South Carolina last night (state motto: "Our proudest moment was in 1861!"). But I'll leave it to a much better writer than I to sum up just how bad this was, and how we've descended to this point in our politics. Charlie Pierce, take it away!

Tell me truly—how does that spectacle not destroy the credibility of the Republican Party for at least a decade?

How does that freak show not blow up the party's claim to have serious policies to help govern the country? How does that carnival of unimaginative invective add up to a governing philosophy? How does that massive, chewy clusterfck add up to a single rational moment of human thought? I don't care if these guys believe in evolution or not, but they at least should try to demonstrate while they're on TV that, somehow, we've come a respectable distance as a species since we tottered out of Olduvai Gorge. I've seen better organized riots. I've heard more coherent dialogue from cats mating in an alley. I once heard a squirrel being eaten by a coyote. The squirrel had better manners while it was being devoured, and was better spoken besides. Christ above, somebody separate these clowns before they hurt their brains some more. Tailgunner Ted Cruz said more than he knows, not least because he doesn't know what "literally" means.

And the way Charlie ends the piece illustrates why he is one of the few people left in this country that does actual political journalism. Pierce points the finger at a main culprit for this ridiculous spectacle- a national media that refuses to tell the American people the truth about this ridiculous wrecking crew.

There was nobody who did well. This was a debate in which obvious fact—George W. Bush was president on September 11, 2001—was booed from the cheap seats and derided from the other people on stage. This was a debate in which Donald J. Trump was on the side of empirical reality, so much the worse for empirical reality. This was a debate in which Young Marco Rubio promised to expand the Republican party by destroying marriage equality and forcing a young woman to carry her rapist's baby to term. Trump (and empirical reality) got heckled. Rubio got cheered. Wildly. Nobody commented on the obvious disconnect from physical reality.

One of these guys has to win the Republican nomination. That's the reason why the process through which they have to haul themselves, and the fact that their party has lost its mind, matters. That's why ignoring the spectacle of what actually happened on Saturday night is a disservice to journalism and to the country. It's not Trump, boys.

It's the rest of y'all.

We've learned the hard way in Wisconsin that most media will not give the straight facts about issues unless the public hammers them and reminds others of the reality they are choosing not to report. It's a big reason the amount of posts I started writing went way up starting 5 years ago this month, when Gov Walker first "dropped the bomb", and our state's media promptly dropped the ball in its responsibilities to the public. And we need to do it again as this destructive GOP will try to block President Obama from performing his Constitutional right of nominating a Supreme Court justice and performing his duties as president for the last 11 months he is in office, because you know the DC-based media will want to shrug and say "President Obama says the sky is blue, the GOP says the sky is green," and leave the independent facts out of their stories. Don't let them get away with it.

This GOP crew deserves to get its ass beat into oblivion over the next 9 months of elections, and we can start by voting in the State Supreme Court primary this Tuesday, and remove Ms. Rebecca Bradley (Foundation) from the position Scott Walker appointed her unqualified, foolish self to. And yes, I'd love to see some media try to have Walker explain why it's OK for him to appoint one of his buddies for a few months when a state Supreme Court Justice dies, but it's not OK for President Obama to do the same for SCOTUS.

Not that I'd expect much in terms of coherence from Scotty. After all, this guy was such a clown that he couldn't even last 3 months on the same stage with the dingbats that were making fools of themselves in South Carolina last night.

Pleasant shocker from DC!

Oh yeah. HELLS YEAH! Things were looking good already, but it just got a whole lot brighter today.



UW 70, at No. 2 Maryland 57

Oh, you thought I was talking about Scalia dying? Yeah, that's pretty cool to get a racist, 20th-Century trogdoldyte off the nation's highest court, and opening the door for Citizens United and other heinous decisions to start to be reversed.

I'm also loving Obama throwing down the gauntlet and saying he'll DO HIS JOB, and nominate a candidate for SCOTUS. Go ahead GOP, try to obstruct that. With 20+ GOP Senators up for re-election, we'll see if the public accepts you failing to do your constitutional duty. You know, do the exact opposite of what the Democrats in the Senate did when Anthony Kennedy was nominated by lame-duck Ronald Reagan in his last year in office....and the Dems OK'd the nomination.

But that's to be determined in the future, just like the Badgers' NCAA tournament hopes. For tonight, both the SCOTUS and Badger basketball is a pretty intriguing situation that's looks a lot more different than it did this morning.

PS- You think the Badger basketball players want Greg Gard to keep the head coaching job?

"I told you we were gonna celebrate!"https://t.co/VvCuEZHq43

— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) February 14, 2016

PPS- Keep those killer 1970s-style uniforms with the Bucky on the shorts.

Louisiana budget crisis shows where Wisconsin's heading

You want to know what the future looks like in Wisconsin as they continue their strategy of cutting taxes for the rich, corporate and well-connected, and lower services and wages for everyone else? Take a look at what’s happening in Louisiana right now, which also was afflicted with a Teabag governor with a failed presidential campaign in 2016- Bobby Jindal. Jindal was replaced by Democrat John Bel Edwards last month, and check out the mess Bobby left behind for Edwards to clean up.

The panel that identifies the state’s projected income again lowered its expectations for the budget year that ends June 30, as well as the fiscal picture for the following year.

State legislators, who are gearing up for a budget-focused special session this weekend, will now have to come up with about $850 million in cuts to state services or new revenue to balance the current year’s budget and more than $2 billion for the budget that begins July 1.

“For all practical purposes, Louisiana is in its own recession,” said Greg Albrecht, the Legislature’s chief economist. “It’s come on pretty rapidly.”

One big culprit in Louisiana’s fiscal collapse is the plummeting of oil prices, which are a major industry in the state and a large reason behind the state losing 17,600 jobs in 2015, as well as an unemployment rate well above the rest of the country, at 6.1% This has led to decrease in income and sales tax projections, as well as royalties from the oil industry.

But there’s another factor in Louisiana’s loss of revenue, and it relates to a long-time strategy of Jindal and the state’s GOP Legislature in trying to attract jobs to the state by giving away massive, WEDC-like tax breaks to corporations.

The state is operating at a net negative on corporate income taxes — meaning it is paying out more in rebates than it is taking in as revenue.

Think about that- right now the state of Louisiana is giving out more money to corporations than it’s getting back in corporate taxes! That’s how fucked up Jindal’s policies were, and it directly accounts for such a disastrous shortfall with an economic policy that encourages such rampant rent-seeking.

Things are so bad in Louisiana that Edwards went on TV last night, and not only said that the state’s tuition repayment program (called the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS) is so underfunded that Louisiana can’t pay the universities until the budget crisis is figured out.

“Due to the possibility of state budget cuts, all TOPS payments are being suspended until further notice,” said an email from the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance that went out to all TOPS eligible institutions at 3 p.m. “More details will be provided as information becomes available.”

However, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday night that none of the 49,710 students who are TOPS recipients will have to cover the cost of their scholarships. While about 20 percent of the TOPS scholarships will not be paid, the governor said it will be the universities and colleges that will absorb the loss.

Which means the universities would have to eat millions of dollars. Which they don't have. And that’s not the only bad thing that might happen to the state’s public univerisities.

You can say farewell to college football,” he said in his televised speech about the dire state budget situation Thursday evening.

NO LSU TIGER FOOTBALL? Now that statement will get the rednecks’ attention. No opener against the Badgers in Lambeau Field with new Tiger Defensive Coordinator Dave Aranda (and his $1.3 million salary) having his first game come against the school he just left? Got my attention as well, since I just got the ticket info for that game today. I'll be lucky to get two tickets....if there's even a game at all.

Edwards is likely exaggerating about there not being any LSU football, but here’s what he meant by that. LSU and the other public schools in the state would run out of money at the end of April. If nothing is resolved by then, it’s possible the faculty and staff walk out (because they’re not being paid), and/or the schools go BANKRUPT, which ends the semester with a ton of incompletes. And even by the shady standards of the SEC, having a semester full of incompletes leads to full-scale academic ineligibility for sports, which means no LSU football in 2016.

Again, that’s an extreme outcome, but you see just what a disaster 8 years of Jindalism and other Bubble-World ALEC policies have been in Louisiana. And Wisconsin is heading in the exact same direction with our own 40-something, economically illiterate governor. We’ve also underfunded our universities, we’ve also cut taxes for the rich and corporate, and we’re also facing chronic budget deficits that have to be fixed year after year.

And just like Louisiana, our governor and ALEC-owned Legislature refuse to consider rolling back the tax cuts that they’ve put in to repair the fiscal damage those moves have caused, and instead continue to double down on the austerity policies that have so badly failed. So while we can react in disgust at how screwed the Land of Duck Dynasty is due to the regressive, negligent policies of the recent past, we need to realize that this is what Wisconsin’s could well look like in the near future, unless this GOP wrecking crew is replaced this Fall.

Oh, and if LSU isn’t able to pay for Dave Aranda because the university goes broke, can we get his expertise back on the sidelines in Madison? Just curious.

WisGOP failure on road sales tax means more messes on the street

I’ve occasionally discussed a push in the State Legislature by rural and outstate legislators to allow for a new 0.5% local sales tax that is dedicated for road maintenance and related street work. In general, I support this move, although I question why the WisGOP Legislature has been negligent in giving adequate funding to local governments, which caused the problem in the first place.

Well that bill has turned into a debacle that illustrates just how incapable the Wisconsin GOP is when it comes to putting together real solutions for real issues. It was scheduled to be discussed in the Assembly on Tuesday, but it was promptly delayed and never voted on. So they thought they might able to pass it today as part of a massive Assembly calendar, but instead the bill failed again to get enough support to reach the floor, and now Assembly Speaker Robbin' Vos says he doesn't think the bill can get through because not enough Republicans can agree on the details And given that Vos is trying to wrap up the Assembly's session next week (despite the fact that all members of the Assembly continue to be paid for the 8 months afterwards), thatlikely means the local sales tax for roads is off the table for the at least the rest of this year.

Doubly interesting was an compromise amendment that Vos and outgoing GOP Rep. Dean Knudson tried to tack onto the sales tax bill for more support for this “local road sales tax" bill, one which would have placed a ban on new local vehicle registration fees, or “wheel taxes”. The proposed ban is especially intriguing since 14 Wisconsin communities currently have a wheel tax, and 11 of those have either began or been raised since the start of 2015. It was a lame attempt to try to save face with voters by saying “Look, we’ll keep your car registrations at $75!”

Not only would wheel taxes have been banned, but the bill had the ban taking effect yesterday, meaning that local elected officials couldn’t even consider them as an alternative to a referendum for the sales tax. Which sure seemed like yet another example of this “small-government GOP” Legislature micro-managing local governments. And just like with the attempted limitation on school referenda and continuing strict property tax limits (something Gov Walker just re-committed to this week), the WisGOP Legislature is desperately trying to limit the higher taxes and fees the locals have had to impose in recent years... The same taxes and fees that are a direct result of the WisGOP Legislature not giving them enough funding in the first damn place!

The problems surrounding this bill, which would allow local governments the freedom to offload some of their expenses on road repair from the property tax and make tourists and others pay some of the freight, is symptomatic of how Baggers fail to govern. The Wisconsin GOP have proven themselves incapable of handling state finances in a responsible manner, one which would be able to keep state and local taxes relatively low while maintaining needed services. Instead, they have chosen lower state taxes and giveaways to their corporate campaign contributors, while stiffing the local governments, who are either constantly having to raise property taxes, or see needed maintenance and services decline. This mentality helps explain why the state’s economy continues to stagnate (if not outright decline), and now all of us are paying the price for those bad decisions.

This is especially true when it comes to funding work on local roads, as another budget year will slip by without additional help for those communities, either in the form of added state aid, or allowing them to put on a local sales tax to pay for those roads. Which means you can expect more potholes and more wheel taxes for this year and next year, and you can thank the lack of leadership being shown at the Capitol by the Wisconsin GOP and Gov Walker for that ongoing problem. Do NOT let them escape without consequence this Fall.

WisGOP's next sneaky plan to cut millions from public schools

Just because the Wisconsin state budget transferred tens of millions of dollars from K-12 public schools to private voucher schools, it doesn't mean the ALEC crew at the State Capitol is done messing with public schools for the next two years. You may have noticed this debacle from the GOP-controlled Assembly from last week.

An Assembly committee Thursday abruptly scrapped a vote on a proposal to reduce the amount of money public school districts can raise to offset the loss of state aid for taxpayer-funded private school vouchers.

The decision by Assembly Education Committee chairman Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, came less than an hour before a scheduled 1 p.m. vote and hours after the Wisconsin State Journal began asking questions about the proposal. School officials also mobilized against the idea Thursday.

It could result in a $22 million loss in taxing authority for public schools, according to a Wisconsin Association of School Boards memo to members.

Here’s a look at the Leigslative Fiscal Bureau's memo in question on how the amendment would have worked.

...under current law, school districts receive full revenue limit authority for incoming choice pupils in each year of their attendance in a choice program through a separate revenue limit adjustment, not as part of a district’s enrollment count. Under the amendment, districts would no longer be eligible for a separate adjustment for incoming choice pupils, but they would receive revenue limit authority for these pupils by including them in enrollment counts, similar to every other type of pupil that districts count for revenue limit purposes. Under the three-year rolling average enrollment to calculate revenue limits, districts would have revenue limit authority for one-third of a pupil in the first year of his or her attendance in a choice program, two-thirds of a pupil in the second year, and three-thirds of a pupil in the third year.

Attachment 1 provides information on the effect of the provisions of AA2 on the calculation of revenue limits as if it had been in effect for 2015-16. Specifically, Attachment 1 shows the revenue limit for each district in 2015-16 under current law and under the provisions of AA2 if it had been in effect for that year, as well as the change in the revenue limit for each district, both in dollar and percentage terms. The revenue limits for the 282 districts without incoming choice pupils would not have been affected by the provisions of the amendment. All of the 142 districts with incoming choice pupils would have been affected by the loss of the revenue limit adjustment for those pupils. For a district with increasing enrollment, this would have been partially offset by the increase in the current year revenue that would result from including incoming choice pupils in the September, 2015 enrollment count. For a district with declining enrollment, the increase in enrollment resulting from the inclusion of incoming choice pupils would have resulted in a reduction in both its declining enrollment adjustment and its prior year base hold harmless adjustment. Under this adjustment, if a district’s initial current year revenue is less than the districts base revenue from the prior year, it receives an adjustment equal to the difference.

The memo also lists how badly each of the 142 individual school districts would be hit as a result of the amendment. The total amount is $22.7 million in revenue, which likely would translate into more cuts for those districts, but what’s stunning about this is how heavily concentrated the losses would be in Racine (where Speaker Robbin’ Vos worked to expand the voucher program in 2011), as well as other mid-size urban school districts in Wisconsin.

Top 10 districts losing funding ability under voucher amendment
Racine $7,443,267
Kenosha $1,248,578
Green Bay $936,044
Waukesha $903,652
Wausau $642,969
Appleton $587,352
Stevens Point $482,295
Oshkosh $479,560
Eau Claire $461,408
Sheboygan $381,001

What’s also worth mentioning is the percentage cuts, which hit some smaller, suburban school districts harder. District such as Burlington, Cornell, Little Chute, Portage, and Shawano each would lose more than 1% of their revenue ability under this bill- on top of the cuts that have already been imposed at those schools.

The Wisconsin’s School Administrator’s Alliance has been all over this bill from the start, and actively has opposed this backdoor cut of public schools. Even with the original amendment yanked, there appears to be a second amendment that will be taken up at tomorrow's hastily-called Assembly Education Committee meeting, and the SAA says something else awful may well be in that new amendment.

The new amendment differs from AA 2 in that it attempts to address negative consequences to declining enrollment districts that would occur as a result of the switch to a new calculation method. It tries to accomplish this by excluding new voucher pupils from membership (enrollment) for purposes of calculating declining enrollment adjustments for three years.

The SAA remains opposed to either amendment. Here is the bottom line: if your district has resident students in the statewide or Racine voucher programs, under either amendment, you will lose revenue limit authority and you will likely have to pay for your voucher students by reducing educational opportunities for the children that remain in your district. We strongly oppose these efforts and urge you to keep the pressure on state lawmakers.

Amazingly, this amendment that would pull millions of dollars in potential funding from public schools is on top of an already-bad voucher bill that will continue to give private schools extra money for special needs scholarships...even if the child doesn't have special needs anymore!

This is a clear example of the consequences of voting Republican. Government is used to funnel taxpayer dollars to their campaign contributors in the voucher movement, at the detriment of all public schools and Wisconsin's communities. And now that property taxes are going up to make up the difference for this defunding of public education, the WisGOPs decide to take extraordinary steps to limit the chances of local people voting to raise taxes for their schools, even if the local people are OK with raising taxes to support their public schools.

But then again, the GOP doesn't care about how bad things get as a result of their defunding of public education in Wisconsin, as long as those campaign contributions keep rolling in and they think they can get votes from the rubes by "sticking it to those teachers" (and taking their political power). And it only stops when the Wisconsin voters make them stop.

Today's Wisconsin polls show Sanders, not Clinton, is best for Dem electability

A couple of interesting reads on Wisconsin polls hit Wisconsin’s two largest newspapers over the weekend. The first was Saturday’s installment from Craig Gilbert’s “Wisconsin Voter” series in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and it went in-depth on in-state polls regarding the Democratic presidential primary between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

Gilbert quotes Marquette Law Poll director Charles Franklin, who points out the geographic and demographic differences between Clinton and Sanders in the state polls. Gilbert admits that these numbers likely understate Sanders’ current support, because it consolidates the last 4 months of polls, during which Sanders has closed the gap on Clinton from 12 points last September to 2 points in the most recent poll that was released last week.

In Wisconsin, the byproduct of these political and demographic fault lines is a regional one. The Madison TV market is the only part of the state where Sanders has enjoyed a clear edge over Clinton in recent months, boosted by his strength among young and very liberal voters. But in the city of Milwaukee, Clinton has led Sanders by an average of more than 30 points, reflecting her strength among African-Americans and older and more moderate white Democrats. It made perfect sense that Sanders' first Wisconsin stop last year was Madison and Clinton's was Milwaukee.

The polling numbers reflect "divisions on age and ideology, especially, and race to some extent, and how that's embedded in our geography," Franklin said. "You see it dividing up right along I-94 between the state's two strong Democratic bastions."

Those two areas alone won't determine the outcome of the Wisconsin primary if the race is still going strong in April. "The rest of the state really does matter," Franklin said.

Hold onto that point about “the rest of the state” while we go into our second poll-related story, mentioned as part an in-depth Wisconsin State Journal story on Sunday from Matt DeFour regarding Gov Walker’s taxpayer-funded propaganda “listening tours.” Those closed-to-the-public events started in light of his plummeting approval, and as DeFour notes, Franklin’s Marquette Law School Poll showed serious deterioration in Walker’s support in the non-urban, non-Democratic vote (urban Dems already disapproved of him).

Among Republicans Walker’s approval level dipped from 92.5 percent in fall 2014 to 84.2 percent more recently.

Walker’s support has plummeted the most among self-described independents and independents who “lean Republican.” Among the latter group his approval level fell 22.3 points to 60.9 percent, though Franklin noted those voters are more likely than self-described independents — whose approval of Walker dropped 19 points to 23.2 percent — to vote for Walker if he runs again.

Walker also has seen his support evaporate in the northern part of the state, where his approval level is down 21.2 points, and the Fox Valley region, where it is down 16.5 points. In the conservative stronghold of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties, Walker’s approval level is down 10 points to 54.9 percen
The one place his approval level increased over the past year, by 5 points to 28.5 percent, was in Milwaukee County, though Franklin noted the increase was not statistically significant because of a smaller sample size. In September Walker signed a bill committing $80 million from the state over 20 years to a new Milwaukee Bucks arena, a move that was panned by some conservative groups.

The article also comes with some telling graphics, including this one that reiterates those geographic drops in approval in the northern half of the state, along with a noticeable drop among middle and upper-class Wisconsinites.



Now let’s go back to the Democratic presidential race, and the most recent Marquette Poll on the subject, which showed Clinton leading Sanders 45-43. Now note this breakdown across the various geographies of the state, among people who said they planned to vote in the Dem primary.

Clinton vs. Sanders, Wisconsin Jan 2016
Urban Clinton 48-38
Suburban Sanders 52-38
Rural Clinton 48-40

City of Milwaukee Clinton 65-23
Rest of MKE market Clinton 45-44
Madison market Sanders 55-31
GB/Appleton market Clinton 48-40
Rest of state Clinton 47-45

Relatively tight outside of the bases of Madison and the City of Milwaukee, isn’t it? But here’s where Clinton’s “electability” argument gets turned on its head, because in those same areas of GB/Appleton, the rest of the state, and the rural parts of Wisconsin where Hillary has a slight lead, Sanders does noticeably better against GOP opponents. Let me rerun these figures that I referenced in a post a week ago.

vs. Trump
City of Milwaukee Clinton +49, Sanders +44 (Clinton +5)
Rest of MKE Market Clinton -5, Sanders +9 (Sanders +14)
Madison Market Clinton +25, Sanders +40 (Sanders +15)
GB-Appleton Market Clinton +3, Sanders +11 (Sanders +8)
Rest of State Clinton +2, Sanders +6 (Sanders +4)

vs. Cruz
City of Milwaukee Clinton +42, Sanders +42 (0)
Rest of MKE Market Clinton -17, Sanders -7 (Sanders +10)
Madison Market Clinton +16, Sanders +39 (Sanders +23)
GB-Appleton Market Clinton -5, Sanders +11 (Sanders +16)
Rest of State Clinton +2, Sanders +6 (Sanders +4)

vs. Rubio
City of Milwaukee Clinton +34, Sanders +42 (Sanders +8)
Rest of MKE Market Clinton -22, Sanders -10 (Sanders +12)
Madison Market Clinton +16, Sanders +34 (Sanders +18)
GB-Appleton Market Clinton +1, Sanders +10 (Sanders +9)
Rest of State Clinton +5, Sanders +9 (Sanders +4)

In other words, those swing areas of the state, the ones which will decide the Dem primary and go a long way toward deciding the final outcome in November, are areas that Hillary Clinton wins the primary in for now, but Bernie Sanders does significantly better in for the general election. And those are the same areas that Scott Walker has suffered his biggest drop in approval over the last year.

So it seems obvious to me that in February 2016, there is one Democratic candidate that would be the most likely to win Wisconsin in November, and help the downticket rural and northern Wisconsin areas that must be swung toward the Dems in order for them to get power in the Legislature and gain seats in Congress. And unlike what the “professionals” try to spin to you (you know, the same ones who thought a bland Mary Burke campaign was the “most electable” strategy in Wisconsin in 2014), that candidate wouldn’t be Hillary Clinton, but instead is Bernie Sanders.

Take a look at those articles and those poll numbers, and show me how I’m wrong by saying Bernie's more electable and better for Dem prospects in Wisconsin. Not based on “Well, this may happen or the Republicans will say this” (bad assumptions as well, by the way) but based on the polling numbers themselves. Go ahead, try!