Why Racine?

We heard it again yesterday morning.  It seems as if this is the next question after “What are you doing?”  The person who asked said that she would just read our blog, as obviously we must have put the information there.  We hadn’t yet, but she is right; we should.

Throw a Dart at the Map?

Counties Trump Won - 2016

When we conceived this trip, a brief look at the red states, and the red areas of the blue states showed that a significant physical majority of the country does not vote the same way the San Francisco Bay Area does.  We could have thrown a dart at a map of the U.S. and likely come up with a place.  Or we could have started with all of the “red” areas and winnowed down.  None of this seemed practical.  

We met for breakfast and planning nearly every Friday morning for over 3 months before we left.  Each of us did homework in between.  Peter, who has been almost everywhere in the country at one time or another made three suggestions, all at places he had spent time before.

Spartanburg, SC; Columbus, IN; or Racine, WI?

First was Spartanburg, South Carolina, then Columbus, Indiana, and Racine, Wisconsin. I researched each of these for voting patterns, racial makeup poverty rates, crime rates, employment rates and to get a general feel of the communities.  

All three would meet our needs but the elimination process was surprisingly easy.  I rejected Spartanburg because I thought that race would be such an overarching issue that it would keep us from seeing other things that I thought should be part of the investigation.  Peter took Columbus out of consideration because he had spent so much time there while employed by Cummins that he would have been influenced by that and feel an obligation to spend too much time with former co-workers.  So we took a deeper look at Racine.

Racine Wins!

Wisconsin is a state in transition.  It had been progressive. The Governor prior to Scott Walker was a Democrat and the governor before that was a moderate Republican who worked well with both parties.  Now it has Scott Walker in office and having survived a recall effort. Paul Ryan is the Speaker of the House.  There was redistricting so one sided that the Supreme Court had taken it as a gerrymandering case.  Republicans were in the majority in the State Legislature and they needed no participation or cooperation from Democrats to pass legislation. It was firmly in control of the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

After we selected Racine things started happening.  The potential Foxconn deal broke into the news.  I sent a link to Peter with the comment:  “This changes everything.  I have no idea as to how, but change is certain.”

We learned about nearby Janesville and the book of the same name mentioned in another post (Resource Books for the Listening Tour").  We learned about two other books, also about Wisconsin that were right on point.

We’ve not been at all disappointed in the choice.  Wisconsinites, to a person, have been warm and welcoming.  We are getting details in their stories that indicate they are being open to us.  It has been intense and a LOT of fun.

-- Dave