Author Archives: dave cieslewicz

The Onion headline writes itself: Democrats Replace Candidate Sure to Lose With Candidate Pretty Sure to Lose. Now that Joe Biden has — at long last — dropped out of the race, the Democrats should not rush to select his replacement on the ticket. They’ve got almost four weeks before their convention and they shouldContinue reading “Dems: Take A Breath”

The UW’s power plant on Walnut Street is one of my favorite buildings on the campus. It’s clean, crisp, unadorned, functional. Odd Angles is a regular Sunday morning feature at YSDA. On my many walks around Madison I like to snap pictures of spots I like that nobody else would think to photograph.

The editors on the Quote & Quiz Desk had a challenge this week, what with the Republican Convention producing candidates for quote of the week on a minute by minute basis. But we finally settled on this gem from Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance: “When Mamaw died shortly before I left for Iraq in 2005,Continue reading “The Q&Q For 7/20/24”

I didn’t plan to watch Donald Trump’s speech. Just as my Sheepshead game on the Memorial Union Terrace (it was a lovely night with a great band playing in the background, though I lost 40 cents in the game) was wrapping up, I noticed on the screen inside the building that Trump had started speaking.Continue reading “Trump Rambles the Dems Back to Viability”

Today’s theme is that stuff changes. For two nights the Republicans did a fair job of lowering the temperature on their rhetoric. I doubted they could keep it up. They didn’t. It started with Kimberly Giulfoyle who screamed about “illegals!” and all kinds of other imagined threats. As I watched her for some reason ImeldaContinue reading “So Much For That”

The Republicans are having a good convention. There is less red meat (though still plenty of it) to excite the base and more attempts (some pretty disingenuous) to win over the small, but crucial, number of independent voters. Last night we saw Black speakers talk about crime (it’s down, but you’d think it was rampant)Continue reading “Same Old, Same Old For Dems”

Nothing has moved the needle much in our politics. Will an assassination attempt do it? Before Saturday evening I had intended to write that the Republicans should see if they could get their deposit back on the Fiserv Forum and cancel their convention. There’s an old rule in politics that when your opponent is diggingContinue reading “Moment of Truth”

Porter Boat House casts its shadow on Addams Hall while a bike path meanders through the narrow gap between the two buildings toward the Lakeshore Path on the UW campus. It was a hot Friday afternoon when I took this photo on my way to a beer and some music on the Memorial Union Terrace.Continue reading “An Odd Angle”

This week’s quote comes to us from none other than Donald J, Trump, Jr. In his podcast this week he discussed potential running mates for his father and he had this to say when he came to Marco Rubio: “By the time my father’s hand moves off the Bible in the swearing-in process, the secondContinue reading “The Q&Q For 7/13/24”