Ron Paul Turnout Hurt by Spring Break and Mitt Romney Can't Relate to the Working Man in Wisconsin Primary

What are your friends saying about the election?

My friend who is a vocal Democrat says that he is voting for Mitt Romney in the primary because, “I want this to be over and Romney isn't terrible.” He tells me that he knows some Democrats who say they will vote for Santorum because they think he'll be easy to beat. 

Are there any other local factors that could play a role about how many people vote, like the weather or traffic?

University of Wisconsin-Madison is on spring break this week. This may mean there will be fewer votes for Ron Paul in Dane County.

Additionally, it's been unseasonably warm in Wisconsin, so weather will not be a reason keeping people from the polls. The only place that has traffic in Wisconsin is Madison, and traffic is nothing in Milwaukee. Also, Madison and Milwaukee tend to have strong Democratic leaning, so even if there were traffic, it wouldn’t have a big effect on the Republican primary.

Describe the radio, television, and web ads that are playing.

My mom tells me that she gets a lot of robo-calls about the election. “It is annoying,” she says.  I spoke with a friend of mine who was recently visiting her grandparents in Wisconsin, and she tells me that they got a house call from Santorum's or Romney's campaign nearly every day.

The TV ads running in Wisconsin are all negative.  My friend admits that she is already decided on Romney, but regardless, the negative ads frustrated her, no matter at whom they were directed. Some of Romney calls include a policy briefing from Townhall, which she found to be informative, and she felt that Romney built credibility during that time. 

My friend also comments on Romney’s continuing inability to relate to working-class people. For example, in one call, he recounted a story about when his dad shut down manufacturing in Michigan and “offshored" it to Wisconsin. Later on his dad was in a parade when he ran for governor and the band marching in front of him only knew how to play On Wisconsin rather than the Michigan fight song, which obviously didn't go over well with the crowd. Even though this was intended to be humorous, it’s difficult to imagine that people who lost their manufacturing job would find it funny. “He would have been better off talking about cheese,” my friend says.

There are also a lot of Walker ads — both for and against the Walker recall — even though it won’t occur until June.

Regarding the upcoming Walker Recall:

My thoughts are that the recall should not be happening and is a waste of taxpayer’s money.  The purpose of a recall should be for clear wrongdoing by an elected official. This is not about that at all. If an elected official abuses power, he or she should be recalled. If an elected official supports legislation which you oppose however, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. If an elected official supports legislation which you oppose, you should focus on the legislation and not the individual. Work through due process to modify or change the legislation, but do not recall the elected official. Even if I were opposed to the recently passed legislation, I would still not support the recall effort.