"A series of shocking text messages purportedly show Philip Frank, the partner of Democratic State Representative and Madison-area Congressional candidate Mark Pocan..."

"... threatened a volunteer for Pocan’s Republican opponent days before the volunteer was found beaten. Last Wednesday, Kyle Wood, a full-time volunteer with Republican Chad Lee’s Congressional campaign, was beaten inside his home in Madison by a yet-unidentified attacker who claimed that as a gay man Wood should be supporting the gay candidate for Congress."

This is an extremely disturbing story that appears at Media Trackers, which describes itself as "a conservative non-profit, non-partisan investigative watchdog." This elaborates on the report which we discussed here, 3 days ago. At the time, I said: "Real or hoax? I don't know, but I remember Ashley Todd from the '08 election season."

ADDED: If these really are texts from Pocan's partner, we ought to know more about the whole context. Maybe these 2 men have been exchanging playful texts that would make this material feel more like joking. Releasing this texting conversation makes it fair for the other side to release other conversations, and yet it's not in Pocan's interest to draw attention to any of this.

UPDATE: Media Trackers has taken down the long text conversation it previously posted.

UPDATE 2: "Kyle Wood, a campaign worker for the Republican congressional candidate Chad Lee, today recanted his statements about being assaulted and choked at his home on Oct. 24, according to Madison police." Recanted?! That's not enough. Either it was a false report or it wasn't. If it was false, Wood has committed a crime.

"I will not be bullied into voting for a gay man simply because I am gay."

Said Kyle Wood, a volunteer for Chad Lee (R), who is running against Mark Pocan (D), for the House seat in my district here in Wisconsin. It's the seat being vacated by Tammy Baldwin (D), who is running against Tommy Thompson (R), for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Herb Kohl (D).

Pocan (like Baldwin) is openly gay. Wood says a man — "white, 6 foot 2, with curly brown hair, a broad nose and a muscular build" — entered his home at 8 in the morning and beat him up, saying “You should have kept your (f------) mouth shut” and that he had been “warned.” Wood says the "warning" was graffiti on his car that said “house trained republican faggot,” “traitor,” and “ur like a jew 4 hitler.”

The police say they believe the injuries were "minor," but The Daily Caller report says Wood's "eyes were swollen shut by the beating, and he suffered a concussion along with neck and head lacerations." A photo at the Caller shows marks on Wood's neck made by what Wood terms "a ligature."

There you have it. Real or hoax? I don't know, but I remember Ashley Todd from the '08 election season.

UPDATE: Wood has recanted. More here.

Meade goes to Obamastock.

Me, I was working yesterday, even locked out of the law school, so I didn't make it to the big political rally in the center of campus — Bascom Mall. But Meade was there, and he was really inspired. He wrote a song about his nearly ecstatic experience, and he won't stop singing. It goes like this:

I came upon a child of Obam-a
She was walking by Sterling Hall
So I asked her, "Where are you going?"
And this she told me...

"I'm going up to Bascom Mall,
I'm gonna join in a political rally
Gonna put out my two hands
Try and keep my birth control free.

We are starstruck
We're beholden
And we've got to keep ourselves in government lardon."

Then can I walk beside you?
I have come here to dialogue
And with a Flip cam, I feel like Herzog,
Artistically burning.

Well maybe it's just not our year,
And maybe, well, Yes We Can
But Tammy B and Mark Pocan
Have my stomach churning.

We are starstruck
We're beholden
And we've got to keep ourselves in government lardon.

By the time we got to Bascom,
We were thirty thousand strong
Everywhere you looked - career politicians.

And I dreamed I saw drone bombers
Chooming roof hits in the sky,
Turning into Obama Pies
O'er Bascom Nation

We are starstruck
We're beholden
And we've got to keep ourselves in government lardon.

"The next openly gay member of Congress will almost certainly be Wisconsin State Rep. Mark Pocan..."

"... a progressive small business owner who won the Democratic primary tonight in the Congressional District that has been represented by Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin for the past 14 years."

He'll be my Congressman. Here's an old post of mine where Pocan makes a strong appearance: "WI Assemblyman Mark Pocan confronts CEO president Roger Clegg, calling him 'some guy' who 'came all the way from Virginia' to tell us what 'all us flyover country folk don't know.'" (The topic was affirmative action.)

Subliminality.

Here's something the Obama campaign did in an ad — displaying the word "felons" for 6 seconds on a graph labeled "Romney."

More locally, a candidate named Mark Pocan, running for Congress in my district, had an ad displaying the word "assassination" over a photograph of his opponent — Kelda Helen Roys — looking oddly like Lee Harvey Oswald!

WI Assemblyman Mark Pocan confronts CEO president Roger Clegg, calling him "some guy" who "came all the way from Virginia" to tell us what "all us flyover country folk don't know."

I've already blogged a few times about the report of the Center for Equal Opportunity — here, here, and here — but what happened today was a hearing at the state Capitol before the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities. Clegg was invited to explain the Center's report, which accused the University of Wisconsin undergrad program and law school of violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution through our use of race as a factor in the admissions process.

Mark Pocan, a Democratic Assemblyman who represents much of Madison, lit into Clegg, as you can see in this clip, shot by Meade. Pocan is saying the report lacks detail on student transfers and academic performance, then yells at Clegg for being "some guy" who has flown in "to pontificate at the importance you brought from the east coast to us." Clegg is a very mild mannered advocate, so the contrast between the 2 men is pretty rich:



Here's the Wisconsin State Journal report on the hearing:

"There is overwhelming evidence that the University of Wisconsin in engaging in racial and ethnic discrimination, and it should stop," Clegg told the committee during a tense hearing. "In a country like ours, the only system that will work is one that plays no racial favorites. Anything else is a recipe for disaster — for division, strife and balkanization."

Paul DeLuca Jr., UW-Madison provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, stressed that academic performance remains the key factor in admissions. At the same time, though, the school wants to build a diverse student body.

He pointed out that Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen issued a 2007 opinion that found the school's admissions approach complied with a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that race can be one of many admission considerations. He also pointed out that only 14 percent of UW-Madison students are minorities....

Whether the University complies with the standard laid down in the Supreme Court case law is, of course, crucial, but the state legislature has the power to impose a stricter standard on the University (if it thinks that's a good idea). In addition, it's possible that the CEO plans to use this case to get affirmative action back into the Supreme Court with the hope of changing the legal doctrine.

Giving the keynote address at the blog summit.

Next Saturday is the WisPolitics/WisOpinion "Blog Summit." It's open to the public, but you do have to register. It's your big chance to go to Waukesha. I'm going to be giving the keynote address, from 1 to 1:20. Here's the rest of the program:

1:25 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. The Legalities of Blogging by Jennifer L. Peterson, attorney, LaFollette Godfrey & Kahn. Short speech and question-and-answer period.

1:45 p.m. to 2:10 p.m. "Why blog? Defining the phenomenon from a citizen bloggers' perspective'' Owen Robinson of Boots & Sabers and Jay Bullock of folkbum's rambles and rants lead a discussion with other citizen bloggers.

2:15 p.m. to 2:40 p.m. Moderated panel discussion: How will history view early blogging? An academic view. Jessica McBride, journalism instructor, radio talk show host and blogger, UW-Milwaukee; John McAdams, blogger and Marquette professor of political science; and Ken Mayer, UW-Madison political scientist.

2:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. Moderated panel discussion: Impact of blogging on election 2006. Participants: Ed Garvey of FightingBob.com, Charlie Sykes of WTMJ-AM, state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, and Brian Fraley, GOP strategist and blogger.

Feel free to give me some advice on what to talk about. If it's a "keynote" address, is it my responsiblity to set the key? Is there a such thing as an "off-keynote" address?

Franken at the Barrymore.

Al Franken was in town to do a live broadcast of his Air America radio show, here on State Street, at the Barrymore Theatre. I hadn't noticed that this was happening, or I might have felt I head out into the cold yesterday so I could tell you about it. But The Isthmus has a good report, with a bloggish set of pictures:

The show was on stage from 11 am through 1 pm, with Franken speaking to a parade of local lefty pundits and Democratic politicians, such as Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, State Rep. Mark Pocan, and Gov. Jim Doyle (via phone). The theater was standing-room only, with nearly one thousand officially ticketed attendees. "I think we packed the place," says Brian Turaney, who is the program director for The MIC.

The live-broadcast was well-received by the politically-liberal crowd. "It's a great event whenever Al comes to town," Turaney explains. "It's great, especially on a cold winter day, to get together and see how many people are like-minded. It's great to see how many people came out and how happy everybody was."

Yeah, it was really cold. Drawing a big crowd for a 3-hour radio show is pretty impressive. But this is Madison! We're not sissies about the cold, and we love the rousing lefty politics.

The crowd is very enthusiastic, applauding regularly and excitedly at Franken's punchlines and rhetorical flourishes made by the political guests.

That's what ever comedian wants to hear: how loud the crowd ... clapped.

The age range of the crowd is diverse, ranging from the myspace Generation to the Greatest Generation. It is also overwhelmingly white and middle class (at least in superficial appearance), certainly reflective of the radio station's listenership. This makes sense, given the need for many audience members to take (at least) several hours out of their work day to attend. In terms of general appearance, conservative naysayers envisioning "hippies" or whatever the fantasy du jour is (as is often the case among those negatively commenting on liberal gatherings of this type) have little to work with.

Is that what you conservative naysayers envision? Well, at least we know that (liberal?) journalists envision conservative naysayers envisioning Franken's audience as somehow rotten-looking.

It sounds as though most of the show was trotting out the local politicians. Franken is a radio genius if he made that interesting. I remember how Bruce Springsteen -- that denizen of Franken's iPod -- reacted when he had to share the stage with Governor Doyle: "I think this will be the governor's last experience as my opening act."

UPDATE: I'm mixing up the Barrymore and the Orpheum! Sorry. The Barrymore is way over on the East Side and would have required a car ride.