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Margaret Grace, a junior and member of Marquette University's College Democrats, spent two years helping with one hectic Wisconsin campaign after another. After working so long to organize volunteers, make phone calls and knock on doors, she said it felt weird to have all the elections come to an abrupt end. "It's certainly different. We were saying, 'What are we going to do now that we don't have a campaign to work on?'" she said. Her group says it's considering partnering with environmental or women's rights groups on campus. All those Wisconsin elections meant plenty of campaign spending: $81 million in the Walker recall race, about $65 million for the U.S. Senate race and $44 million for the state Senate recalls last year. A lot of that money went to TV stations in battleground areas such as Brown County. Stations have to give legally qualified candidates their best ad rates. But issue groups, who are often well-funded and eager to spend, can be charged anything, said Steve Lavin, the station manager at WBAY-TV in Green Bay. Where a regular advertiser might be charged $2,000 for a prime-time spot, an issue group could be charged $20,000 to $30,000, he said. That left some reliable advertisers scrambling for preferred spots. David Gruber, a personal injury attorney, is well-known throughout the state for his catchy commercials. But with fewer favorable time slots to choose from, he said his office compensated with billboards and website ads. So many elections in such a short time could have caused Wisconsin voters to burn out. But the opposite was true. While voter turnout nationally was lower Tuesday than it was in 2008, the number of Wisconsin voters who turned out increased by about 80,000. Still, the elections took a toll on some people. Rita Pincsak, 63, of Brookfield said political divisions caused her to break off friendships with people whose views weren't compatible with hers. And James Stanhope, 60, of St. Francis said he stopped answering his phone for the past two months to avoid robocalls. "I've gotten sick and tired of it," said Stanhope, adding that the endless TV commercials were intolerable. "I mean, when you know ads by heart and they start playing in your head, you've had too much."
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