Why is Waukesha county so heavily Repuke?

[ButterflyBlood]

I live in Minnesota and we have some Freeper filled outer suburban counties too, but none of them are near as Repuke as Waukesha, or as large for that matter. In fact, Waukesha is also far more Republican than any other suburban counties in the Midwest, such as the ones around Chicago or Detroit. What's with that place?

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Funny you noticed that.

Actually, years ago we rounded them all up & put in one place so we could watch them.

[eyesroll]

2. Money

I live in the one somewhat liberal neigborhood in the city of Waukesha (near Carroll College); the city itself is about 50/50. It's also the most economically and ethnically diverse city in the county. My neighborhood, for instance, is an older area -- my house is 120 years old; the neighborhood has houses worth $90,000 and houses worth $250,000, and some of the dwellings on each end of that spectrum are duplexes and triplexes, so we get a nice mix of students, retirees, teachers, iron workers, engineers, mechanics, etc. We've also got a growing Latino population, and most of the African-Americans who live in Waukesha County live in the city proper (it's not a huge number, though).

The rest of the county is pretty much urban sprawl, without a lot of affordable housing, but a lot of 5-acre lots and three/four-car garages. It's also exceedingly white. We've got money here, without the things that can mitigate Freeperdom, such as racial diversity, religious diversity, union membership, etc.

Something to remember about Waukesha County, though, is that we have the third-highest number of Democrats in Wisconsin, after Milwaukee and Dane, simply because the county is huge.

[Zynx]

3. Money and Rednecks

I live in Delafield, slighly west of the middle of the county. Other than (parts) of Waukesha itself, in this county you have entire subdivisions and towns either full of or dominated by wealthy people or people who want to say they are wealthy.

You also have large numbers of redneck 30,000-a-year Repukes who are knee-jerk patriots/bigots. Waukesha County used to be "Good Ol Rural America" up until around twenty years ago. The county itself wasn't made more prosperous overall since then, the rich from Milwaukee just migrated for better schools, less crime, and frankly less of/distance from blacks. Busing had a *huge* amount to do with the development of Waukesha county. It's like why Detroit and Chicago have a bunch of rich suburbs. Milwaukee just basically all went in one direction because there is nothing in Racine and Kenosha worth looking at. Plus Waukesha County is generally really nice looking.

So, while a whole bunch of rich white people have moved out here, you still have the original rural types who question the manhood of liberals. A classic example would be Dousman. It's a dirt-poor shithole by the standards of the county, but its extremely heavily Republican. Plus, this area tends to have a lot of conservative religious for some reason. Hardcore Lutherans, fairly serious Catholics, evangelicals, even a decent group of Mormons. This mix of dumb Redneck American, religous groups and rich self-interest leads to things like our DA being a rabid fascist weasel but being generally loved. This county is also *extremely* heavy on gun ownership. The opening day of deer season is excused at a lot of the high schools across the county.

There are, as was mentioned, a decent number of democrats here just because of the size, but the odds of a Democrat who isn't a DINO ever winning anything are about zero. On the plus side, the Republican we send to Congress, Sensenbrenner, is a good man who hates the Patriot Act. He also controls the Judicary Committee, so we are perfectly happy, as a smaller state, to have him.

[Magrittes Pipe]

4. Actually, Sensenbrenner LOVES the Patriot Act.

The "over my dead body" line was a sham. You should've heard what he said when he introduced Asscroft in Milwaukee last year (on the "Let's Go, Patriot Act!" tour).

Sensenbrenner is a tool and a charlatan. Even hard-right-wing Republicans (his, and Tom De Lay's, natural constituency) think he's an asshole -- I mean, they still vote for him, because he espouses the same bigotry they do, but the don't like him.

Oh, and having F. Jim Senselessbrenner on the Judiciary Committee is like having... well, it sucks.

[eyesroll]

5. Hi, Zynx -- F. Jim was using the Patriot Act to raise money in 2002

Here's his 2002 letter to his fans on his campaign Web site (courtesy of the wayback machine)

http://web.archive.org/web/20030724101912/http://sensenbrenner.org/Jims_letter.html

Excerpt:

For the past 1 ½ years, I have been Chair of the Judiciary Committee. We have approved - and the House has passed - the USA Patriot anti-terrorism act, abolishing the INS, a law improving visa and border security, a bill banning partial birth abortion, President Bush's faith-based initiative, bankruptcy reform legislation and updating anti-trust protections in telecommunication law.

NONE of these proposals would have even been considered in committee had the ultra-liberal John Conyers been the chairman. He would have used his power to schedule to advance his liberal social agenda. The same would have happened had David Obey of Wausau become chairman of the Appropriations Committee and Charles Rangel of New York taken charge of the Ways and Means Committee and its power to rewrite the tax law.

---
If he hates USA-Patriot so much, why was he touting his passage of it on his Web site.

You may also recall he introduced the damn thing in the first place:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:H.R.3162: