Perhaps the most bizarre part of last week's Election Night Watching Party sponsored by the Republican Party of Dane County (see post, TheDailyPage.com) wasn't the guy overheard saying, "You know, it wouldn't surprise me if the Democrats started using the Koran," or even the handout evoking the eerie parallels between the rise of Adolf Hitler and that of the "abortionist" Barack Obama.
Rather, it was the effort made to shield the identity of the group's top official - its elected chairman.
He was there, all right, periodically addressing the audience from the podium. But he was not wearing a nametag and never said his name. Bill Richardson, the group's spokesman, told Isthmus the chair's name, but asked that it not be used. Other media were asked not to photograph or quote anyone without permission, expressly to prevent the negative consequences that could ensue from being exposed as a Republican.
The chair, whose name appears on the "Most of the people on the city council and County Board are very far left folks," explains Richardson, and others in Madison are similarly intolerant. "If they find out he's the chairman of the Dane County Republican Party, they'd say, 'No way are we going to do business with this guy.'" Then why do local officials give millions of dollars in subsidies to developer Terrence Wall, a self-described "Ronald Reagan conservative" who enjoys picking fights with the left ("Up Against T. Wall," 10/2/08)? "He's a mover and a shaker," says Richardson. "He's big enough to make things happen." Other Dane County Republicans, avers Richardson, live in near-constant fear. "Their cars get keyed, all the time," he says. "Their homes are painted with obscenities. Things are burned into their lawns. Their kids are scared half to death." Really? Oh, yeah. According to Richardson, the chair's car was vandalized. Richardson himself, a former UW-Madison music professor, once had a guy on a bike "start screaming at the top of his lungs" because he didn't like his "Vote No to Cut and Run" bumper sticker. "That happens over and over in Madison, all the time." For this reason, Richardson asked Isthmus to please not print the chair's name. With the poor man's livelihood if not his life in jeopardy, due to the sheer wickedness of local liberals, that's the least we can do.
