This past year, Madison had the bittersweet opportunity to try out the image of itself it's been carrying around since the 1960s - that marching-in-the-streets stereotype that has been more lore than standard practice. Turns out, we do the protesty-demonstraty thing pretty well. Remember What a field day for the heat, a thousand people in the street from Buffalo Springfield? We can do one-hundred-thousand in the street no problem, and with the heat marching alongside everybody else. Well-wishers from around the globe bought Madison pizza. Even when those on opposing sides of the political spectrum rallied on the Capitol Square at the same time, no real violence, just squabbles, ensued.
The protests that followed the introduction of Gov. Scott Walker's "budget repair bill" and their aftermath inevitably filtered into this year's Madison's Favorites poll, in questions we asked about the political climate, and in questions we thought were about something else entirely. The answers from this year's poll show some evidence that we now have a surer sense of what we are as a community: Not just a stereotype; not wild-eyed hippie holdouts.
More than 2,300 of you voted in the poll, which does, in fact, cover everything from pizza to politics.
Thank you to everyone who participated.
Madison's Favorite Contributing Photographers, Tabulators & Writers:
Jeremy Sailing, Sam Clarke, Peter Patau, Carolyn Fath, Ellen Meany, Kristian Knutsen, Linda Falkenstein, Mary Langenfeld, Michelle Martin, and Carl & William Whiting.
