LETTERS: Vinehout is Best Choice for Governor

Let’s put aside the popularity polls and commentaries that focus on a candidate’s appearance and money to consider who is likely to accomplish what the people of Wisconsin need most: reliable health care for all, a livable environment, a sound economy, fine public schools, affordable post-secondary education, common sense gun control, programs to prevent discrimination and to solve serious mental problems that lead to addiction, and so on.

If you want these things to happen instead of remaining on a wish list, vote for Kathleen Vinehout in the August 14th primary. She has been elected to the Wisconsin Senate three times from a mostly conservative district in western Wisconsin. In each of the last four cycles, she has prepared an alternative budget that showed how these objectives (and more) could be achieved with the same tax dollars as the proposed budget. She has written columns on all these issues (and more).

Kathleen has visited Door County several times since 2010, when she famously said she wished she had kept her barn boots to wear in Madison. A farmer, a former college professor and a thoughtful legislator, she is thoroughly familiar with the way state government has worked in WI and is thoroughly prepared to make it work differently. “People First” is more than a slogan. For example, she notes that a coalition in Eau Claire actually created the 3,000 jobs Foxconn has said it “might” create – without charging the people of Wisconsin four billion dollars.

At a recent house party in Baileys Harbor, Kathleen addressed two controversial issues: abortion and gun control. Her position on abortion is clear and sensible. While she believes that it can become less common (even rare) with better contraceptive education, she supports a woman’s right to make this decision with her doctor and to receive safe care in a medical facility. On gun control: she favors permits for concealed carry, background checks, laws against devices that turn guns into automatic weapons, no weapons for teachers, and so on, as do most Democratic candidates.   

Her positions are based on a wealth of experience, which she shares on kathleenvinehout.org, along with links to the columns she has written on each issue she addresses. This gives her a recorded depth that none of the other candidates can claim.

By putting “people first,” she seeks to restore the democratic process that has been lost in the last eight years. In her words: “Democracy is a set of rules that allows all of us to participate in making community decisions. . . . Restrictions on voting, floods of corporate money, and speed and secrecy in the making of laws are the tools of those who seek to centralize control, restrict democratic practices, and take power from the people.”

We could not ask for a more credible and accountable candidate for Governor! Vote for Vinehout to restore democracy.

Estella Lauter

Fish Creek, Wis.