Bruce Murphy of Milwaukee Magazine is as usual doing some fine reporting about local politics.

In their 2004 races for Milwaukee County Supervisor, Joe Rice and Paul Cesarz promised to give back portions of their salary to the community. The move was meant to advance their position that Milwaukee County Supervisors make too much money for the work they do, and as a form of protest against that, they’d donate substantial amounts of their pay back to community groups.

Turns it out it was simply an empty campaign promise.

But two Milwaukee County supervisors, Joe Rice and Paul Cesarz, ran as reform candidates who promised to give back an exact amount of their salary. Cesarz promised to donate precisely $48,000. Rice promised to give back $149,360. Those promises made them seem like bargains to the voters, and naturally helped them get elected.

Cesarz did not respond to my e-mail question or return a phone call. Rice e-mailed me to say he is now “compensated at the same rate as the rest of the members of the county board of supervisors,” and that he made no promises to give back salary when running for re-election in 2008.

To be honest, there are County Supervisors in Milwaukee that work the bare minimum by showing up for committee meetings and the once a month Board meeting but take home the entire salary.

Those who pay attention know who these Supervisors who play the “three years off, election year on” game are.

They end up giving those Supervisors who do work hard and represent their constituents a bad name, and that’s an unfortunate thing, because those Supervisors who do work their tails off get lumped in with the lazy nuts on the Board of Supervisors.

At the end of the day, it’s up to the constituents of elected officials to hold them to promises made during campaigns. It’s also up to the media to remind those constituents of promises made in the past which have gone unfulfilled, and in that regard, Mr. Murphy is doing a good job although this would have been more relevant information 9 months ago when these two Supervisors were running for re-election.

GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin in her latest interview on CBS:

He’s got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we’ve been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he’s got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I’m the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he’s got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.

She’s not talking about John McCain as the experienced Senator and Barack Obama as the new energy there, she’s talking about herself and Joe Biden.

You have to wonder what Gov. Palin’s handlers are telling her right now in preparation for Thursday night’s debate? Something along the lines of, “Remember you’re here to help Sen. McCain, not hurt him..” might be in order after the past few weeks.

UPDATE Oct 27th. I have a number of Obama/Biden yard signs available. Please email me (dems@dancody.org) if you still need one.

Oddly enough, the #1 question I get about the Presidential campaign is where to get an Obama/Biden yard sign.

The national campaign apparently can’t keep up with demand and shipping dates are around four weeks. If you’re interested in picking up an Obama/Biden yard sign, contact the local Democratic Party of Milwaukee County office below.

We just got a big shipment in but they’re running out fast.

You can pick them up at the DPMC office at 170 S. 2nd Street or call 414-223-3050 to reserve one.

How Mavricky! Sen. McCain’s bad last couple week continues:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

The rush to claim he had engineered a victory now looks like a strategic blunder that will prolong the McCain’s campaign’s difficulty in finding a winning message on the economy.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines. - Politico

I was on the road last night and caught most of the debate on the radio. Reading some of the wrap-ups this morning, it sounds like Sen. McCain had a problem acknowledging or even looking at Sen. Obama last night. What’s up with that?

Other than that, being stuck in my pre Nixon/Kennedy debate world was actually quite interesting. You catch a lot more of what they’re actually saying, and how they’re saying it, on the radio. One thing I caught last night was McCain using entire sentences of his stump speech as responses to questions.

That’s fine if you’re at a town hall meeting, but we’re at a debate here, aren’t we?

As for Sen. Obama I think his tone and his pacing were good. He sounded sure of himself and had a good command of the issues in a verbal sense.

One thing I really didn’t care about with this debate was the way the moderator was almost goading the two to talk to each other. “The Senator seems to be saying you’re lying, do you have anything to say to that???”

While catching the debate on the radio was an interesting experience, I think I’ll catch the next two on the preferred medium of my generation, the television.

McCain is fully RESUMING his campaign according to the TV and will show up for tonight’s debate.

Not that his campaign was ever suspended of course, it was just a massive political stunt that achieved one thing: re-enforced his reputation for making rash decisions with little or no thought on the consequences.

Just the kind of person we don’t need making decisions in the White House for the next four years.

As far as political stunts go, what an absolute train wreck this was.

More sleazy attempts from Republicans to keep voters from the polls this November:

Colorado Democrats accused a Republican county clerk Wednesday of falsely informing Colorado College that students from outside the state could not register to vote if their parents claimed them as a dependent on their tax returns.

At a news conference in Colorado Springs , Democrats also charged that county clerk Robert Balink took several steps to dampen voter registrations among college students, who are likely to favor Democrat Barack Obama . Balink was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. McClatchy

The overall Republican strategy is clear for this November’s elections: Disenfranchise, confuse, and scare as many voters as possible to keep turnout low among key Democratic demographics.

This entire thing with Sen. McCain “suspending” his campaign has at the very least injected a dose of humor into the Presidential campaign.

A day after saying he was going to suspend his campaign and refusing to participate in the first Presidential debate on Friday night in order to focus on the economic crisis, Sen. McCain will be on all three network news channels tonight.

John McCain will appear on all three network newscasts tonight, a top aide said.

McCain is at the White House meeting with President Bush, Barack Obama and congressional leaders now and will tape interviews with NBC, ABC and CBS after the West Wing session.

McCain also appeared in a taped interview last night with Katie Couric on CBS.

Aides are still in wait-and-see mode on whether they’ll attend the debate but are prepared to have the candidate jet down to Memphis, the closest major airport to Oxford, as late as tomorrow afternoon if a deal is reached.

So he’s got time to hit the network news channels, but not participate in a debate that has been in the works for nearly a year?

In all seriousness, was this the worst decision yet in the campaign by McCain? Not only is there zero upside for him by refusing to debate Obama tomorrow night, there’s a massive downside that I think people are starting to pick up on.

The only people I’ve heard from or talked to who take McCain seriously with regard to this “suspension” business is John McCain. Even some of my Republican friends were shaking their heads about this.

I think this could be one of the biggest miscalculations certainly in this campaign, and perhaps in recent history. Anyone think otherwise?

Cut jobs. Raise bus fares. Privatize anywhere and everywhere you can.

If the County Executive’s budget proposal released today sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

No new ideas, no real plans, just pure ideology.

It’s time the residents of this County face the facts. Scott Walker doesn’t care about the future of Milwaukee County or the well being of those who live here. Plain and simple. This budget, and everything he’s said and done in recent history is done solely to advance his political career and his eventual campaign for Governor.

Seriously, raising bus fares to $2.25 for a one way trip? That’s classic Walker!

Walker wants his aides get a 25% pay raise while the men and women who rely on bus service to get to work and school are socked with a 15% increase. Fewer good paying jobs, more handouts for private companies.

No real plans and no new ideas once again from Scott Walker.

The College Republicans are actively campaigning for John McCain at UW Milwaukee right now in the union, despite Sen. McCain “suspending” his campaign for President.

Maybe they didn’t get the message that they’re supposed to be suspending campaign activities so Sen. McCain can focus on the economic crisis after his speech this morning to those attending the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting.

…to followup, I also just heard an advertisement for the McCain/Palin ticket on the radio. Campaigning seems to be going on as normal everywhere you look. The only thing that seems to be suspended is McCain’s willingness to debate Barack Obama tomorrow night.

This must be why conservatives are so excited(!!) about their Vice Presidential candidate:

That, my friends, is confidence in your VP candidate you can believe in.