I have always been at the right place at the right time. It’s an odd talent.
After a lifetime of living all over the globe, and in 26 different places, the last 13 years of my life have been spent in the ranch house where I am typing to you today in Madison, Wisconsin.
As I was reminded once again on Friday morning, Madison is Ground Zero for the most important election of our lives …
Word had filtered to the semi-connected, and hardcore Democratic activists in this capital city that President Biden would be arriving here at noon to pull out his sword and draw a line in the sand to defend his candidacy, instead of doing what so many in our broken media and the weak-kneed in his party wanted him to do, meekly fall on it.
The pea-brained vultures had been circling his campaign since his poor debate performance a week earlier, somehow forgetting all the good the man had done for America that past 50 years.
He deserved better than this.
As the minutes slowly drummed by feeling like hours, I learned that the good man would be speaking at Sherman Middle School on the city’s blue-collar north side in about hour’s time.
It was a 25-minute drive for me, so I filled up my water bottle, packed up all my enthusiasm, jumped in my Honda Accord, and busted to smithereens every speed limit I saw to make it an 18-minute trip around Lake Mendota and to the vicinity of where our president had decided to dig in and fight.
I was with him, and I was a bit surprised by just how important it was to me that he absolutely knew that.
Turned out, Biden was going to be joined by the mayor of our city, our congressman, our extraordinary Wisconsin Democratic Chairman Ben Wikler, and our popular, two-term Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who up until that point had been quiet about where he stood regarding Biden’s candidacy.
In retrospect, this was really no surprise, because Evers’ strength has always been in the power that resonates behind a few carefully chosen words, and not a wobbly trail of run-on sentences. He is a career educator, who knows that saying too much, instead of only what needs saying, is the most effective way to make a point worth remembering.
Evers was there on Friday to make things just as plain as day: He proudly stood with our president.
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I parked my car on a side street figuring I was about as close as I was going to get to the rally thanks to the battalions of law enforcement officers on every corner patrolling the roads, and protecting the most powerful man in the world.
I’d like to tell you there was a buzz in the air, besides those nasty vultures overhead, but that was not what I was feeling. There was an uneasiness among the people who had only just learned that Biden was in the neighborhood to tell America he was fighting on.
North Madison is a checker board of middle class neighborhoods. Modest two- and three-bedroom houses line the streets like those little green houses you’d find on a Monopoly board. The people are mostly no-nonsense, sturdy liberals.
Madison, is known in Wisconsin as “77 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality.” That one was lofted at the city by then-Republican Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus many years ago, who at the time called our home but “30 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality.”
Well, thanks to people like me happening on the place, we’ve grown over the years into arguably the most powerful Democratic voting bloc in the nation.
When Biden beat the traitor, Trump, in 2020, the Dane County vote where Madison is housed looked like this:
Biden: 260,185
Trump: 78,800
That’s a 76%-23% margin right there, and a whole helluva lot of reality if you are on the other end of a sound ass-kicking in a battleground state like this.
President Joe didn't forget, and he let all of us here know it when he picked this place to make his stand on Friday.
I reckon there were hundreds of us inside and outside the school where Biden and the big shots were making the case that they never should have had to make: Joe Biden was the man to lead us through these important times.
And here’s where I tell you that there are no two different things on Earth than Democratic and Republican voters.
Democrats don’t dress up like cheap fools in slobbery, red costumes to appease tyrants. We’re a quieter, more introspective bunch, who carry clever signs, and at least outwardly will politely respect others’ opinions in the crowd.
And there were other opinions. Some of the people gathered that day, had seen enough of Biden, and respectfully wanted him to step down. Some just weren't sure, and wanted to hear what he and his supporters on the stage had to say.
Then there were people like me, the majority, who just couldn’t believe we were putting ourselves through this, but four months away from learning whether America was going to remain the home of the free, and not a burial ground for the brave.
We had learned only five days before that our bought-off Supreme Court was ready and waiting to anoint their orange, traitorous king.
So just what in the hell did we think we were doing wasting our valuable time and ammo blasting away at this very good man when the barbarians were so clearly at the gates???
I never got close to President Joe, but I ended up watched him alongside the smartest person in the neighborhood, and was once again at the exact right place at the right time.
I stood next to a woman who was in the proximity of my age. Evelyn told me she was a retired teacher who taught at this very school, and had actually been honored by Evers a few years earlier for her long, stellar career guiding our children. She was a person of character and substance, and somebody you could learn from if only you kept your mouth shut and listened.
So I did.
She pointed at a lovely little girl about 10 feet from us who wasn't sure what the fuss was all about, but was patiently going along with it nonetheless.
Evelyn said, “I can’t believe I am standing here today having to show my support for a man who has done more for our country than any president I can think of. I can’t believe I had more rights than my granddaughter when I was about her age. I can’t believe that THIS isn’t all we are talking about. I can’t believe my party sometimes ...”
Biden went onto to give a rock-solid speech and said he wasn’t going anywhere, but those ugly vultures won’t stop circling.
Oh how I wish they all could hear what Evelyn said to me 48 hours ago in a working-class neighborhood of Madison, Wisconsin ...
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough and on his website.)