Flaherty Needs Help To Make History April 1
Milwaukee –3rd District Aldermanic candidate Patrick Flaherty would like to make a little LGBT history April 1. To become the first-ever openly-gay elected member of the Milwaukee Common Council he will need plenty of two V’s: votes and volunteers.
  Though his race lacks the tabloid factor and resultant media coverage of 6th District’s Michael McGee’s jailhouse campaign, Flaherty has drawn statewide and even a bit of national interest. A number of highly visible LGBT political figures - from Madison’s Assembly Representative Mark Pocan to Fair Wisconsin’s Interim Executive Director Glenn Carlson - have hosted “out of district” fundraisers for Flaherty. The opposition has taken notice as well. Supporters of Wisconsin’s own “Fred Phelps” - Ralph Ovadal - recently leafleted parts of the 3rd District with their anti-gay screed.
  This past week nationally syndicated advice columnist and author Dan Savage used his most recent column to promote Flaherty’s campaign. Savage recommended that his readers support the campaign in response to discriminatory comments made by Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern.
  Here’s the excerpt from Savage’s column:
  Question: “I love your column, and am sure you’ve already gotten a million e-mails about Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern and her hateful gay-bashing video on YouTube. She’s deplorable, and other people deserve to know about her hating ways. - Justine”
  Savage’s answer: “ ‘I’m not anti-, I’m not gay-bashing,’ Sally Kern says on her now-infamous audio recording, before she goes on to say that homosexuality is ‘the biggest threat that our nation has - even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat.’ Nice. Then after exposing early childhood education for what it is - a gay plot, dontcha know- Sally bemoans the fact that ‘gays are infiltrating city councils. . .  they are winning elections!’ We certainly are, Sally, because infiltrating city councils - and school boards, and state legislatures - isn’t just for right-wing Christian bigots anymore.
  “Decent folks are understandably angry with Ms. Kern. But instead of sending Sally an angry e-mail- excuse me, I mean in addition to sending her an angry e-mail (sallykern@okhouse.gov) - make Sally’s worst nightmares come true. Patrick Flaherty is running for alderman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The general election is coming right up on April 1. Help make her worst nightmares come true by sending a campaign contribution to Flaherty via his website: www.patricknewleadership.com.”
  There has been plenty of support from local political figures as well. Flaherty picked up the endorsements from two former primary opponents: third place finisher Sam McGovern-Rowen and John Connelly. The Shepherd Express endorsed Flaherty as has Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and 4th District U. S. Congressional Representative Gwen Moore.
  Flaherty feels optimistic about his chances. “It’s been going great,” he said. “We had a big St. Patrick’s Day event and it was fun for me to look out in the room and see all the different constituencies I’ve worked with over the years: the LGBT community, people from labor, from neighborhood (organizations). It was really satisfying to see that.”
  But Flaherty realizes that he faces an uphill battle. “The Common Council has been around for 160 years. 98% of the people who have been on the council have fit the demographics of my opponent,” he noted. “There’s still some barriers even on the east side of Milwaukee in some people’s minds (as to) whether a gay person can represent everybody.”
  Flaherty is aware of the anti-gay pamphleteering in his district. “We’re watching carefully Ralph Ovadal’s church from Monroe,” he said. “Last Saturday (March 15) they dropped an anti-gay flier in a good part of the district. We’ll be watching... to see if they’re back out.” The distributed fliers did not mention the campaign directly, according to Flaherty.
  Flaherty his long-term residency in the district will help him overall. “I’ve lived in the 3rd District now for many years, unlike my opponent who only moved back last year and is now running for office,” he said.
  However, Flaherty also noted that he feels as if he now may be running against “a kind of machine” campaign which recently put out a large, full color brochure about his opponent, Nik Kovac. “We are much more of a grassroots campaign,” he said. “We don’t have the money to put something like that out.”
  Getting out the votes will be critical to winning the race, although with no Presidential primary on the ballot, turnout April 1 is expected by many to be lower than the February primary. “There are a couple of really big races on the ballot - the Milwaukee County Executive race between Scott Walker and Lena Taylor and the statewide Supreme Court race,” he said. “Hopefully that will boost turnout. I know there have been a lot of television commercials for the court race, some of them pretty awful.”
  Besides getting out to vote, Flaherty said he needs “a lot of people to volunteer” in the next few days to help make his campaign successful. “We are having lit drops now through April 1,” he said. “These don’t involve direct contact with possible voters, for those who might feel a bit shy about campaigning.”
  Flaherty will need help with making reminder calls to likely supporters as well. “We’ll need people to make reminder calls right through election day,” he said. “No matter what you feel comfortable doing, even volunteering for a couple of hours in the next week will help.”
  To become part of what could be a history-making event for Milwaukee’s LGBT community, volunteers can call Kurt Dyer at 414-405-5878 or visit the campaign website at: www.patricknewleadership.com.