Milwaukee Concerns

Milwaukee - Spent this weekend listening to numerous people in Milwaukee in one of Wisconsin's most diverse and densely-populated areas.

Asking residents (living in expensive homes, modest homes, and rentals) their concerns in open-ended questions, I expected answers on Iraq, the national debt, the price of a college education, downsizing and outsourcing to be the most frequent complaints.

And downsizing and outsourcing were mentioned, but by far the biggest complaint was the lack of respect for a person's home, a quality-of-life issue for which residents seek redress from all levels of government.

Complaints ranged from jerks littering on front yards, vandalism, loud music, trespassing, with burglaries rounding out the list.

The consistency is striking, residents in a $500,000 home two blocks down from a $100,000 home share the same anger toward trespassers, vandals, and people screaming in front of their homes like they're at a Brewer game.

In so many words, people just do not like anyone messing with their homes in which they have carved out their familiar, calming refuge in an increasingly isolated, inequitable society.

Advice to Obama: Never forget to bring the campaign all back home; no one likes people pissing near their castle walls. Facing declining tracking poll numbers, get local fast.