The 16th Assembly District is a microcosm of Milwaukee. The district fans out west from the Milwaukee River and encompasses parts of Riverwest, Brewers Hill, the near north side and the west side of Downtown Milwaukee. The district's residents are diverse in every way, and their challenges and opportunities represent the challenges and opportunities of Milwaukee as a whole.

State Rep. Pedro Colon-who ran for Milwaukee city attorney in April-is seek ing re-election to the state Assembly, which he hopes will be controlled by the Democrats in November. But first Colon faces two challengers for this South Side district-nurse Laura Manriquez and Jose Guzman.

In just the past week, violence has flared in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Russia invad ed Georgia. Pakistan's president resigned instead of being impeached. Thanks to this kind of instability, the next U.S. president must have a tremendous sense of judgment and foresight when carrying out this nation's foreign policy. Thinking through the consequences of state ments, relationships and grudges is mandatory for a respected statesman.

The discovery that John McCain's remarks on Georgia were derived from Wikipedia, to put it politely, is disturbing and even depressing-but not surprising. Under the tutelage of the neo conservatives, who revealed their super ficial understanding of Iraq both before and after the invasion, he favors bellicose grandstanding over strategic thinking. So why delve deeper than a quick Google search? Worse still, neither he nor his advisers yet grasp how our misadventure in Mesopotamia has diminished American power and prestige. In fact, the Wikipedia episode-an awful embarrass ment that would have devastated the presidential campaign of Barack Obama or any other Democrat-revealed an underlying weakness in Sen. McCain's vaunted grasp of foreign policy.

State Rep. Sheldon Wasserman’s decision to run for the state Senate seat currently held by Republican Alberta Darling created an opening for Democrats. Not only does Wasserman have a shot at turning a Republican district Democratic, but the Assembly seat he’s vacating allows an up-and-coming Democrat to serve in the...

Gov. Jim Doyle is following John McCain’s lead into a nuclear future, the Republican Party of Wisconsin crowed last week. Nuclear supporters claimed that Doyle, who’s seeking to become a green governor, wants to end the 25-year-old moratorium on building nuclear power plants in Wisconsin.

Two new reports are fueling the debate about whether Wisconsin—or Milwaukee in particular—is a “tax hell” that drives away businesses or whether corporations receive tax breaks that individuals don’t. A new Public Policy Forum study found that property taxes rose 6% in southeastern Wisconsin last year, an increase shouldered by individual homeowners and renters.

Sen. John Kerry barely squeaked out a victory in Wisconsin during the 2004 presidential election, with just 11,400 more votes than President George Bush. So it’s no wonder that community organizers are working to register the tens of thousands of Latino voters in Wisconsin who are eligible to vote but don’t show up...

Touring America's oil rigs and nuclear plants, John McCain sometimes sounds as if he'll produce enough wind to power the nation all by himself. So strongly does his current rhetoric smell of methane—the gas emanating from manure—that he might even qualify for an alternative energy tax incentive.

Forced to cancel a planned visit to an oil platform off the Mississippi coast last week because of inclement weather—and the untimely leaking of hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil by a shipwreck in the vicinity—John McCain finally got his photo op at a Bakersfield, Calif., derrick on July 28.