The New Train Hold-up

Authentic frontier gibberish leadership:

In his State of the Union address this year, the president called for building high-speed rail, and backed up his words with $8 billion in stimulus money, distributed to various states, for rail projects.

But Republican candidates for governor in some of the states that won the biggest stimulus rail awards are reaching for the emergency brake.

In Wisconsin, which got more than $810 million in federal stimulus money to build a train line between Milwaukee and Madison, Scott Walker, the Milwaukee County executive and Republican candidate for governor, has made his opposition to the project central to his campaign.

Makes you proud to be a North American. Among many, one question is whether some non-trivial number of voters already believe this is the way to go or are these guys – and these are mostly guys – able to convince them. I mean, what’s the appeal of thumbing your nose at hundreds of millions of dollars coming to your state for infrastructure upgrades and expanded capabilities also known as huge quality of life improvements? Sure, running against the black socialist president might poll well, but c’mon man. A huge country full of big cities connected only by interstates and airports. How far does resentment toward fancy European transportation systems actually take you? Maybe the real question is, how long does it take to get there?