Madison really can be an intolerant place.
On another occasion, Novak was running near the Capitol, wearing a shirt from Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group. The shirt had grievances against President Obama listed on the back. Through his headphones he heard someone yelling and looked up to see a man on the other side of the street.
“This gentleman yelled, ‘Obama’s not a failure, you’re a failure!’” he said. “I didn’t know this person at all, I had never met him. There’s things like that.
“If I were to be running in Waukesha, I probably wouldn’t have someone yelling at me across the street.”
Being a woman working in Republican politics invites a different line of questioning.
“Sometimes I get the, ‘How can you be a woman and be a conservative? How can you be a Republican when there are all these reproductive rights issues? Are you … a traitor to your gender?’” said Flemming.
I lived in Madison, first to work and then went to school at MATC and U.W. Madison. I was not shy about my conservative views and it did hurt me. 1 “professor” failed me in a class and she tried to destroy my teaching career because of my views.
At the place where I worked, I was harassed by both supervisors and co-workers.
On the hand, I almost won a seat on the student council at U.W., losing by only 5 votes and beat out about 6 other candidates, and I was upfront about being a conservative.