Candidate Abraham Challenges LAIC, Boosts Main Street, Talks to Voters

Incumbent Madison city commissioner Nick Abraham gets the last of five candidate profiles in the Madison Daily Leader. He says just enough of the right things to make me feel comfortable with my Madison neighbors re-electing him tomorrow.

Commissioner Abraham offers cautious praise of the Chamber and the Lake Area Improvement Corporation. I'm uneasy with his statement that "A lot of what they accomplish goes unnoticed." Why not use this interview to tell us some of those unnoticed things instead of expecting us to just imagine that the LAIC is doing wonderful things?

Abraham salvages his economic development commentary by sending perhaps the clearest signal a Madison politician that the LAIC expects too much from taxpayers:

However, Abraham said the partnerships among Madison, the Chamber and LAIC don't mean that support needs to be universal.

"The city can't be playing a major part with all of their projects," Abraham said. "They need to realize that we don't need to fund everything that they do.

"For example, they came and asked us to support about a third of Forward Madison II -- and that's a lot" [Chuck Clement, "Abraham Seeks Second Term with City," Madison Daily Leader, 2012.04.02].

That's a lot—please, please tell me that we can interpret that comment as a signal that Abraham will not vote to give the LAIC more free taxpayer subsidies with no accountability... and that he will push his fellow commission members to follow suit.

Abraham mentions a couple of other policies, which is a couple more than some other candidates mentioned in their profiles. Abraham mentions the challenge of making urgent upgrades to the city's water system as we struggle with maxed-out bonding capacity. He also mentions the need to strengthen the city's revolving loan fund to support a downtown improvement project.

Off policy, Abraham makes an apt mention of his ability and willingness to talk to citizens while he's at his day job:

Up to this point in his adult life, he's worked as a mechanic at F&M Co-op in Madison, and it's a job that gives local residents the opportunity to talk to Abraham about his other responsibilities as a city commissioner.

"People will ask questions more often than make complaints," Abraham said. "It's a very easy atmosphere for someone to ask for information.

"Many people find that asking informally, face-to-face is a lot easier than coming to a (city) meeting" [Clement, 2012.04.02].

With regret, I've had to ding Abraham in the past for being a little too open with some bigoted language about Muslims that isn't acceptable from a public official trying to put Madison's best face forward (language for which the commissioner subsequently apologized). But his comments above highlight an important sensitivity to the nature of his political job: as commissioner, he works for the voters, and when they ask him questions, he has an obligation to respond. He may be elbow-deep in grease and grit, fixing their flats or wrestling with fan belts, but he also recognizes that citizens may strike up useful conversations with him at the F&M shop that they won't have the chance or the courage to start in more formal settings.

Nick Abraham is the only blue-collar worker currently serving on the Madison City Commission. He's the only blue-collar worker among the five candidates on the ballot tomorrow. Abraham's working-class background has likely contributed to his willingness to call out the crony capitalism that other commissioners so blithely cheer.