This story ran 3/15/2012 on Dane1.com

In the tale of two Kathleens vying to replace Governor Scott Walker come the recall election, Sen. Kathleen Vinehout is the lesser known, though her star is rising and she’s fast getting a reputation for straight, folksy talk and a hands-on, grassroots style. She’s also relatively new to politics in comparison, first elected in 2006 into a district that includes Tomah, parts of Eau Claire, and a solid chunk of the Wisconsin-Minnesota border.

Vinehout is a former dairy farmer, a former university professor (she taught health administration for ten years) and, along with her 13 Democratic colleagues in the Senate, left the state for three weeks last spring to slow the progress of the union-stripping Act 10 through the Legislature. She was one of several potential candidates interviewed by union leaders this winter, and on Feb. 8 she put an end to the speculation and officially declared she would run.

Vinehout and I sat down at Michaelangelo’s last Thursday for a talk similar to Emily’s chat with her opponent: why is she running, what are her plans, and can she say more about questions that have surfaced about her commitment to women’s reproductive rights?

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