Springtime, must be candidate season in the Coulee Region

The La Crosse area has elections every April, but there’s only a race for president every four years.

The 1976 primary campaign, in which Gerald Ford was the incumbent, brought the leading candidates to La Crosse during a two-week period. Ford led a Saturday night rally at the Sawyer Auditorium downtown, less than a week after Ronald Reagan had spoken at the same hall during a Ducks Unlimited banquet. Governor Jimmy Carter had stopped in La Crosse the previous fall, but returned during primary week for a speech at UWL’s Cartwright Center. George Wallace and Henry “Scoop” Jackson also campaigned in the city in ’76.

When Reagan was finishing his second term in 1988, candidates seeking to replace him made trips to western Wisconsin. Senator Al Gore held a UWL campus event, with his wife Tipper and his father also coming to La Crosse. Senators Paul Simon and Bob Dole both paid visits to the Heileman brewery, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson drew a crowd to the La Crosse Airport on April Fool’s Day.

The 2016 primary featured a trip to La Crosse by Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton. She spoke at Western Tech, and also tried her hand at using a beer tap at the Pearl Street Brewery. John Kasich gave a speech in West Salem. But over 3000 people attended a rally for Bernie Sanders at Onalaska’s Omni Center.