Every year we strive to bring you a wonderful variety of progressive activist, authors, and politicians who are working on the front lines for peace and justice.

Speaker biographies and photographs for 2010 will be posted below once confirmed.

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin has represented Wisconsin’s Second District since 1999. She is the first woman from Wisconsin, the first out lesbian, and the first openly-gay non-incumbent elected to Congress. From her seats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee, Baldwin plays a key role in formulating national policy on health care reform, energy independence, climate change, civil rights, and executive accountability. A fierce advocate for those whose voices are often not heard, Baldwin is a firm believer in the power of the grassroots to create change.

John Bonifaz
John Bonifaz is the legal director of Voter Action and founder of the National Voting Rights Institute. He led the fight for a recount of the 2004 presidential vote in Ohio, and prevailed in federal court in Pennsylvania in 2008 to ensure that Pennsylvania voters would receive emergency paper ballots when they faced long lines caused by voting machine breakdowns. Bonifaz is the Director of the Free Speech for People Campaign launched by public interest organizations to amend the United States Constitution in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC.

Reverend David Couper
David Couper was the chief of police in Madison from 1972 to 1993, and served in law enforcement for 33 years. He is currently an Episcopal priest for St. Peter’s parish in North Lake, Wisconsin. When Couper retired from the Madison Police Department, it had an international reputation for excellence and innovation. After his ordination, he served two parishes in southern Wisconsin and was a trustee for the International Peace Council. He has participated in a number of inter-faith missions, including a Buddhist peace march in Cambodia, mediation in Chiapas, and the Parliament of World Religions in South Africa.

Edward Garvey
Ed Garvey is a co-founder of Fighting Bob Fest and the founder, editor and publisher of FightingBob.com.

Tom Geoghegan
Thomas Geoghegan received national attention when he ran as a progressive candidate for Rahm Emanuel’s congressional seat in 2009 (and was endorsed by Barbara Ehrenreich, James Fallows, Thomas Frank, James K. Galbraith, Hendrik Hertzberg, Alex Kotlowitz, Sara Paretsky, Rick Perlstein, Katha Pollitt, David Sirota, Garry Wills, and Naomi Wolf, among others). He is a practicing attorney and the author of several books, including Which Side Are You On?, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and received a special citation from the PEN/Martha Albrand Award judges, In America’s Court, and See You in Court. Geoghegan has written for The Nation, the New York Times, and Harper’s. He lives in Chicago.

Raging Grannies (Madison)
The Raging Grannies are social justice activists, all women old enough to be grandmothers, who dress up in clothes that mock stereotypes of older women, and sing songs at protests. They typically write the lyrics themselves, putting their political messages to the tunes of well known songs.

Stan Gruszynski
Stan Gruszynski directs the Rural Leadership and Community Development Program within the Global Environmental Management (GEM) Education Center at the Stevens Point College of Natural Resources.

Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann is the four-time Project Censored Award Winning, New York Times bestselling author of more than 21 books in print. Now carried on over 100 radio and TV stations, Talker's Magazine rated The Thom Hartmann Program as the number 1 progressive radio show in America. He's syndicated syndicated in radio and TV by Dial-Global, Pacifica, and Free Speech TV on The Dish Network and Direct TV.

Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower has spoken at every Fighting Bob Fest but one, and has spent more than 30 years in the trenches of public debate on behalf of consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and “just-plain-folks.” Hightower is a New York Times best-selling author of seven books. His newspaper column is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate. He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 150 commercial and public stations, on the web, and on Radio for Peace International. He publishes the award-winning monthly newsletter, "The Hightower Lowdown," which now has more than 135,000 subscribers and is the fastest growing political publication in the United States. He is the former editor of the Texas Observer and was twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr.
The Reverend Jesse Jackson is the founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and is one of the nation’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Throughout the past 50 years Jackson has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for civil rights, peace, equality, and economic and social justice the nation has undertaken. Jackson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000, the nation's highest civilian honor. He has been called the "Conscience of the Nation" and "the Great Unifier.” He is said to have walked more picket lines and spoken at more labor rallies than any other national leader. Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 campaigns for President of the United States registered more than 3 million new voters and garnered almost 11 million votes.

Peter Leidy
Peter Leidy is a singer, songwriter, and award-winning commentator on life in Wisconsin. His humorous observations involve politics, Wisconsin culture, the Madison scene, and personalized songs for individuals and special events.

Mike McCabe
Mike McCabe is one of Wisconsin's leading whistle blowers. He shines light in dark places at the Capitol as executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks the money in state politics, fights government corruption and works for reforms that make people matter more than money in politics.

Congresswoman Gwen Moore
Gwendolynne S. Moore was sworn in as represenative of Wisconsin's Fourth Congressional District in January, 2005 and was elected to a second term in 2006. As a Congresswoman, Moore has continued to champion legislation to foster economic prosperity and to promote progressive social issues.

Namakagon String Band
Come hear the popular folk group Namakagon String Band this year at Fighting Bob Fest. Come join them in the Litchner Pavilion at the end of the day while enjoying great conversation and an ice cold beer.

Congressman Dave Obey
Congressman Dave Obey frequently cites Fighting Bob La Follette in his speeches and writings and says the “bedrock belief of the Wisconsin La Follette Progress tradition” that “every American who works hard should be able to fully share in the bounty of America” is the foundation for his work as an elected official. When Obey was elected to the House of Representatives in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District in 1969, after three terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly, he was the youngest member of Congress. When Obey announced his retirement this year, he was the longest-serving member of Congress in Wisconsin's history and the third-longest serving current member of the House. Obey is the only Democrat in the House to have served on the Budget Committee, the Joint Economic Committee and the Committee on Appropriations.

Greg Palast
Greg Palast's investigative reports can be seen on BBC Television Newsnight. Palast, author of the New York Times bestsellers Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, is a Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for investigative reporting.

Piper Road Spring Band
Come hear the unique acoustic/bluegrass style music of Piper Road Spring Band this year at Fighting Bob Fest. Come join them over the lunch hour at the Litchner Pavilion while indulging in some local food and beer.

Donna Smith
Best known for her segment in Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary film, SiCKO, Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and a nationally recognized single-payer healthcare advocate. She is the founder of American Patients United, a national non-profit health care reform citizen-education organization. Since 2007, she has co-chaired the Progressive Democrats of America's national "Healthcare Not Warfare" campaign. As a journalist, Smith was honored by the Associated Press Managing Editors with 15 regional awards from 2004-2006 and by the Inland Press Association's top honor in 2006 for community-based journalism. She is a frequent columnist and blogger.

Nancy Unger
Nancy C. Unger is author of the prize winning biography Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer. She believes that understanding the stunning parallels between the original progressive era and our own provides both inspiration and effective reform tools.

David Zweifel