Sore Winners

One of Kevin Baker's commenters?

They, like me, are relieved that the state I grew up in (and where my mom still lives) was saved from those teachers and civil servants who make 30K a year who were poised to ruin hard working Wisconsinites lives. Thank goodness that the victims of this monumental attack (the Koch Brothers and other billionaires) are now free to live their lives!

Wisconsin Post Mortem

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker survived the recall effort and won 1,334,430 to Barrett's 1,161, 870. These results pretty much jibe with the polls and are nearly identical to the 2010 election with about 300,00 more people voting. So, what does all this say? Nikto has offered his take below and here's mine.

First of all, Walker may not have an across the board GOP legislature with which to work. In District 21, John Lehman (a Democrat) has prevailed over Van Waggaard in the town where I grew up (Racine). Of course, this matters little unless there is a special session before November when 11 of the 16 seats will be up again for election before the session next year. But it is something. The Democrats have control of the State Senate pending a recall.

In addition, I don't think this means much for the national election as these exit polls indicate people who voted for Walker also will vote for President Obama.

The president polled ahead of Mitt Romney by a wide margin – 51 percent to 44 percent, according to the exit poll conducted by Edison Research

Wisconsin voters also preferred Mr. Obama over Mr. Romney to deal with the economy, 43 percent to 37 percent, according to the ABC News exit poll. 

On “helping the middle class,” Obama beat Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, 47 percent to 36 percent.

The polls also show that 18 percent of the people that voted for Walker support the president. Why is this? My thought is that both Scott Walker and Barack Obama have effectively captured the perception that each of them are for the working man. Obviously, the former is not true. It will be interesting to see how or if the numbers change in Wisconsin over the next few weeks. If you click on the icon to the right, you can see the latest polls show Wisconsin to be a "Lean Democrat" with the president ahead 50 to 43 percent, according to the latest Marquette poll.

Bottom line, Romney is a weak candidate in Wisconsin and has a lot of work to do. The last time the GOP won the state was in 1984. Heck, the GOP couldn't even win it when Bush the elder beat the snot out of Tank Boy! The next few days will see a lot of hay made by the right wing media industrial complex but just like hay, it will be light in actual substance. People simply like the president more than the like Governor Romney.

Some other thoughts...

As Nikto said below, you don't run the same candidate twice. You think the Democrats would have learned their lesson 60 years ago with Adlai Stevenson. Barrett was a poor candidate.

Is Wisconsin the first state to be purchased by the Koch Brothers? In this day and age of Citizen's United, it sure does look that way. I am seriously bummed about this.

It's going to be interesting to see what comes out of this criminal investigation with Walker. Could it end up being Nixon lite? I guess time will tell...

Even though there are a few rays of light out of all of this, I'm still pretty bummed. For those of you who are happy about this, where's the victory?

Here Comes Their Hero

I'm still amazed when I hear the right whine about the liberal media. To begin with, isn't that playing the victim card?

Yes. Yes it is.

But the real stunner is that they think it even exists in the first place. Take a look at this recent piece about Scott Walker in The New York Times.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Walker, who is only the third governor in the nation to face a recall election, dashed onto a makeshift stage on a loading dock here as supporters screamed, the song “Only in America” pounded from loudspeakers, a bank of television cameras rolled and Mr. Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, beamed behind him. 

With the remnants of a sinus infection and round-the-clock campaign stops lingering in his voice, Mr. Walker urged the crowd not to let up, declaring that union bosses were pouring money into the state to remove him because, he said, “they don’t like the fact that we’ve got a governor here who stood up and took on the powerful special interests.”

That sounds to me more like a description of Bruce Springsteen's latest concert than a political event. I'll leave Walker's line about special interests and pouring money alone...for now:)

Of course, the Times isn't the only paper doing it. My local paper, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, which has been called the Star and Sickle on more than one occasion, has this article in today's paper.

The right finds its champion: Wisconsin Gov. Walker

"People recognize you've got to have bold and courageous people in politics to take on the status quo and say, 'This isn't working,'" said Kurt Bauer, president of the organization. "If we can't do it in Wisconsin -- if we recall Governor Walker for doing something that was difficult but necessary -- it's a bad omen for the rest of the nation."

The whole piece is one giant love fest for Governor Walker.

Here's another piece from Politico  which essentially makes Scott Walker look like a victim. And here's a list from RCP with the same general themes I have mentioned thus far.  Hell, even the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has endorsed Walker! 

So, I'm wondering...where's that liberal media again?

An Anarcho-Capitalist Pleasure Palace

With the Wisconsin recall election less than two week away, it looks as though Scott Walker will hold off the recall efforts. I predict he will win. Of course, he may not be able to govern in the way he would like because I also predict that one of the four senate recall elections will flip back to the Democrats and tie him up at the State House. Honestly, though, I don't think this matters to him as he now has his sights set on the national stage.

Politico has a great piece on how the recall elections have turned Walker into a conservative hero. Indeed, the right wing media industrial complex with its all too willing audience will welcome him with open arms and shower him with money on how he stood up to the evil teachers and civil servants who are ruining our economy on a daily basis.

So why did the recall effort fail? Again, Politico lays it all out here.  In my view, there were several factors that inhibited the Democrats. Tom Barrett is a great guy and would be a magnificent governor but he already lost that election once. The alternative (Kathleen Falk) was far too liberal. Had the Democrats put up a great candidate...someone like Russ Feingold, for example....Walker would have been toast. There was also the issue of recall fatigue. People these days just can't pay attention that long and give a shit. Believe me, I know, I'm a teacher:)

I guess what frustrates me the most about all of this is the ignorance of the facts. When it comes to jobs, neither side in the recall election can claim victory. The latest jobs numbers show no real significant movement either way. Certainly Walker is well short of the 250,000 jobs that he promised to create but no one really thinks is was serious (he is a politician, after all) and it won't matter if he ends up with a net loss. His supporters will still be there because they don't want to admit they were wrong (shocking, I know).

Lost in all of this is Walker's promise to create 10,000 new businesses in his first term with his private sector friendly policies. How's that going? Well, not so good. 

The scorecard: After one year of the Walker era, there were 9,485 fewer businesses than at the end of 2010, Gov. Jim Doyle's final year in office. It's improved somewhat in recent months, but the total of existing entities was still down 4,338 as of April 30, 2012, compared with December 2010. The picture is worse if you look only at Wisconsin business entities doing business here, and exclude out-of-state businesses that must register here to transact business. Those "domestic” business entities were down 10,189 after Walker"s first year, and down a total of 5,741 after 16 months. So the numbers have gone backward.

Hmm....sort of reminds me of all the numbers I have been putting up about how the economy does worse when there is a Republican in the White House. Of course, this doesn't matter, though. Again, to admit fault....

The one thing that I do feel pretty good about (aside from one of the state senators likely getting the boot) is that guys like Walker always end up with the same fate. Indeed, the FBI probe that is currently going on in Wisconsin may come back to haunt him if not something else. But for now, though, it's a pretty bitter pill considering the nearly one million people in Wisconsin who are currently cheering to be ruled by the Koch Brothers.

Hey, maybe Wisconsin could be part of RandLand as well. I'd have to get my mom and John Waxey out of there first, though, before it turns into an anarcho-capitalist pleasure palace!!

A Cheezy Update

It's been a while since I talked about Wisconsin and Scott Walker and, with all the latest news, it's time for an update. The recall election has been set for June 5th with a Democratic primary on May 8th. Tom Barrett, the Milwaukee mayor and Democratic challenger in 2010 whom Walker ultimately defeated, will run again. Kathleen Falk, former Dane County leader, will compete with Barrett in the primary.

Recall that Barrett made national news when, as the mayor of Milwaukee, he intervened in a dispute, at the Wisconsin State Fair,  to try to protect a woman being attacked and ended up being beaten by a tire iron while defending her.

I think that Barrett is a much better candidate than Falk who strikes me as too much of a contrast with Walker. Barrett only lost by 124,000 votes and, with nearly 1 million signatures gathered for Walker's recall, seems a better challenger.

The recall election itself is going to be tight because neither side can really claim that Walker has done a good job or a bad job. Take a look at this graphic.

While Scott Walker certainly hasn't lived up to this promise, he hasn't exactly done anything that is deeply disastrous. The Wisconsin jobs reports for March, April and May will have quite the level of scrutiny leading up to the election. If they show any sort of job loss, he's toast. Any job gains and he might squeak it out.

The latest polls show an even 48-48 split on Walker and a Democratic challenger so it may simply come down to turnout. But remember that 2 GOP Senators were recalled last year and Walker isn't the only one being recalled in this election. The Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and GOP Senators Scott L. Fitzgerald, Van H. Wanggaard, Terry Moulton and Pam Galloway are also being recalled. Fitzgerald is safe but Galloway has already resigned her seat for family health reasons which leaves it totally open. She won by only 3,000 votes in the last election. Wanggaard won by the same margin in 2010 with Moulton winning by a couple thousand more. Any of these three seats could flip which means that even if Walker wins, he won't be able to push through any sort of agenda.

So, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in Wisconsin. Oh yeah, there's a primary there tomorrow. Mitt is going to win and pretty much sew up the nomination.

Victory?

Today I'm wondering where the victory is that both sides are claiming in the recall elections in Wisconsin last night. The Democrats fell one short of the three elections they needed to take back the Senate and the GOP lost two seats. Yet both sides are claiming victory.

The only victory I see is a win for polarity. Take a look at the results from last night's election. Granted, this is a special election which means only the most dedicated turn out but I think we can see from the numbers how evenly split the state is when it comes to politics.I suppose the saving grace in all of this is that the Democrats are more mobilized going into 2012. And they did take two seats away from the GOP so I guess that's something.

A victory in my eyes would be for all the working class people who voted for the person with the R next to their name realize two things. One, Republicans and the "job creators" that support them are not going to shower you with magical job dust because they don't believe in middle class driven economies. To put it simply, they don't give a shit about you and have brainwashed you into your vote. Two, you are not going to someday be one of these people and then have to fend off poor people trying to steal your money.

Your anger and fear are being manipulated into hate. Time to wake up, folks!