Wisconsin Recall

salon.com — The failed recall attempt of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker comes as no surprise to most of us liberals in the Midwest, though it still stings. It hurts not only because we failed to boot a corrupt and ruthless governor from the state capitol, but also because it underscores a more troubling phenomenon: A new kind of class warfare is emerging in the Heartland, and it is one the Republicans have been so good at orchestrating in order to win elections.

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dailykos.com — The Wisconsin recall was obviously a blow, a terrible one, to those of us who care about the fate of working people—not just the teachers and librarians and snowplow drivers Scott Walker attacked, but grocery store cashiers and construction workers and accountants and dental hygienists and everyone who has to work for a living. But what does it mean? While one of the big storylines has been that the outcome of the recall would speak to labor's future, we know the story of unions in recent decades. Union density has been declining. That's not new and it's not news. As Josh Eidelson wrote prior to Tuesday's vote, "While resentment toward unions has grown since the 1950s, it’s not because they got too big. It’s because they got too small." When too few people share the benefits of unionization, it's easier for the Scott Walkers of the world to divide and conquer.

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juancole.com — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in the recall gubernatorial election campaign over his Democratic Party rival is being read like tea leaves with regard to the national presidential campaign. This argument from the local to the national is always an error, and there are many reasons to believe that the results in Wisconsin tell us very little about the national mood. The telling exit poll is here So here are the reasons otherwise disheartened Democrats might take heart.

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dailykos.com — I'm not going to sugarcoat it, losing the governor's race in Wisconsin sucked. While we'll crunch the numbers on turnout in a later post, the exit polls point to two major reasons why we weren't able to recall Scott Walker. First, 60 percent of voters thought that recall elections were only appropriate for official misconduct, while 27 percent said "any reason." Another 10 percent said "never"—and those voted for Walker 94-5. Turns out people just didn't like the idea of a recall — something worth filing away as an important lesson learned. Second of all, young people didn't turn out. Only 16 percent of the electorate was 18-29, compared to 22 percent in 2008. Turns out having the recall in the summer, when the universities were out, was among the biggest strategic miscalculations. So given all that, it was interesting to see Republicans pretend Wisconsin will be in play in November.

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We don’t know the outcome of Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Wisconsin, of course, but we do know this: Even if labor somehow manages to oust Republican Governor Scott Walker, the result will be nothing like the resounding repudiation that Ohio voters delivered last year in repealing that state’s anti-collective bargaining law pushed by an equally controversial GOP governor, John Kasich. more »