With the delivery of more than a million signatures to the state capital in Madison earlier this week, backing the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Democrats may think they have set the stage for an epic battle in which they will reverse the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections. Walker became a symbol of the GOP victory when upon taking office he took his campaign pledges and with the aid of new Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature, set about reforming state government in a way that infuriated unions and other Democratic constituencies.
Despite walkouts and other tactics that failed, Democrats could not stop Walker from undoing a collective bargaining process that had allowed state worker unions to put that state on a path to bankruptcy. But with the recall effort, the left is set to take its revenge for that loss. If successful, and right now it’s difficult to argue that Walker is not in trouble, they would not only knock off a GOP governor but also issue a warning that any other Republican who dares to try to deal with state employee entitlements will meet the same fate. But what Democrats have not thought about is the consequences of a Walker victory.
Democrats have spent the last several months depicting Walker as a rapacious enemy of working people. But the recall election, which will probably take place in either the late spring or early summer, will allow the governor a unique opportunity to strike back.
The problem for Walker is that unlike a normal election which pits two or more candidates against each other, this vote will be just a simple up or down about Walker. That will allow voters to merely vent their dissatisfaction with him or government in general without forcing them to actively choose an alternative. What Walker must do is change that narrative by making the recall vote a choice of reform versus the status quo. Even more, he must convince a majority their real choice is not about which politician will run their state government but whether an unelected union will continue to have a stranglehold on the state’s purse.
We don’t know for sure how he will fare, but if, as he did in 2010, Walker can prevail on this issue, what the Democrats will have done is to make him far more powerful than he was before the battle. Having successfully fended off such an attack, Walker will assume a position of national importance in the GOP and be at the top of the list of possible Republican presidential candidates in 2016 should Obama be re-elected.
Given how high the stakes will be, we can expect that both sides will be pouring in money from outside the state as the recall nears. As such, it will be considered an early bellwether for not only how Wisconsin will vote in the presidential contest this fall but also how the nation as a whole will decide. Walker’s defeat will encourage the Democrats and the unions to think the GOP win in 2010 was just a passing phase. But if Walker succeeds, it will be a signal that the Tea Party revolt that put him into office is just getting started.
1,000,000 plus signatures is an impressive accomplishment. Walker is on short time.
Once the people see how rampant the fraud was by the union thugs collecting signatures they may just throw out the unions! And pray tell me, what's so impressive about 1 million signatures when you have idiots bragging about signing multiple times? Sounds like typical union fraud to me!
Well we'll all have the opportunity to see if there was any fraud and to what degree, since the board of elections approved a republican request to have all signatures checked for fraud + duplicates by an impartial source. We'll be sure to check back with you to see how your argument holds up after the results are released…. after all, I'm sure we're all concerned with the truth. Aren't we?
We must wait and see, but this may be evidence that the vital political struggles have shifted from Washington to the states. This fight is about symbbol and power. rather than substantive. Wisconsin and other states (e.g., California, NY., Maryland) have nothing in more to give the unions at present. The unions need to make an issue about collective bargaining in order to preserve their claim tot the dues which sustain their political power.
Let's hope the voters of Wisconsin are not fooled by the union thugs. If the leftist fascist unions win this recall, the people will pay dearly. You see, the unions look at taxpayers as their personal money-market account, not giving a whit whether the state remains solvent. As long as the union thugs can keep bleeding more and more money from the public treasury and gaining more and more benefits for themselves then too bad about the average non-union people who foot the bill for the unions extravagance. Time to take even more power and control from the thugs in charge of these public sector unions and return it to the people who pay the taxes.
The Wisconsin recall is not an "up or down" vote on Walker. Assuming, as is likely, enough signatures have been gathered to force the recall election, Walker will be running against a Democrat, chosen in a primary. One has already announced and others are in the wings. Having to run against a particular Democrat may actually improve Walker's chances.
Transparency should once more be the solution but it is unlikely. Couldn’t ALL the signatures be scanned and posted to the internet is relatively short order? Wouldn’t crowd sourcing the pages enable people to see how many times they actually “signed” the petitions? We’re all too busy for this. It’s a lot like the Republicans saying they’re going to post bills for 72 hours before voting–just a gimmic.