Lost the Battle, Won the War

Scott Walker is still governor of Wisconsin. He won last night and credit can be given to the millions of dollars his campaign pumped into mass media and the other millions of dollars that came in from out of state from Teabagger SuperPACs.

Proof positive that money can buy ignorant voters. The US Supreme Court majority made sure of that.

But while everyone was concentrating on the governor’s race, the eye was taken off the ball that was a State Senator recall election where State Senator Wangaard was narrowly defeated by Democrat John Lehman, who formerly held the office.

This restores a Democratic democracy in the Wisconsin state senate and no more are we going to have to witness attempts at passage of voter suppression and successful attempts to wrench away from public employees the right to organize under unions.

I call that a victory.

Now I don’t know what the infatuation Wisconsonites have with a guy whose eyes are set so dangerously close together, I may never figure it out. But by anyone’s scale this renders Walker into a paper tiger.

Down to the Wire in Wisconsin

Tomorrow we are going to witness an historic recall election in Wisconsin. Scott Walker’s job as that state’s governor is on the line as well as that of his lieutenant governor. All of this comes as a result to the governor’s attack on public employee unions, a purported first step towards total eradication of the union movement in Wisconsin, a state known for its pro-union inclination.

None of this was an agenda item when the governor was running for that office. Walker just kind of thought all of this up by himself, with perhaps the help of TEA Party billionaires.

And now as we close in on the election polls show that the election is tightening up. In a recent poll by Public Policy Polling, they show that Walker leads his opponent, Milwaukee mayor Tom  Barrett, by 3%. That’s down from a poll conducted by the same group 3 weeks ago, which had Walker leading by 5%. That’s right, millions of dollars of Koch brothers and TEA Party money are being thrown at this election and there is a slip in the polls.

But not enough of one.

Enthusiasm seems to be a factor here. The activism we all witnessed in the winter of 2011 has fallen by the wayside. You don’t hear the drums beating on cold crisp mornings in Madison anymore. A grassroots get out the vote movement is not a sexy as rocking and rolling in the capitol rotunda.

But this is where the rubber meets the road. An election. This is when it counts. Time to drum up some enthusiasm, Wisconsin; time to send the Koch brothers back under the rocks that they crawled out from.

Total Recall: Wisconsin Votes

So I’m wearing my red T-shirt today in solidarity with the voters in Wisconsin who are, by all accounts, flocking to the polls in numbers on the order of how many show up in a presidential election. For a recall vote. For an odd-year recall vote.

I wore it when I journeyed to Austin last February when there was a fairly decent crowd arrayed on the capitol building south steps, were protesting not only the anti-labor overreach of Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican majority, but also the expected budget cuts to education.

Nothing much good came of the education budget, but now we have a real show going up in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a poster child, it seems, for all that is bad in American politics today.

Out of state TEA Party PACs are flooding the state with record funds. Democrats are being outspent by their Republican opponents who are responding by launching a massive grassroots effort. Hundreds of Democrats are calling into the state to get out the vote. Something that very much aided in getting voters to the polls in 2008.

Republicans even packed the Democratic Primary with non-Democrats in order to dilute the vote and throw some chaos into the process.

Then there’s the measures passed to make it harder for people to vote in Wisconsin.

It just goes on and on.

The only thing that keeps this country from resembling a banana republic is the fact that there isn’t rioting in the streets.

Not yet anyway.

The UK may have one up on us on that one.

Anyway, there are no indicators yet showing how this is going to go. A high turnout is always good for Democrats as evidenced by the 2010 elections in many states that went red that year. But I am not going to make any predictions. If it goes well for Democrats tonight it could bode very well for turning the tide going into next year. It could take the wind out of the sails of Republicans nationwide.

If it doesn’t though, we might as well pack it in and watch Rick Perry become the next president of the US.