I know everyone wants to spin the results in Wisconsin but this is ridiculous. I’m obviously not an expert on Wisconsin elections and I don’t dispute that it is disappointing to fall one seat short of taking control of the state Senate there. I also don’t dispute that the two seats that we won were relatively easy pickings, under the circumstances. But it’s also impossible to call this a huge loss for unions. And to write the following without making any reference to the tens of millions of dollars the Republicans poured into the state is an assault on reason:
“The people” were supposed to be on the side of the unions who protested at the state capitol when Walker’s bill passed, limiting the unions’ collective bargaining privileges against taxpayers and school districts. But it turns out that “the people” had other ideas. In the end, even a massive infusion of cash and union volunteers was not enough to deliver the three state Senate recall races the unions needed, despite the fact that President Obama carried all six of the seats in question in 2008.
For a while last night it looked like the Democrats might get their three seats by beating state Sen. Alberta Darling. Sen. Darling set a national record for most money raised for a state Senate election. And that doesn’t even include the money from outside groups.
In any case, the Walker budget passed through the Senate on an 18-15 vote, with one Republican dissenting. With the Senate now split 17-16, it’s not clear that Walker can still ram home anything he wants. The Democrats came up a little short, but they improved their situation in a meaningful way.
The one thing we ought to consider is the toxicity level of our politics.
A review of ads posted on the “Ad Watch” section of WisPolitics.com reveals the toxicity. Of the 31 recall-related ads posted on the site between July 12 and July 29, all but eight are entirely or primarily attack ads. Some don’t even mention the names of the candidates they actually support, just the ones they oppose.
Of the remaining ads, just two don’t disparage a candidate, one for state Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Allouez, and one for Sen. Robert Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie.
Dhavan Shah, a professor of mass communication and political science at UW-Madison, laments that quiet, mostly local elections have become “major television campaigns” driven largely by outside groups. (Only a third of the ads mentioned above were issued by candidates’ campaigns.)
But what really troubles Shah is the “viciousness” of the ads. “It’s really gotten pretty ugly pretty quickly,” he notes. “I’m dispirited about the possibility of a more civil discourse.”
Shah is not talking just about negative campaign messages but about “the broader climate of political polarization,” on the state and federal level. He thinks the nastiness of political campaigns has repercussions beyond the elections.
“That anger doesn’t dissipate,” he says. “It stays with people. The climate of the campaigns spills over into day-to-day political behavior.”
Now that is something truly dangerous.
Most dedicated Democrats are pleased that the Democratic Party stood its ground in Wisconsin and fought with every tool at their disposal. Unfortunately, the possibility of a return to civil discourse is not what is called for when the Republicans are trying to radically change the rights and benefits we’ve earned over last century.
corrected.
$40 million at last count, or $200 per Republican voter.
At that rate, saving Walker’s butt is going to cost them $200 million.
This is a sad outcome for us.
We need to focus on special elections right now.
There is one that is local to me. My district is one of two (or maybe three, considering the creepy guy in Oregon) in the country that is not represented at all right now.
We have a very competitive campaign going on now. There is a nutcase Teabagger running. And there is a reasonable moderate Democratic woman running against him.
It’s like 50/50 odds right now and it’s really close. Early voting starts in late August and Election day is like September 13 I think.
Here’s Mark Amodei lying about his position (and hers) on Medicare:
And here’s Kate Marshall’s defense to Mark Amodei’s lies:
It’s kind of maddening that we have to watch these commercials on every commercial break lately – and these are just this week’s ads. The NRCC is also running a whole lot of horrible trashy ads about Kate Marshall (who is a truly decent person) all of the time because Mark Amodei can’t seem to raise as much money as her. But it’s ugly, guys.
Getting her elected would be HUGE. This district (NV-2) is majority republican-dominated, but not by much. And I would really love to have a Democrat representing me for once.
Give money to Kate if you can. Get other blogs interested in this race. It’s a big deal.
NV-2 and NY-9 are two big elections that we need to focus on before the 2012 elections. I think both should be doable for the Dems, but we’ll see.
We’re running out of time on NV-2 and I don’t see any attention being paid to it in places that I read. Very disappointing.
I live in District 22 so our election is next week. When I finish posting this I will head back to Sen Wirch’s campaign office to keep plugging away.
But, last night’s results really are a bit demoralizing. Taking two seats and nearly getting Sen Darling sounds good on an intellectual level. But as everyone knows, this recall season did not come around from an overage of thinking in Wisconsin. If thinking we key, we would have Governor Barrett right now.
I am afraid on an emotional level this will be a double whammy. Republicans will see it as a victory. One in which they took casualties, perhaps, but still a clear victory. And it will likely cost us dearly in any effort to recall Gov Walker.
Democrats are at least now fighting a rear-guard action. But the ultimate goal is to roll back Reaganomics. That now looks to be at least a generation away, if ever. Thirty years of Reaganomics now has the middle class on the ropes. I don’t think we can last another twenty.
I was hoping the Wisconsin recalls would be the harbinger of a paradigm shift in our politics. Instead it looks today like just a speed bump.
Reaganomics will fall someday. But it looks like that will happen only in the “hard landing” scenario. And that, I am afraid, spells poverty and war.
We can only overcome Reaganomics when we get big money out of politics (public financing only) and get big money out of the TV Media (no more $5-15 million dollar salaries.) Ideally, the TV news media needs to be made mandatory for broadcasters but totally non-commercial. Until then, we’re screwed.
But we keep working toward it. And they ignore us. But we know we have to keep working toward it anyway. Ultimately we will persevere.
But it does move backwards for extended periods too. And nations rise and fall, of course. But this current crop of forward-thinkers might be fated to fighting a lifelong rear-guard battle, so that generations unborn might persevere.
I entirely agree about your call regarding money, media, and politics. My fear is that events will overcome those reforms long before they bear fruit, or really before they are even enacted.
If you look at the front-page of the Daily Mail or the Guardian, I think you can see how close we are to the failure of Reaganomics.
Why so down? Do you know how many state legislators have been recalled, ever? Very few. There have been 20 even attempted. So taking down two in one shot, while disappointing in some senses, should not be underestimated.
The bottom line here is that the Tea Party element has blitzkriegs Wisconsin and has won. That is why I am down. The fact that few recalls have occurred before is of very little significance. In our situation, we had to win three or more. We didn’t.
In seven short months, Wisconsin has gone from having a Democratic governor, senate, and legislature to radical Republican control of all three. Wisconsin went from being the national leader in the High Speed Rail initiative, to being #48 out of the lower 48. We have gone from the national leader in labor rights, to the national leader on destroying labor rights.
We have failed to reverse that trend. All that happened was two flawed state senators lost their offices. Last night Gov Walker signed the new redistricting plan. That plan is designed to make incumbents very hard to remove from office.
The GOP, the Tea Party wing, and the plutocrats behind them do not care one tiny bit. The cost of doing this business was negligible. In one fell swoop they have transformed Wisconsin from a swing state to a Tea state. Even if Democrats overcome the new redistricting in 2012, it will take years and a long string of “ifs” to simply undo the damage already done.
That, is why I am so down.
Please THIS WAS 2 STEPS forward.
It was NOT a moral victory. It was at best a moral wash, but 2 seats came back to the Dems.
Wisconsin Dems need to think about January. Are there Republican senators who are open for recall at that time who are in Obama districts?
Winning on a state level in 2012 will bear no resemblance to these recalls. Bob Wirch will have to move to a new house just to run for his current seat. If he is not defeated next Tuesday in his recall.
Last night the GOP scored a 5th victory. Gov Walker signed a redistricting of the state districts that is designed to make it very hard to defeat incumbents. It also forces several DEM Assembly people to move their homes if that want to run for election again. Winning two seats in this recall is a symbolic accomplishment only. Wisconsin Democrats needed the genuine article.
Lol what unadulterated bullshit. Obama won the areas, but these Republicans also won when Obama won. I know plenty of people who live in Wisconsin…and everything they tell me is that the seats we went for were in the reddest of red areas (especially the two where we lost badly). Luther Olsen has NEVER had a Democratic opponent in his electoral history. That we came 52-48 is pretty remarkable.
No, Republicans can try and spin this all they want, but they should be extremely worried about 2012. They are going to get the shit kicked out of them.
Olsen is also damaged goods at this time. The babysitter rape story is out there, and someone will be looking again at it.
Yup. I heard last night that even though Obama won all of those districts, so did Scott Walker.
That’s some weird-ass shit if you ask me. But whatever.
I don’t think Obama won those districts. He won the LaCrosse district 22, which we won handily. But the rest? Some were McCain districts. Some are quite rural.
All the districts had the same quirk… they were Obama districts in 2008 and Walker districts in 2010.
Just a typo correction.
But they were all districts that the GOP won in the same year Mr Obama won. So they are significantly red. Escept the one anchored by La Crosse. That district has trended blue lately.
But this is all out the window. Last night the GOP had a 5th victory. Gov Walker signed a redistricting map that drastically changes the demographics. These elections mean very little as a predictor. The red districts have been made redder. The blue are bluer, yes, but that are now also fewer.
The redistricting victory for the Republicans didn’t happen last night. It happened in November. It’s just taken this long to get here.
Exactly. The 2010 election was for all the marbles because the winners got to draw the lines for future elections.
Yes, the new districts were not used in Tueday’s elections. I meant that the results of Tuesdays elections cannot be carried forward to predict the demographics in the new, re-drawn districts.
I am NOT.
I am JAZZED.
This will, hopefully, energize the pro-teacher, pro-union, pro-middle class people to 1) pick a better target (like the 2 that lost) – the 4 that held on are in strong Repukeliscum seat – Olsen had never faced a Dem opponent before 2) go hard after Walker 3) and NOW we need to take back the House as well.
This was a terribly depressing election, and it underscores what is now a hopeless situation. Wisconsin has to be regarded as the political equivalent of South Carolina or Idaho — an essentially permanent Tea Party state.
A victory would have been nice, but it would have been Pyrrhic. A Democratic majority in the State Senate would have allowed the Democrats to vote down new measures, but that would have been closing the barn door after the horses ran off. The key bills have already passed, and Wisconsin will never be the same. The only major item left for this session is going to be capital punishment, and I think there would have been at least one Democrat to cross the aisle on that issue, anyway.
Besides, because of gerrymandering, these swing districts are all getting redrawn to take them out of reach of the Democrats. Going into the races, the Democrats knew that whatever seats they picked up in the recall, they would have to hand back next November.
So, the Democrats set up a situation where a victory would have been only symbolic, and even that was out of reach. The fact that they tried and failed greatly strengthens the Republicans in the state, and makes a strong recall effort against Walker unlikely.
The district lines give Republicans control of the legislature for the foreseeable future. The voter suppression ID law will make it impossible for any Democrat to win a statewide race (unless he is named LaFollette). I think we can forget about Herb Kohl’s seat or Wisconsin’s electoral votes in 2012.
Do you know ANYTHING about Wisconsin? I really doubt it.
There is no point in criticizing Democratic Party strategy on taking this big gamble. These recalls occurred outside the realm of strategy. They really were driven at the citizen level. I do agree that the effort failed. And I agree that trying and failing bears a cost. But I do not second guess the recall attempt. That fight had to happen.
It is still possible to recall Gov Walker, but this loss makes it a bit harder. And the redistricting makes it very hard to re-capture the Wisconsin Assembly. Without that it will be impossible to roll back Walker’s damage.
I do think you overstate the Voter ID law’s effects though.
Nonsense. You seem to think this was a regular election. This was a recall in which a third of the eligible Republican legislators got dumped before they could finish their terms. Gaining 2 more seats is not a loss. As to the gerrymandering, the results of that are not really predictable except when sharp ethnic boundaries are involved. And the districts are challengeable in court on several grounds.
If the same 33 swing holds for districts across WI, Walker is finished and the state turns blue. Don’t forget, in another year the full ravaging by the Walker regime will be obvious to even the most dunderheaded Badger.
Now is the time to keep the faith and redouble the effort to oust Walker and keep the anti-GOP swing going. WI is not a teabagger state and isn’t about to become one anytime soon.
I have met the dunderheads. I can assure you they will forever praise Scott Walker’s plan, regardless of any results. Besides, the state is not going to fall to pieces in one year. The damage done is of a more lingering, insidious nature. And many of the dunderheads are rooting for this damage in the first place.
Even most of the dunderheads are proud of WI’s good schools, great university system, good roads and infrastructure, and if nothing else they like to drink their beer when and where they want to instead of where Budweiser bribed Walker to herd them to.
WI is not some backassward state like those you mentioned. Its history ranges from Joe McCarthy to LaFollette and Feingold. They’ll come back around to their senses.
There are good roads in Wisconsin? You must not have driven through Milwaukee lately.
What is the reference to where we can’t drink beer? This is something I haven’t heard of. It sounds serious.
Compared to IL, WI roads are state of the art. But no I haven’t driven thru Milwaukee lately.
The beer law, among other things, is designed to make it harder for brew pubs to have an even playing field. The craft brewers say it will hurt them, and I’m on their side. The law takes away the indie brewers’ right to act as their own wholesaler and limits their right to sell their beer in their own pub. It also takes away the rights of municipalities to regulate beer distribution and sales. Here’s one WI brewers take (kind of problematic formatting): http://bullfallsbrewery.com/page.aspx?index=00000141
You’ll find more takes on the subject by googling “wisconsin beer law”. I hoped the Dems would leap on this during the campaign, as it would stir up a crowd indifferent to even bigger issues like union busting, but apparently they didn’t.
Thanks for the info. Very interesting.
The Democrats couldn’t use this as a campaign issue because it turns out the measure has strong bipartisan support. There are a whole lot of trade groups that are pushing it.
It looks like it is a question of Miller-Coors protecting its territory. Mostly, they are trying to prevent Budweiser from becoming the dominant beer in Wisconsin as it is elsewhere in the country, but small brewers are hurt by it as well.
It is reminiscent of the laws that the dairy interests put on the books long ago (and that were eventually repealed), making it illegal for grocery stores to sell margarine.
We were not talking about Wisconsin. We were talking about the dunderhead element. And no, these people are not at all proud of the schools. These schools are run by the government and by unions.
A major goal of the WI GOP is to spread vouchers for private schools all around the state.
As for the roads, Mr Walker’s budget increased the road expenditures by a half-billion over two years.
Right now the GOP friendly press is trumpeting the brilliant success of Walker’s plan, because he “didn’t raise taxes”. W/o going into why that is a lie and all, suffice it to say the average WI GOP voter already has the only reason they need to love Mr Walker.
Wisconsin is one of few states that did not have a budget problem before Walker was elected. He created a budget shortfall by giving massive tax breaks to his corporate funders immediately upon coming into office. Then he had a self-made budget crisis that had to be solved – on the backs of the working class.
I think the consequences of gerrymandering are very predictable. The new lines get rid of swing districts, and crowd Democrats into districts where they have huge supermajorities, so you take a state which is close to 50-50 and end up with a state assembly which is reliably 57-43.
I attended a conference on computer technology for redistricting, and the process of drawing the lines isn’t anything like it used to be. At least if you believe the experts, there isn’t a whole lot of uncertainty anymore. There are precision tools now that allow you to carve up the state to your desires.
The big intellectual task for progressives is figuring out a way to make all that media carpet-bombing irrelevant, even as Democrats have to engage in it in order to stay competitive.
BTW, Politico is tut-tutting that Democrats are going after anonymous contributions. Shows what Republicans shills they are.
The Chicago Tribune had a “news” article that mostly wanted to talk about the “outside union money” that was “pouring into” the state. This was the day of the election, so the GOP talking points had already been established even before the votes were cast. No mention of the Koch brothers, US chamber, and the rest of the plutocrat minions, of course.
It’s terribly disappointing to have missed the three-seat overturn, and bodes ill for the people of WI for some time to come as Walker and his thugs continue to bring ruin to a great state with little to stop them except perhaps occasionally one recalcitrant Rep in the Senate.
Yet considering the context, the results are cause for celebration. The rightwing media is trying to spin a two-seat gain as a “loss” for the Dems and the unions. Fact is, this was not a regular election this was an expression of the fact that a third of eligible Rep senators were found by voters to be unworthy of finishing their terms. That’s a historic event statewide and nationwide. If the same ratio of 33 percent move away from Reps holds statewide, Walker will be gone in a landslide and WI will be solid for Dems next November.
The great danger is that the heroic recall workers will buy into the media spin and lose their momentum and their optimism. This is still the beginning of a movement that has huge national political implications. We need to do all we can to help it thrive into the future. Congratulations to all who helped make history happen.
But I don’t see that many Wisconsin Democrats are going to join in. Four kings is a great poker hand. But you don’t celebrate it when the other guy shows a straight flush, and you had bet the mortgage payment.
I can’t argue that Wisconsin isn’t in for bad times in the near term, but don’t see how that redounds to gop advantage in the longer term. Winning two seats is just not a loss. Everything depends on the will to keep keeping on. Unwarranted pessimism like yours doesn’t help for that.
While you Cheeseheads are at it, is there a way you can get rid of Kathy Nickolaus in Waukesha County? Seems as if a lot of surprises have erupted from her handling of elections lately. She who controls the tallying machinery controls the election. That’s one reason local elections and candidates are so very important. Another is that’s a pretty big source of future state and national candidates. If you ain’t got a farm team, who you gonna fill out the majors with? At any rate, thanks for getting rid of two of the bastards!