Sometimes you lose. But you keep fighting anyhow.
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“Sometimes you lose. But you keep fighting anyhow.”
And if you lose that fight, you call for a recall election. And if you lose that fight, you call for a special double recall election. And if you lose that fight…
I’m all for fighting stupidly on in the face of certain crushing defeat. But there is a point at which you recognize that you’re part of a process, that the process is more important than your preferred outcome in the process, and that if the process has spoken with putative finality for a span of time, you wait out that span of time before you drag people back to the ballot boxes.
Walker is less popular than the result makes him out to be. He is picking up a reasonable quantity of voters who in an ordinary time might vote Democratic, but who think that the recall was an ugly sham. Which it was. Recalls are for when you have inadvertently elected a psychopath or a war criminal or something, not when the guy who got elected manages to balance the budget in a way that your side’s PACs and pols find icky, but are unable to articulate a coherent alternative to.
I’ll agree with an awful lot of your comment, Robert, but does Wisconsin have a balanced budget now? I’m not sure, myself. I’m mostly seeing things like this, so I really dunno.
Robert, what did you think of the Gray Davis recall?
Walker made massive and daring changes in the relationship between public workers and the State. He was the target of unprecedented (in the context of a Wisconsin Governor) protest that was widely covered by both local and national media. There was a storm of accusations attacking his work, his motives and intent and his person.
And he actually increased the number of votes he beat Mayor Barrett by 50% over the 2010 election. Whatever message the Democrats were selling, the public wasn’t buying.
I do think that there were some anti-recall Democrats who voted for Walker because they recognized that this wasn’t a case of malfeasance on Walker’s part, it was a case of people abusing the system because they didn’t like the consequences of losing the last election. But the big margin was the independents, who broke big for Walker. Was it because they agreed with the above? Was it because they actually liked what Walker has done? My guess is more the latter than the former.
I think Obama is in trouble in Wisconsin. I suggest you disregard the exit polls. I believe that the exit polls – which had the election much closer than it actually was – are skewed to the left because conservatives perceive the media as being left-leaning and don’t respond to requests to participate in them.
And I think it’s just tremendously hopeful that this actually happened, that Gov. Walker was able to make meaningful and effective reforms in Wisconsin government and get acceptance for them from the electorate. That’s the hope and change that I’ve been looking for.
RonF–
Well, if you disregard all the polling, that’s fine, but the Marquette poll pretty much nailed the final election, and it showed Obama with a solid, 7-point lead in the state. Moreover, 60 percent of voters said they didn’t think recalls should be used for political disputes.
And that’s understandable. I don’t agree that Walker hasn’t abused his office (when he threatened to call out the National Guard to put down the teachers’ protests, he crossed that line, IMHO), but I get why others would think, hey, the guy may be a jerk, but he was elected and should get to serve out his term. That’s fine.
I will note that Dems did flip the Senate in Wisconsin last night, which puts a good check on Walker. As for this fall, I expect Obama to win Wisconsin handily.
Elusis- Fair question. As I recall (and it was almost ten years ago so please don’t flay me alive if I’ve softened the memory), I thought the recall didn’t seem to be necessary. Fine, the man was a chump and was doing a terrible job, but that’s what elections are for. But mostly I was interested in which Republican would replace him, and I liked (sigh) Ahnuld. WRONG!
The flip of the Wisconsin Senate seat has no practical effect in that the Wisconsin Legislature has already closed its session and is not scheduled to be called back until after the November elections are held and the new Legislature is seated. During those elections it is currently expected that, in part as a result of reapportionment due to the 2010 Census, the GOP will pick up two seats in the Wisconsin State Senate and return it to GOP control.
There were probably some people that figured “I oppose his actions, but he was elected fairly and has a right to serve out his term” and voted for him. But I’m thinking that it was not the balance for him in this election. That might account for the fact that his margin of victory increased by 50%, but not for the fact that he won overall. I think he won simply because a majority of the electorate approved of his actions.
It’s interesting that Mayor Barrett, his opponent, took advantage of the very public worker collective bargaining law’s provisions (specifically that you don’t have to buy public worker health insurance through the public workers’ union’s own insurance company) that sparked the recall movement to save the City of Milwaukee millions of dollars. For a guy who supposedly was the standard bearer for the aggrieved he was sure quick enough to use the law to precisely the effect that his opponent intended.
You may be right about the fall and Obama. I’m not calling Wisconsin for Romney by any means. But it makes it more interesting.
Me, I’ve got a way to retain the recall mechanism while putting a check on it’s abuse. Change the rules so that if an incumbent retains his or her office their term is reset. So instead of having to run again in 17 months, Walker would stay in office through that election and run again in 2016 (or whenever the succeeding election is in Wisconsin).
Wikipedia has a list of American recall elections, and of the successful ones, it seems they are about 2/3 garden-variety corruption and 1/3 voters just didn’t like what the person was doing. Not too many psychopaths or war criminals.
Recall exists as A Thing, along with lots of other political mechanisms. It’s part of the process. People got enough signatures to get it on the ballot. A shit-ton of money got spent on the election. That’s also part of the process. Walker prevailed. I can see why people voted to retain him even if they didn’t agree with his actions. I can understand why people want to reserve recall for the most egregious things. It’s hard for me to see this as an “abuse” of the system or a “sham.” It’s certainly not more of an abuse than the Gray Davis recall.
Gray Davis was generically unpopular for a bunch of things, some of them his fault, some of them not so much, and Darrell Issa wanted to be governor and had the money to backroll the recall. That’s about it. (Unfortunately for Issa and Davis, Arnold stole the show.) At least with Walker, you can say that eliminating collective bargaining was a big change that arguably was not necessary to balance the budget or that the way he dealt with protestors went way too far. There were concrete issues in play. But a majority voted to retain him, so he stays. Fine.
One notable thing about the recall list on Wikipedia. There were several cases of people being recalled and then later elected to the same seat. In one case, it was the very next election. Voters are funny.
Change the rules so that if an incumbent retains his or her office their term is reset. So instead of having to run again in 17 months, Walker would stay in office through that election and run again in 2016
I know you’re trying to deter organizers from putting a recall on the ballot, but this could also backfire and make more people vote for the recall. It’s one thing to think someone should be allowed to finish their term. It’s another to sign up for four more years.
At least with Walker, you can say that eliminating collective bargaining was a big change that arguably was not necessary to balance the budget, ….
But that’s really meaningless. I would hazard that no one change is necessary to balance a budget. There’s always a choice of changes. Some people favor one choice, other people favor a different one. He chose one that was in accordance with his political philosophy and that he could get the votes for. Then his opponents, instead of accepting President Obama’s advice that “Elections have consequences”, decided to try to depose him.
It’s kind of like impeaching a Supreme Court justice because you didn’t like the way they voted on a case. Not by mechanism, but certainly in effect.
The really damaging thing to the unions was where the law a) eliminated the State’s middleman role in being the public workers unions collection agent and b) in forcing school districts to buy their workers’ health insurance through the union. When payment of dues becomes a deal directly between the union and the worker with no means of using State power to collect it the union finds that a lot of workers aren’t seeing the value proposition in paying union dues. That and freeing up their members’ insurance choices really dropped the amount of money the unions were taking in. Heck, the Milwaukee Teacher’s union saw dues drop to about 1/2 the members and had to fire 40% of their staff. Looks like the public unions need to fix their relationship with their members.
Jake, as far as your title goes, from my viewpoint the world is already better for this.
Chingona, you mean that people would try to organize a recall so that they could vote for the incumbent and extend their term? Hm. Have to think about that one.
Impeachment has actual criteria. If people don’t like the way recall is being used, they can change the law to put criteria in place for a recall such that it can only be used for cases of malfeasance or whatever. As it stands, when recall has been used, it has frequently been used for the purpose you are declaring illegitimate.
Chingona – Pains me to say this, but you’re right. I guess I just dislike that aspect of democracy. Democracy! Feh!
This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That’s democracy for you.
So if you read through DU or listen to MSNBC and other leftist-oriented groups you tend to hear a lot of “Citizens United has brought us to the end of Democracy!” But I think that Walter Russell Mead has it correct in his column The “People United” Go Down In Flames:
Chingona:
Impeachment has actual criteria.
Yes: “High crimes and misdemeanors”. But when I’ve seen experts questioned on that one to define such, they start out by citing previous examples in American and then English law, admit that the House is not bound by precedent, and end up saying “They’re whatever a majority of the House thinks they are.”
I’m not trying to draw a precise analogy, mind you. I’m thinking more that if we start seeing more recalls happens on the basis of “We don’t like your decisions” we might see it slop over into the Federal Judiciary.
I guess my point is that we’ve *always* had recalls based on “we don’t like your decisions,” but we haven’t yet seen judges impeached for ruling the wrong way. The Walker recall isn’t some new low in American politics. It’s just American politics.
O.K. That’s cool. I’m not arguing that the Walker recall is some new low in American politics. I’m not particularly taken aback by the fact that it was organized. The law was followed (although I’d love to see an in-depth check done on the initial petition signatures) and the people had their say. In fact, I’d say the results are one of the most hopeful things that have happened in American politics in years.
I think the public worker unions shot themselves in the foot on this one. I cannot imagine that Walker will lose his next election and he has gained a high national profile. The person they chose to carry their banner refused to pick it up – Barrett never embraced opposition to the public workers’ collective bargaining reforms as part of his platform. And the unions now look a lot less threatening than they did before this recall effort. A lot of Governors and Mayors will be emboldened to be more aggressive in dealing with public workers’ unions after this.
Ron, I think the left’s problem in Wisconsin was partly choosing a lousy candidate who couldn’t credibly campaign as pro-labor, and whom Walker had already beaten just two years ago. And choosing to do the recall at all was arguably a mistake. And yes, they were outspent badly.
But I’m curious — do you really think that the money is meaningless? Walker spent about 8 times as much as Barrett if you look just at the two campaigns, or about twice as much if you look at all spending on this race. (Source). Why did Walker and conservatives spend all those tens of millions of dollars if a spending advantage doesn’t provide any actual advantage? Are they just stupid?
And how about Romney? Since money is meaningless, why did he bother outspending his opponents in the primary, rather than save the money for use against Obama? Or just, you know, not spend so much time and energy fundraising at all?
Professional politicians in both parties spend more time fundraising than any other activity. They do it every single day, and nearly all of them hate doing it (have you ever begged for money over the phone? It’s really a humiliating way to spend time). Either our professional politicians are collectively a group of idiots forcing themselves to do something they hate for no reason at all, or they’re correct in believing that money makes a difference in elections.
Oh, I’m not saying that money makes no difference in a campaign. It clearly does. But “it’s important” != “it’s the overriding factor in who wins and loses”. The claim from the left on multiple sites is “We lost because we got outspent”. This denies agency to the voters. Frankly, I’d love for the left to continue to think this. It would pretty much guarantee they’re going to lose in November. They don’t need more money. They need a better alternative, one where the math adds up. Money comes in when you need to communicate that alternative; but money won’t make up for the lack of an alternative to communicate.
Blah blah blah Wisconsin blah.
What’s up with Peter O’Toole — can’t walk and sing at the same time? (He’s not actually singing anyway, so what gives?)
Ah, but why did they do that? It’s a very important question. The major group that wanted the recall and organized and staffed the petition drive to initiate it were the public workers’ unions. But, when it came time to elect a challenger, who won? There was a candidate, Kathleen Falk, who was carrying the banner for the PWUs. And she lost, big time. The unions were able to get people to sign petitions, but that didn’t translate into votes. Their message wasn’t popular with the public, so the party ran away from it. That left them with no message at all, and it didn’t much matter who ran after that.
They were outspent – but they didn’t lose because they were outspent. They lost because the majority of people in Wisconsin heard their message and didn’t agree with it. And they DID agree with Walker’s message.
Jake –
I looked into your link and the associated concept. (Short version: Under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) Wisconsin’s budget isn’t in balance, it’s still in the red by a fair bit. Walker ran on putting Wisconsin’s budget on a GAAP basis. Now he’s using the fact that there’s nominally a balanced budget for political purposes, while using the existence of the GAAP-measured deficit to get out of some state obligations. This is dirty pool.)
1. Yep, under GAAP Wisconsin is still in deficit.
2. Yep, Walker said that the state should use GAAP and then started talking up his non-GAAP balance.
3. No, this is nothing particularly new; most governments don’t use GAAP because it forestalls lots and lots of handy little tricks and smoke/mirror combos that let pols make claims at election time.
4. No, Walker is not being honest when he says the state’s in balance but then tries to trim the Medicaid rolls because they’re running a deficit. That is, in fact, dirty pool.
5. The big deal to my mind is that he said he’d do X and then did Y. Doing Y is pretty much status quo ante and the norm, so the problem (for him) is his promise more than the actual behavior. Kind of like Obama not being particularly corrupt in who has access to the White House by historical standards, but is subject to (very valid) criticism because of the promises he made to avoid those time-honored corruptions. Exactly like it in fact – guess Chicago goes all the way to Wisconsin these days. (Dig at RonF because he’s got a sense of humor.)
But to the question of “is the state really out of budget crisis thanks to Walker’s moves” – yeah, pretty much. GAAP isn’t the standard, nominal cashflow budget is, and in those terms (which were the terms the original crisis was expressed in) he’s fixed it.
Indeed Chicago goes all the way to Wisconsin. Rumor had it that this happened literally, with busloads of Illinois public union members brought in to demonstrate, campaign and even vote (Wisconsin’s same-day voter registration process is quite easy to game). I reiterate that the latter is rumor (the former two are easy to document). And, of course, earlier in the process, when the Wisconsin Senate had the public workers’ unions reform bill in front of them, Wisconsin came to Chicago (or at least, Illinois). You do remember when the Wisconsin Senate Democrats ran like rats across the Wisconsin/Illinois border to block the formation of a quorum so that the Senate couldn’t vote?
This just in: The Democratic National Committee discussed the results out of Wisconsin.
Sorry about the ad, I don’t have the privileges to just embed the video here. Yah, it’s an old joke as web stuff goes, but what the hey.
Interesting analysis done of the spending in this campaign. There are numerous videos and postings about how this shows how the Citizens United lawsuit is going to permit corporate dominance of elections and be the end of democracy in the U.S. As Amp pointed out, if you total up the spending in the campaign you’ll see that supporters of Walker outspent supporters of Barrett 2:1. However, there’s one minor details. This was a State election, not a Federal one. Federal law has nothing to say about who can contribute to a State’s gubernatorial campaign.
And even if it did, they’d be wrong on the effect. If applicable, the Citizens United decision made a huge difference in the campaign. It really enabled one of the candidates to push his message out far beyond what he would have been able to do using his own resources.
That candidate, though, would be Barrett. According to the Wall Street Journal (as per Althouse, as I don’t have a WSJ acccount), Citizens United legalized the millions of dollars that the NEA, the AFT, the SEIU and the AFSCME pumped into the campaign. The article states that most of the money supporting Walker’s campaign (which I define as being used to put out messages supporting Walker, not necessarily money given directly to his campaign) came from individuals, which was perfectly legal before Citizens United.
Which supports what I said when that case was decided. If corporate entitles can’t give money to support political viewpoints in a campaign, then only wealthy people will be able to do so. Enabling groups of people who individually can’t give much but collectively can afford radio and TV time helps democracy.
If, of course, Citizens United had anything to do with this at all. Remember, this was a State election, not a Federal one.