One of our on-the-ground in Wisconsin operatives, Scissorhead Zombie Rotten McDonald says:
by the exit polls, somewhere around 60% of the voters in Wisconsin felt that the recall was inappropriate, and should be reserved, at the least, for criminal misbehavior. That’s pretty much the story; less than support for Turdwaffle, it was antipathy toward a recall.
Of course, there are a fair number of people who support Turdie’s efforts to kill the middle class, demonize public workers, and sell of the natural splendor of Wisconsin to pillagers and plunderers. Apparently, the solution to stagnant wages and non-existent economic demand is to slap around schoolteachers and take their lunch money, to give it to the insanely wealthy. Oh, and fracking, not to mention polluting groundwater, which is FREEDOM.
However, given the state of the John Doe investigation, there is a good possibility that the people who feel that recall should be limited to criminal acts will see Turdwaffle reach that threshold. Of course, before that, he will make his play to change Wisconsin electoral law to allow felons to serve as Governor.
ZRM raises an interesting point about the 60% — it is also the same number as those who intend to re-elect President Obama according to the exit polls. This election is a single data point from a single state at a single point in time. I would caution anyone from extrapolating a national trend.
Here in Cali, when we had our own successful recall against a sitting governor (Gray Davis, who was no crook, unless being boring and being easily snookered is a crime) and installed the movie-star buffoon Ahhhhhhnold, I remember my reaction was to vote against the recall, not to vote in favor of Davis. The recall was so manufactured (as was the Enron Crisis as was the car registration tax issue that was used to justify it) that at the end, when Darryl Issa (yes, THAT Darryl Issa) complained that because he actually paid for the recall, he should be governor.
Anyway, I think ZRM’s comment reeks of the truth.
Also/too: My snark against President Carebear still stands. His absolute tepid, single-tweet support of Mr. Barrett was too little and way too late to make any difference. Would it have made a difference if it was full-throated howl? Probably not, except to the bone-tired volunteers who are the ones that Obama really will need in the fall. Good luck with that. I don’t think I would volunteer to help again if I were them.
Obama’s weak tea tweet reminds me of the worst of the Bill Clinton political calculation of the 1990s and beyond. Dr. Dean’s 50-state strategy was so completely dismantled by the Obama team when they came into power that the 2010 and now this election show that the Dims are back to Rahm Emmanuel’s old stratagem of giving up on the small races and only funding the sure bets. It is a plan for failure as I think last night showed us again.
Lastly: Citizens United. I don’t think that there is any doubt that we need to have a Constitutional Amendment to decree that corporations are not people, and money is not free speech. I also think we should have unicorns, but I digress. There is no doubt in my mind that this debacle shows what the influence of corporate America feeling free to buy an election means. Before Citizens United, I advocated that we needed Media Reform before we needed Campaign Finance Reform (on the theory that if getting the message out was free, then the big buckets of money would not be needed), but this election changed my perspective when I could see clearly what happens when unfettered money can pour into a campaign. Welcome to Robber Barons II.
