We wrote earlier this week that the April 4 civil rights rallies could mark a pivotal moment in the 2012 election cycle. As we said on Monday:
When the 2012 elections heat up next summer, we may be looking back at this day as a tipping point in gains by Democrats at the ballot box. The over-reaching and completely unnecessary moves by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans around the country awakened a slumbering group of progressives that might not otherwise have been as enthused about 2012. Walker’s efforts to take away collective bargaining rights prompted unprecedented demonstrations locally and created a firestorm that swept across the country.…the rallies scheduled for today have a very clear civil rights focus after Gov. Walker’s attempts at union busting in Wisconsin. This is certainly a progressive cause, but we’re talking about people’s livelihoods here. This isn’t just a symbolic opposition to a general set of beliefs — this is a very real opposition to a very real, and very specific, attack. Why Republicans decided to pick this fight is a mystery to us, but perhaps they just misinterpreted seeing a larger mandate in the 2010 elections — a mandate that quite clearly did not exist, as poll after poll shows most Americans oppose what happened in Wisconsin.
Our friends at “The Fix” have the rundown on what happened at the ballot box in Wisconsin yesterday, and what a colossal error the Republican attack on unions appears to have become:
Less than a month after the contentious budget fight concluded in Wisconsin, voters went to the polls across the state in an off-year election that was cast by Democrats as a referendum on the brief tenure of Gov. Scott Walker (R) and Republicans in the state legislature.
The results suggest that, at a minimum, the budget standoff energized Democratic voters and, at a maximum, could well have played a role in tipping the ideological composition of the Wisconsin state Supreme Court.
In the state Supreme Court race, incumbent David Prosser was trailing challenger Joanne Kloppenburg by 224 votes with all but three of the state’s 3,630 precincts counted. (The race is officially non partisan but Prosser was supported by national Republican groups and Kloppenburg by Democratic ones.)
And, in the Milwaukee County Executive race to replace Walker, Democrat Chris Abele beat Republican state Rep. Jeff Stone by a surprisingly large margin in a campaign where Abele ran a series of ads casting Stone as a Walker clone.
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Prosser won. Wisconsin does not agree with you. Deal with it.
Not so fast
and he won. But seriously, even if it is a virtual tie, you guys have nowhere near the overwhelming wave of opposition to Walker you said you did.
Whatever gets you through the night.
My point was that the union boss spin doesn’t hold water.
Oh, that’s right…Elections have consequences.
You keep Walker, we’ll take the Supreme Court.
unless you’re a Democrat. Then you just flee your state, refuse to do your job, and throw a hissy fit until you can bludgeon the voters into keeping a supreme court vote close enough that the union bosses can steal it.
and his name is…you!
I will not rest until we get our country back on the right track. If you’re tired of fighting me, you might as well just go home now.
says he sitting on a chair typing on his computer. Blogging is what people with real jobs do to rest.
Answer my question about whether you got your ass kicked in front of your county party.
Why are you ducking the question?
You got your bill passed in Wisc regardless of what Dems did.
If your party can’t hold a voting coalition together for 6 months that elected Walker to reelect a sitting SC justice, that’s pretty pathetic.
Maybe you should go whine over at Square State.
Oh wait..you got banned from there…
I hadn’t noticed about Square State, I haven’t been to that site in months.
Anyhow, ride that Tea Party wave brother. Remember, you only need 25% to win…or something.
Maybe you can be so lucky as to have The Donald run, and you can help pick a man of the people, with that common, humble touch to carry your torch. I hear that he’s surging among your kind. Finally someone who has the guts to reveal the Great Obama Time Machine Conspiracy. You could do worse
by people who think they’re Jesus doesn’t make them less so.
Power to the People! The House IS actually ours because when I squint really hard I can’t see anything but my own high hopes.
And et cetera. History: It happens. Now tell everyone why this is no big deal and “you guys” have no wave?
Although, it is nice of you to finally admit, by your own rules, that there was no “wave” for the GOP (or Tea Party) last November. Thanks for that.
Now go back and give me the sources I asked for.
I don’t know what you’re smoking, but it was the biggest swing of the House in our lifetimes. Happen to notice the budget debates going on right now?
Prior to Walker’s idiotic moves against workers, that is…
Prosser was an incumbent Supreme Court Justice. Having just lost a battle to remove several sitting Supreme Court Justices, I’m sure you understand how hard it is to upset that particular apple cart.
That early projection would have meant a 20% blow-out victory or more – all erased in the course of a few weeks.
It Walker doesn’t push to remove collective bargaining, this is never even a race.
A laughably pathetic attempt at spin. Walker won with 52% of the vote, so you swung only 1.5%.
Superior fielding coordinating ground game in Larimer County puts Ken Buck over the top…oh wait…
Do you even take anything you say seriously?
My fingers are getting so slow. 🙂
100+ words per minute.
As the article you quote notes, “we’re talking about people’s livelihoods here”: WI workers still are losing long-established rights, and a lot of pay. This liberal awakening is at best a silver lining to a still negative turn of events in WI
It’s backfired on a number of fronts. Yesterday’s election is a glimpse of what’s to come. The Republicans attack on collective bargaining has managed to ignite a fire under Dem voters’ asses in a way that nothing has in a really long time.
This is more than a silver lining, raymond. This is a wake up call to my party and somebody finally answered the fucking phone.
…is that the R’s clearly are waging a systematic assault to destroy progressive institutions: Acorn; Planned Parenthood; Unions; AARP (hauled in for BS cobgressional hearings attacking their support for health reform). If they destroy Acorn, heavily de-fund unions, PP, etc., then enhanced liberal motivation to vote won’t counteract those losses
and apart from that, i just have a hard time with Pols saying that confiscating $thousands from public emoyees, to fund Walker’s tax-cutting, “backfired” even if as a result more Dems are elected next time
It is definitely a systematic, organized assault on a number of fronts.
Of course there will be a recount but this would have been a walk in the park for the incumbent Prosser before Walker incited the Great Wiscinsin Rebellion and the turn out was stunning for this type of election. Could be a good indication that at least some of the recall efforts against Rs in the State legislature will succeed.
Beej doesn’t seem to understand that going from being a 60% shoe in to fighting for your life in a generally low turn out automatic win election is a big turn around. Since he’s widely considered a pretty decent Justice, all of that turn around shows that Dems are, dare I say it? I don’t think he’s trademarked it yet: Duh.. Winning! Maybe one day DC Dems will learn a thing or two from stalwart state Dems in multiple locations.
I’m very proud.
Still, lots of work to do.
Walker says that has nothing to do with anything since it’s a “deep blue” county. Maybe so, but it’s the same deep blue county that elected him last time. He served 8 years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
Wonder if that’s enough of a turn around to make an impression on the Beej.
Growing up in Chicago and ‘burbs, we vacationed several times in Wisconsin. Lovely state. Nice people.
http://www.uwbadgers.com/trads…
Is that in the ’12 election we concentrate on the states. That’s where we can bring about a good change unlike the federal level where our goal is “we suck less.”
President Bachmann will be fun to write about for the next four years.
…that Adam’s Schrager’s move back home to Wisconsin now seems to be no accident.
Lost ballots from a ‘forgotton’deeply red city discovered by a county clerk who has been a career partisan hack, audited before for incompetence, and who insists on keeping vote records only on her personal computer.
What was that about voter fraud Mr. SOS Gesslar? I guess your party is the expert…
There are, as far as I know, tens of thousands of ballots not yet counted – mail-ins and provisionals…
But we’ll see where this goes; I’m sure there are election protection folks in Wisconsin keeping a close eye on things.
the Democrat on the canvassing board agrees that a legitimate mistake was made.
The Government Accountability Board, Wisconsin’s election oversight body, will be doing a full investigation of Waukesha County’s elections before certifying the total.
I expect Nickolaus to get a serious drubbing from the board; they’ve already been critical of her “system” in the past, and even should it all turn out to be a colossal error on her part (which I have to agree seems a reasonable possibility), she deserves and will probably receive a Clue-by-4. Which she’ll promptly ignore, given her history; one can only hope that the voters vote her out next time around.