|
The Wisconsin Constitution requires signatures of at least 25% of the votes cast in an election in order to hold a recall election of the winner. For the recall of Scott Walker, that would have been 540,000 signatures. Over one million were turned in on January 17th, 2012 by the various groups involved in the recall effort. That does not bode well for Governor Walker. By all measures, 2010 was a Republican year nationwide, and was in Wisconsin as well. Both chambers of the legislature and the governorship flipped from Democratic to Republican control. Russ Feingold, an all around good guy with a strong bipartisan history (remember McCain-Feingold? Those were the days…) lost to the political neophyte and rich guy, Ron Johnson. The Tea Party was at its zenith and the President was struggling. The governor’s race in 2010 pitted two candidates from southeast Wisconsin, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee and former House member Tom Barrett against Scott Walker, the Milwaukee County executive who took office, ironically, after a recall of the former County executive, Tom Ament. Democrats in state-wide races in Wisconsin rely heavily on the southeastern part of the state, Milwaukee down to Kenosha, for support. The Milwaukee suburbs are pretty conservative, as is the Fox valley, and everyone knows about Dane County. Because Walker is from Wauwatosa (he lived 4 blocks from us and his wife went to the same Curves as mine), he was able to capture a larger fraction of the Milwaukee vote. That helped him win the governorship. Additionally, Tom Barrett was not a particularly motivated candidate and had to be convinced to run. The recall election will have a very different dynamic. There will be no national race at the same time to drive voter turn-out. The left is highly motivated because of the polarizing way that Walker implemented his agenda. The eventual Democratic nominee is unlikely to come from SE Wisconsin, where governors rarely come from. The political atmosphere nationally is more favorable to the Democrats, with a weak presidential GOP field, and the poor opinion of House Republicans. But this race is no slam-dunk. Scott Walker has a lot of money with a lot of out of state support. He also is strong in the conservative bastions of Wisconsin. His aggressive, partisan style is red-meat for the Tea Party crowd and has can argue that he did implement budget reform that eliminated a structural deficit that Wisconsin was fighting with for over a decade. This one will be fun to watch. Stay tuned.  Be first to comment this article |  Add as favourites (4) |  Quote this article on your site | Views: 19 | E-mail
|
