The Atlantic Magazine: In Wisconsin, the Left Picked a Fight -- and Lost

[stockholmer]

It doesn't mean Obama is going to lose, but the failed attempt to recall Scott Walker gives Democrats and organized labor reason to fear an emboldened conservative agenda.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/in-wisconsin-the-left-picked-a-fight-and-lost/258152/

It's important to remember, as Democrats cope with their failure to topple Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in Tuesday's recall, that this was a fight they chose. Unlike the vast majority of elections, which occur on a regular schedule, the recall was a fight the left picked on purpose. They picked it because they thought they could win. And they were wrong. It wasn't even close. With two-thirds of the votes reported late Tuesday, Walker led his Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, by 58 percent to 42 percent. The idea behind the recall effort was to send a message: a warning to conservatives across the country that there was a line not to be crossed when it came to messing with the hard-earned gains of public worker unions. By losing, however, the consortium of unions, progressives and Democrats that worked so ardently to send Walker packing may have sent the opposite message. If Walker can survive, what's to stop any other right-leaning governor from pushing the envelope?

"This really is a test case. The far right made Wisconsin its petri dish," said Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action Wisconsin, a grassroots progressive group that supported the recall effort. Walker's win, he said, will embolden the Koch brothers and other national conservative funders to get ideologically sympathetic Republicans to push their agenda across the country. "Wisconsin will not be the high water mark of the attack on unions, public employees, and the middle class," Kraig said. "You will see more Walker-like politicians elected in other states, and you will see more current governors taking this type of attack."

When I interviewed Walker a couple of months ago, that was his prediction, too, though he naturally didn't put it in quite those terms. If he prevailed in the recall, he told me, "It suggests to other elected officials that you can tackle tough issues, you can face the wrath of organized special interests like the public employee unions, and ultimately prevail," he said. "They're not going to be able to bully and intimidate people who are trying to act in the best interest of the taxpayers."

It's not only Republican governors, Walker noted, who are pushing to reform the pension, benefit and pay privileges enjoyed by public workers. He pointed to the efforts of Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, Lincoln Chafee (a liberal independent) in Rhode Island, Andrew Cuomo in New York and Jerry Brown in California, all of whom have approached the issue of public sector pension reform, if in less inflammatory manner. The results for the labor movement, of which the public sector is now the backbone, could be dire. Already, there are signs Walker has succeeded in crippling Wisconsin's unions, whose membership has sharply declined since his reforms made it easier for workers to opt out and harder for the groups to gain recognition. In just over a year, the union representing state workers has seen its membership drop by two-thirds, while the American Federation of Teachers has lost more than a third of the 17,000 members it formerly claimed in Wisconsin, according to the Wall Street Journal.

snip

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The attack on the US social safety net is only just beginning. You can't let the right-wing oligarchs crush this living embodiment of hundreds of years of industrial-age human progress and bloody struggle. Lives of those in need cannot be allowed to simply dry up and blow away.

[Speck Tater]

1. I'll bet they had TWO articles written, edited, and ready to publish...

... the minute the returns were in.

I wonder what their "Dems win" article looks like?

[RZM]

11. Hehe. That's certainly possible

Probably this one was mostly written ahead of time because the polling had Walker ahead. I'll bet the other article was outlined but not as fleshed out.

[TheWraith]

2. They're reading too much in here.

Completely aside from the fact that recall elections VERY rarely succeed, you had a not-so-great candidate who'd already been beaten once, facing a guy who outspent him massively. Yeah, it's bad for Wisconsin, but trying to read a national trend into it is a mistake. This isn't easy to repeat.

[jillan]

3. This was a huge loss. There is no way else to spin this.

Either the Dems get it together - money and all - or we are screwed.

[DJ13]

4. We're going to regret not pouring everything into Wis to defeat Walker

The recall was a firewall to maintain our middle class.

Losing it will embolden the right into moving their agenda across the country, and fighting them in Wisconsin and ending their plan would have been cheaper than fighting them in the next several states they will now move onto.

Penny wise, pound foolish comes to mind.

[shcrane71]

5. Wait... Walker paints teachers as "Union Thugs" that are breaking Wisconsin's budget

with their "outrageously" paid 30-40K a year salaries, and the LEFT picked a fight?!?!?!

Get a grip Atlantic. I knew there was some reason I didn't subscribe to that rag.

[bluerum]

7. Bingo. The left did not pick this fight. But they will fight the aggression.

[Blue_Tires]

8. +1

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. They mean they fought for the recall

Isn't that clear from the article?

[HereSince1628]

6. The left stood up and said ENOUGH, and then, unfortunately it chose a moderate to fight its fight

The labor base is going to be massacred by right-to-work types. Big tax cuts to corporations are going to strangle public education, medicaid, public lands, highways and access to water.

A few years down the road, the starving will figure this out, too late.

[NightWatcher]

10. This morning Big Money is celebrating crushing Labor

This will empower Big Money to squeeze out Labor even moreso than before. Now they feel they can do it without fear of a populist uprising.