A Talking Points Memo post suggests something I have often noted: when some members of the Democratic Party’s liberal base get mad they decide to punish their party or just don’t vote and hand long sought victories to their foes. Then they complain afterwards when their foes are in power, or consolidate power. This has led to teeny-weeny things such as America’s Supreme Court becoming increasingly conservative. Are we seeing this now about to play out again…this time in Wisconsin?
Even as Democrats in Washington struggle with what many progressives see as one of the biggest losses their side has suffered in years, liberals in the Midwest are preparing to hand the left one of the biggest wins it has had in ages.
But the perceived progressive failure in DC over the debt ceiling deal could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the wild and crazy Wisconsin recalls, leading to the kind of political domino effect left-leaning critics of the debt deal fear most.
Here’s how the scenario works: as they’re still licking their wounds from a national fight that in the eyes of many Democrats went the Tea Party’s way, progressives in Wisconsin will be trying to pull out their voters for a round of recalls on August 9. That electorate could be underwhelmed now, folks familiar with the recalls say. And that could be the difference between flipping the Wisconsin state Senate away from Governor Scott Walker (R) and keeping it in Republican hands.
“There may be some who are sad to the point that they’ll stay home,” Charles Chamberlain, political director for Democracy for America, told TPM. DFA has spent well over a million dollars on the recall races, and expects to spend a lot more as the get-out-the-vote work begins in earnest.
The trouble is, Chamberlain said, the deal cut by President Obama and the Republicans to raise the debt ceiling has many of the same aspects as union-busting budget Walker passed through the Wisconsin legislature, firing up what has become one of the most active progressive battlefields in years.
So some could stay home who want to recall GOPers.
That will REALLY help advance their personal and party goals, won’t it? I’ve long contended that since LBJ Republicans have been on the ascent nationally due to existing factors on election day, better Republican election-winning smarts, better messaging by Republicans (ushered in with Roger Aisles and his work for Nixon in 1968) — and Democrats deciding to stay home out of anger or disillusionment.
But power is like toothpaste: once out, it’s hard to get back into the tube.
Republicans have won many of their victories but Democrats have handed some of them to them (and complained later when they see how Republicans use power they have won).
Read this column written a few weeks ago.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.