Our political Quote of the Day comes from The Daily Beast’s John Avlon who gives the three top conclusions from the Wisconsin recall. Here are a few excerpts:
It was a big win for Scott Walker and a big wake-up call for Democrats.
The Wisconsin governor survived a recall effort that received more than a million signatures by gaining more votes in this special election than he did in 2010.
The policy implications of Walker’s victory will echo across the country as governors realize that they can take on public-sector unions and not face electoral oblivion.
The political implications for the presidential election will be overstated over the next few days—Wisconsin is still unlikely to break its 24-year Democratic streak this fall.
But there are plenty of lessons to learn from what DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz infamously called “a dry run” for the general election. Here are my Top 3.
Some portions of what he says:
1. Labor Union Blues: Wisconsin ended up feeling a little like Waterloo for the labor unions that saw Scott Walker’s collective bargaining reforms as an existential threat. For all the vaunted Get Out the Vote operations offered by Big Labor, they were not able to inspire independents and middle-class voters to rally to their side. The “war on workers” rhetoric doesn’t seem to be working. Instead, voters earning between $30,000 and $100,000 went for Scott Walker. It’s not because his polarizing tactics are particularly appealing—it’s because there are signs (PDF) that his reforms are working, contributing to closing a $3 billion budget gap without leading to layoffs. Simultaneously, labor unions are coming off historically low approval ratings….
This point I’ll run in full:
2. Big Money Matters: This was the most expensive recall election in American history, and Scott Walker’s campaign outraised Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 7 to 1, $30 million to $4 million. Two thirds of Walker’s money came from out of state. The total amount spent by super PACs has yet to be counted, but the overall expenditures are expected to exceed $60 million. It’s true that fewer than 10 percent of voters made their decision in the last few days, but every vote counts no matter how uneconomical the R.O.I., and you can bet that the big-money boys will take this win as a sign that super-PAC spending works. Republicans believe they have found a winning formula that can keep even an embattled incumbent in office, and they’ll try to run the same play in states across the nation. For Democrats, this resounding defeat just might be the wake-up call their big and small donors need to start donating again. To date the Obama-associated super PAC is trailing Romney’s by a 1 to 4 margin, and 90 percent of his small donors from 2008 have yet to pony up again. What was left of Democratic overconfidence should have been shattered last night. If Wisconsin doesn’t get their attention, nothing will. This election is going to be ugly, awash in a tsunami of sleazy super-PAC ads from both sides. But unilateral disarmament is not an option.
AND:
3. An End to Recall Fever…
There’s a LOT more so go to the link and read it all in full.
The key question is: will the Democrats will wake up?
Or, as we’ve seen in the past, will Democrats be demoralized and not vote, or some of those angry because Barack Obama didn’t wave a magic wand and magically produce the Democrats’ agenda decide to send their party a message and stay home?
Democrats have done this over the years. And the main political message they got back was: Hey, by punishing your own party you’ve lost the Supreme Court which can make rulings you don’t like (such as Citizens United). Then, when the elections are over Democrats find many reasons to blame the loss of power they wielded in states and on a national level from the New Deal to the end of LBJ’s Great Society.
Will they hear the wake up call, or turn turn on mournful CD music instead?
FOOTNOTE: I MUST add this. One of the most striking things about this recall, how it was framed, what Democrats expected and what happened is how surprise over the results underscores the existence of American political echo chambers. It is often correctly pointed out that conservatives have an extensive echo chamber. But so do Democrats.
I’ve just completed a 9 month car tour of America in my other incarnation (only back 3 1/2 weeks during this time). Due to long drives, I was perhaps Sirius XM Radio’s biggest listener. I scanned talk shows and listened to many of the audio portions of Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN, NPR and BBC.
During the last two weeks I could not listen anymore to MSNBC or Fox due to the predictability of a)how they would spin news b)the often smug guests on their shows who often were on to reaffirm the viewpoint of the hoses c)how reports seemed to be doused with huge amounts of attempts to make a political case. (A lot of people love Rachael Maddow who is extremely intelligent and a good interviewer, but she repeats ideas three or four times, repeats three or four times ideas, ideas are repeated three or four times…and it’s grating and I have to turn her off..)To be sure, I still watch these networks (I AM a huge fan of Morning Joe in particular). But I mostly listened to CNN which tries to present both sides and offer stand back analysis.
The recall was a major story and subject on liberal talk and MSNBC. Reports did indeed point out the obstacles, polls that didn’t look good, and the whopping Republican bankroll.
But the assumptions underneath seemed to be that the recall would in the end be won.
The biggest underlying vibe seemed to be why those voters can’t be so dumb as not to see the situation and keep Walker in!
This then stirred up feelings that I had somehow been through this before. And then I realized:
This is the same thing that occurred during the 2004 Presidential election, when many liberal blogs seemed convinced John Kerry would win, that the big rallies would sway the day, that the public really was on their side and that convincing and persuading wasn’t as necessary as rallies and getting out the vote.
I was at the home of center right blogger Citizen Smash, a superb blogger and top military blogger, who then had a blog (he got a job where blogging is not feasible), and I was the only independent there. The others were conservative bloggers. I extensively surfed blogs on all sides and news reports. Early on there was near certainty on liberal blogs that by the end of the night John Kerry would be elected. I read all these sites and started to conclude it myself. It was the way posts were framed, the way facts were laid out.
But then when I read news reports and the way each side’s campaign officials were framing it and reports from non-blog, non ideological talk or cable sources, I told Smash early on: Kerry will win it. (He later pointed this out in a post that I was the only one who predicted this early on). I had stepped totally outside the echo chambers to see what I could conclude from primary news and political sources.
The inklings from political professionals were not statements based on an echo chamber where like minded people convince themselves that they are right and because they are right they will prevail or on political wishful thinking. Echo chambers are mindsets.
And when the ballots were actually counted, some (like then Air America talk show host Al Franken) were absolutely shocked. But why should they have been shocked when they were reaffirming their beliefs right up to election day and not allowing the possibility that others genuinely, honestly, sincerely saw things differently than they did — and the task was to change minds through unrelenting reason?
And, as Avlon notes, $$$$$ is what’s going to get the point across in 2012.
But some Democratic donors still seem oblivious.
And that — apart from Wisconsin — should be making Republicans really smile.
Image via shutterstock.com
Also, I reviewed Avlon’s latest book HERE.
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.