On Wisconsin! The Meaning of the Recall Effort
Finally, it is more than possible that many union members will themselves be voting for Scott Walker and not the Democratic Party candidate, Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee. Indeed, Barrett has not even made collective bargaining an issue in the campaign, preferring instead to concentrate on corruption charges brought against former Walker aides, hoping that the case against them will rub off on the governor. Walker, polls show, will receive 38 to 39 percent of the vote of union households. John Fund points out today that labor is split into two camps:
Members of public-sector unions represent 55 percent of all union workers in Wisconsin. Their leaders are focused not on economic growth but on securing bigger pay, more benefits, and greater power regardless of the impact on the overall state budget. Public-sector-union households support Barrett over Walker by 66 percent to 31 percent in a recent Marquette University poll. But among the 45 percent of union households that have a member in the private sector, Barrett leads by much less: 49 percent to 45 percent.
– While Barack Obama undoubtedly hopes Barrett will win, he has himself kept his hands off Wisconsin, and even while he visited nearby states he pointedly did not go to Wisconsin to stand by Barrett’s side. The Democrats did send Bill Clinton for one day, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz made a brief appearance. But it is no secret that the DNC is staying far removed from the fight, hoping that a possible Democratic defeat and Walker victory will not affect the president’s re-election effort.
Obama did at one point call Walker’s reforms an “assault” on the unions, but even though he pledged in the 2008 campaign to stand by the unions and to picket alongside them, he never came to Madison or publicly endorsed the anti-Walker campaign. Moreover, most federal employees do not themselves have collective bargaining rights, and as federal workers well know, the president imposed a pay freeze on their salaries without the work force having any ability to make their own wills known or to engage in bargaining with the federal government by those unions that represent them.
The last thing Barack Obama wants is for a Walker victory to spell trouble for his own campaign. No wonder union leaders in Wisconsin are furious that the president has not responded to their own efforts to have him come to Wisconsin to rally the troops. His advisers and spokesmen are already getting set to argue that a Walker victory has nothing to do with Obama’s chances for re-election, a claim that would be even more ridiculous than it already is had the president actually gone to Wisconsin to join the fight against the governor.
Everyone realizes that the campaign to recall Walker does have national implications. If Walker wins his fight, it bodes ill for the Democrats — Wisconsin for the first time in many years will be in play come November and not necessarily a sure state for the Democrats. That is why on Tuesday night all eyes will be on the Wisconsin results.
On Madison and the U. of Wisconsin: the upper Midwest was not only home to the Progressive movement, but many a budding communist went to this famously hospitable school for left-wing training. On the penetration of communist ideas into the progressive movement, see http://clarespark.com/2012/06/03/connecting-vs-connecting-the-dots/. The best part of my blog explains how Harvard sociologists erased any rational conception of “class.”
It’s time to end this with an across-the-board win for Walker, Kleefisch and the GOP state senators. Wisconsin must not be dragged backwards into the failed policies of the Left. The stance that Governor Walker has taken and the accomplishments of the GOP-controlled legislature must continue to serve as a beacon of [real] hope for reform.
Leftist policies that crush private enterprise and destroy social capital are not failing. Leftism is an alliance among various individuals and groups who cannot adapt to the rules of normal society. Scratch any Leftist and there’s a pervert, ethnic alien, wacko, criminal, or just plain *sshole underneath. Socialists want to eliminate the private sector eventually and replace all with government programs that result in suffering and death (see the NHS in the UK, the USSR, Red China, Cuba, Cambodia). Communists want the same thing, but today, not tomorrow. Liberals and Progressives are stealth socialists in action, and Communists in their daydreams. Rove and Coulter aren’t who they say they are, but what they do.
Everywhere I look I find this theme, Obama will not go to Wisconsin to stump for Barret. Hasn’t anyone considered the alternative, Barret doesn’t WANT Obama to campaign for him? It seems that every candidate Obama has HELPED has lost!
“Indeed, many private sector union members highly resented their tax dollars going to public sector workers whose inflated benefits were bankrupting the state.”
I think that’s why so many people in so many states are starting to turn against the unions. Here in New Jersey where I live, Governor Christie was the first governor to take on the all-powerful teachers union. All governors, espcially former governor Jon Corzine, shamelessly pandered to this union and gave them terribly expensive contracts that we could not hope to afford. Not only was this NOT fair to the rest of the people in this state who had to pay for these outrageous contracts, but it was making New Jersey literally go broke, especially when it came to pension and health benefits.
Christie simply wanted these union contracts to come more in line with what people with similar jobs in the private sector were getting. After a huge fight, Christie won. The unions here now are still powerful, but not as powerful as they were before and they now know that they have to come up with more reasonable contracts or get nothing in return. And, guess what? Financially, the state is doing a lot better.
Isn’t that how our system of democracy is supposed to work?
“Isn’t that how our system of democracy is supposed to work?”
Huhhh? I’d remind you that we do not live in a democracy. Our form of gummint is called a “Constitutional Republic”, that’s how we avoid the mob rule that a democracy invariably produces.
Walker’s calling for pension and insurance changes were reasonable but not his ending collective bargaining rights. Issues such as class size which benefit children are off the table and districts can now load up classes to sizes that adversely affect learning. The Feds may not have public employee collective bargaining but Wisconsin has had it since the late 1950s. Also Walker never ran on a platform of ending collective bargaining, he ran only on the changes in union dues and pension/insurance reform.
Walker’s hard right and Obama’s hard left policies are both detrimental. Barrett is not a progressive but an old fashioned liberal. The political center is not mushy; it is a reasonable place to take the best ideas of conservatives and liberals to promote growth, support the needy and defeat our totalitarian Russian, Chinese, radical Islamist enemies abroad while opposing reactionary and radical economic policies at home.
To business owners:
If Walker is recalled, you should move the company to Texas. Taxes are low and Texas is a Right-to-Work state. Wisconsin will end up like Illinois.
OTOH, if Walker prevails and IL keeps going down the road it’s been traveling, WI might soon be in a position to buy IL and annex it … only they’ll have to detach Cook County and push it out into Lake Michigan to assure the integrity of the rest of their purchase.
The EPA would never approve polluting Lake Michigan by drowning Chicago in it — and this is the one area where I would stand with the EPA. I suggest it may be time to buy Mrs. O’Leary another cow.
The Workers Party thugs aren’t done shipping in bodies and they are not beneath every conceivable trick.
The Marxist model depends upon the Workers Party and Obama has given them every break, circumvented every rule, broken every convention to advance their cause.
Let’s not get cocky. This fight is not over.
It is being fought with our own DOJ. It is being fought in every nook and cranny of our government. The Marxists have fanned out into every element and are doing damage on a daily basis.
Winning Wisconsin would be key, but not curative.
And, the Propaganda and Lies Ministry will spin this and then bury it.
BARACK OBAMA, RONALD REAGAN AND WISCONSIN’S RECALL VOTE
In the final hours before the Wisconsin recall vote Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, who’s striving to keep Mitt Romney from becoming President 45, has boldly and bravely reaffirmed over Twitter his staunch support for Tom Barrett in his quest to end 44 year old Scott Walker’s career as Wisconsin’s 45th governor. And as this is a contest between a Conservative governor and Liberal mayor, and a microcosm of the nation’s political divide, the vote is strangely taking place on the 8th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s death.
“Madison does not represent the entire state”
In Wisconsin, Madison is called 58 square miles surrounded by reality.
“Draw one line on a graph charting the decline in union membership, then superimpose a second line charting the decline in middle-class income share, and you will find that the two lines are nearly identical.”
Timothy Noah, quoted by Joe Nocera in the Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/opinion/nocera-turning-our-backs-on-unions.html?_r=1&hp
And btw, Ron, aren’t you enjoying a public pension for your years of teaching in the New York system?
Now draw a third line showing the area of the Amazon rainforest…
Correlation is not causation.
I will be hoping that the margin of error goes to Walker and that the victory is a strong statement that the media is wrong, that the unions are wrong and that Scott Walker is right.
Sorry Mr. Radosh, you and the posters on this thread represent everything wrong with Scott Walker and the Wisconsin situation. I grew up in Wisconsin (Milwaukee suburbs) and while I generally supported the Walker agenda, what Mr. Walker has done to the state is dismaying. By pushing his agenda in this imperial, scorched earth, manner he has destroyed the long tradition of comity and compromise in the state. I have seen families torn apart due to the divisiveness Mr. Walker has sown, neighbor against neighbor, and demonization of teachers and public sector employees for wanting what everyone, public or private sector, should want. It is sickening. This is Wisconsin and not some playground for the big money boys. So please, take your out-of-state opinions and money, and go away. You have never lived in Wisconsin, you never will, we don’t appreciate being pawns in your little game.
Sorry, Brutus. I lived in Madison for 9 years. Is that long enough for you?
Interesting. I looked up “comity” in the Wisconsin Union Dictionary and the definition is “doing whatever the unions want.” What do you say to that, Mr. Radosh?
By pushing his agenda in this imperial, scorched earth, manner he has destroyed the long tradition of comity and compromise in the state.
“…Imperial, scorched earth manner…” – ARE YOU KIDDING? What planet do you live on?
“…And he has destroyed the long tradition of comity and compromise in the state?” You mean the comity and compromise that we all saw last year when the teachers and other assorted union thugs occupied and vandalized the capital? And the Democratic legislators who went AWOL, undermining and blocking the legislative process? Essentially refusing to do the job they were elected to do? Is that the comity and compromise you’re talking about?
You are either a brilliant satirist or a raving idiot, singularly unacquainted with reality. I vote for the latter.
Missed the reply button – the above is directed at Brutus.
The essence of Brutus’ objection seems to be that Walker did exactly what he promised to do – and what, presumably, the majority of Wisconsin’s voters elected him to do – but he wasn’t nice about it. He crossed lines. He stepped on toes. Now everybody’s upset. They’re arguing with each other. Issuing death threats. If only the Governor had found a nice way to castrate the public unions, everything would have been so much…nicer.
There’s something to be said for that argument. Wisconsin has been going through a lot of changes since Walker took over, and a lot of people are suffering emotionally because of his measures. However, I think that in politics there’s a time to be subtle and a time to go for the throat. I think that Walker had to go for the throat. If he had taken his time and proceeded gradually – the “nice” way – he would have given the Democrats and the unions breathing room. They would have had time strategize, fundraise, build support, grind Walker down, and eventually weasel their way out of the situation. Time was not on Walker’s side and he knew it. He seized the moment and won. Period.
It only appears shocking to us because our politicians are so risk-averse these days. I’m sure Walker knew his direct approach could backfire. He probably understood that a lot of people for whom “Democracy = Labor Unions” would feel like they’d been railroaded. I don’t know if he imagined there would be a recall, but I expect he was prepared to lose the next election. He may lose it yet (see above re: time and Democratic weaseling). But at this particular moment, audacity worked. It’s what the majority in Wisconsin voted for. That’s democracy.
All due respect, you don’t know what you are talking about, you clearly do not live in Wisconsin. “Union thugs”? My 79 year old retired teacher mother is not a “union thug”. As I said, I generally agreed with Walker’s agenda, but not how he did it. I’ve seen what Walker wrought, you have not. That is reality, not the “union thug”, “AWOL”, “vandalized the Capitol” talking points you are parroting. Take your out-of-state opinions about a situation you know nothing about and begone.
Brutus- Just to be clear, since I am not from Wisconsin, are you telling us that the Democrat legislators did not run away to another state to avoid their legislative responsibilities? Please remind us how responsible that was.
Also Brutus- please clear this matter up for us- All of those union people who were bused into Wisconsin for those ridiculous protests- you have no problem with them shutting down your capital and legislative process, yet you seem offended that those with differing opinions from outside your state have no right commenting. Odd how that works for you.
Take your out-of-state opinions about a situation you know nothing about and begone.
Nah. I think I’ll stick around a while dimwit. Because I’m an American and if your side can ship in thugs from out of state, then I can certainly – and will – express my opinion from out of state. And btw, my parents have a place in the Dells. Ever hear of it?
And another thing. Knock off the ‘my poor 79 year old mother’ crap. Nobody said anything about your mother and you sound like a child trying to turn this into fake hurt feelings. My wife’s mother was also a retired school teacher – in LAUSD – and she was ashamed of the union and what it did to the schools in Los Angeles.
That is reality, not the “union thug”, “AWOL”, “vandalized the Capitol” talking points you are parroting.
I have been reading the blog of Ann Althouse, a University of Wisconsin law professor, for years- including her copious coverage of the Walker situation. Her blog has plenty of support for all those above “talking points” about union thugs, AWOL legislator, and vandalizing the Capitol. For example, many or even most of the Capitol protests did not have vandalism. But some did: Door plate and hinge damaged by the Wisconsin Capitol protesters.
A similar argument can be made about “union thugs.” Did most of the union protestors act in a thuggish manner? No. But some did. As Radosh holds up comments with two or more links, I will not include another one.
AWOL legislators: you are going to tell me it didn’t happen?
Absent/AWOL teachers who got MDs to write fraudulent absence notes for their being at anti-Walker demonstrations: you are going to tell me it didn’t happen?
No, I am not from Wisconsin. But by age 10 I knew the “On Wisconsin” song. Many dear family friends were Wisconsin natives and also UW alumni.
Meaning? Get ready for lots of dirty tricks.
Walker wins.
Wonderful news for the people of Wisconsin. It’s a little more than 30 years since Mr. Reagan fired (and decertified) PATCO for violating the law. And unlike Mr. Walker, Mr. Reagan knew that the Air Force was regularly testing their ability to manage the entire air-traffic system as part of their civil-defense role – he could be confident that planes would still fly and business could continue during his (the people’s) argument with the air traffic controllers. Mr. Walker had the comfort of no backstop other than being right in principle and in action.
The public sector unions, like our representatives, need to be further reminded who they work for, who pays their check – this isn’t a private company where if unions are too demanding (and management not firm enough) they both suffer the costs of their stupidity by going out of business.
Perhaps next time rather than “more, I want more, and I want it now!” tantrums they’ll come hat in hand with evidence of twice the product and/or quality of result at half the costs and ask to share in a minor fraction of the rewards – assuming all the productivity increases are not already obligated to fund the costs of new regulation (regulation: a pre-made purchasing decision made in our names) and reducing the debt for the next twenty years.
(I raised a family in small town Wisconsin decades ago. It is far too nice a place to be remembered as a union madhouse w/ politicians who fled the state rather than stand and take their electoral medicine.)
Strong ,Uncompromising Conservatism always wins every time it is tried.