AFL-CIO Chief Pre-Spinning Walker Victory

It’s only recall primary day, yet the AFL-CIO’s highly paid labor chief is already spinning an expensive defeat as a “moral victory.”

What if Walker, the prime target of the country’s labor movement in a campaign viewed by many on the political left as rivaling the presidential race in importance, were to prevail?

“He would be a debilitated governor for the next two years in office, and he would be finished the next time he runs,” Trumka said in a new interview.

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That result, plus Walker’s bruised image, would not likely embolden other GOP lawmakers around the country to take on bargaining rights, Trumka argued. “Not if you’re sane and rational, it wouldn’t,” he said.

We’re not talking about Democrats losing in, say, Texas, where Democrats haven’t won anything statewide in so long that students heading off to their freshman year of college this fall have never seen a Democrat governor. Moral victory in politics = actual defeat. The Democrats and Big Labor will have poured tens of millions of dollars into defending the cradle of the American labor movement against a conservative Republican, and lost. Three times in a row, if you add up Walker’s election, the Senate recalls, and the Walker/Kleefisch recalls. Make that four, after Big Labor’s recall candidate, Kathleen Falk, loses to Tom Barrett in the Democrat primary.

Reformers elsewhere will be emboldened to take on government unions and roll back their lavish benefits and break their power. Reformers will rightly figure, if Walker can do that and survive in Wisconsin, then they will be able to do it and survive in their own states. And they’ll be right, because Big Labor cannot afford to mount Wisconsin-level efforts in multiple states. The Wisconsin recall is an all-in move for them.

If Walker survives the recall, Wisconsin will go down as Big Labor’s Waterloo. It could be the beginning of the end of the government unions’ never-ending taxpayer-funded money laundering cycle. That’s why they’re spending so much money and effort to oust Scott Walker.