DNC Chair Gives Up on Wisconsin?

If you’re a conservative, try reading this without laughing.

The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee said Friday that if Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) doesn’t prevail over Gov. Scott Walker (R) in next month’s Wisconsin recall election, there won’t be any ramifications for Democrats nationally.

“I think, honestly, there aren’t going to be any repercussions,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in a broad-ranging interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers.”

“It’s an election that’s based in Wisconsin. It’s an election that I think is important nationally because Scott Walker is an example of how extreme the tea party has been when it comes to the policies that they have pushed the Republicans to adopt,” Wasserman Schultz said. “But I think it’ll be, at the end of the day, a Wisconsin-based election, and like I said, across the rest of the country and including in Wisconsin, President Obama is ahead.”

The interview, taped Friday morning, is scheduled to air 10 a.m. Sunday.

That’s called preparing the ground for a defeat that you can’t prevent, with a little bit of Baghdad Bob thrown in. The recall is not in Oklahoma, mind you, where the Democrats have a hard time winning anything, but flippin’ Wisconsin. Cradle of the modern labor movement. Walker’s win would signal the possibly terminal decline of that labor movement as a force in American politics. It will give governors and legislatures elsewhere a freer hand to reign in excessive government worker union benefits. It puts Wisconsin in play in November.

What I’m saying is, Walker winning, if that’s what happens will be quite a big deal indeed. Bigger than if he lost, actually. But all signs point to Walker running away with this thing.