GOP Sees All Their Hard Work Pay Off at Ballot Box

Last night was not a good night to be a Republican. Off-year elections in several states went terribly wrong for them, as GOP policies -- when to put a vote -- were rejected again and again.

L.A. Times:

Ohio voters overturned a controversial law that would have weakened public employee unions and Mississippians rejected an antiabortion "personhood" initiative in elections Tuesday that suggested at least a pause in the strong conservative Republican trend that swept Democrats from office in 2010.

In the marquee fight of the day, a successful push by organized labor resulted in the repeal of Ohio's new law that would have sharply curbed collective bargaining rights for 350,000 government workers. The restrictive labor measure had been passed by the Republican Legislature and signed by newly elected Republican Gov. John Kasich, who led the unsuccessful effort to defend the law.

In Maine, a bill that would've ended same-day voter registration was defeated -- by a healthy margin. Russell Pearce, the man behind Arizona's anti-immigrant law, lost a historic recall. Incumbent Democratic Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear sailed to reelection. In Iowa, Democrat Liz Mathis won a special election that -- had she lost -- would've given control of the state Senate to Republicans.

Kind of seems like the wind is shifting, huh?

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Pro-Labor Occupiers About to Win Big

It's not difficult to show the evolution of the "town hall mobs" of rightwingers angry healthcare reform to the Tea Party. It was basically the same people who listen to the same radio shows and fell for largely the same BS. But where the town hall rowdies were focused on one issue, the Tea Party came about when complaints broadened to other issues. "Healthcare reform sucks!" became "healthcare reform sucks -- and I like guns and Obama's a Kenyan Muslim and when government spends money on anyone other than me, that's just like Nazi Germany!"

Sure, both the town hall mobs and the Tea Party were astroturf creations, but look at why people joined. What happened was that people with other concerns were drawn to the coverage the town-hallers were getting and wanted in on the action. The movement grew and the focus broadened.

There's a clumsy parallel on the left with the Occupy movement. It may just be that I'm from ground zero, but I see an evolution from the Wisconsin union protests and the ongoing recall effort to Occupy Wall Street. People saw the occupation of the State Capitol, thought about their own issues, and wondered if that would work for them as well. The left was electrified by the Wisconsin activists and the "hit the streets and take over" method of protest spread out to other states.

One of those states would be Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich and state Republicans jammed through a union-busting bill similar to Wisconsin's. But Ohio is not Wisconsin -- the laws are quite different -- and state Democrats were able to put the question up to the voters. Where Wisconsin only has recall as an option, Ohioans are able to put repeal on a referendum. And that referendum is not going Kasich's way.

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