A Heroic Effort Falls Short

Well that didn't go well. In last night's recall elections in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker scored a pretty decisive win -- 52% went for Walker, while 46% went to challenger Tom Barrett. Democrats take the consolation prize of the state senate, with former state Sen. John Lehman eking out a win over incumbent Sen. Van Wanggaard. The days of Walker's rubber-stamp legislature are over, so not a total loss. At least, for now.

Looking at the results, it seems that the national polling was correct. Barrett's and Democrats' internals were not so correct. Milwaukee didn't turn out as much as had been hoped (but Dane County, you are awesome), so perhaps that was the problem there -- the projections were off.

So what happened? The Wisconsinites who did turn out simply had no taste for a recall.

Wisconsin State Journal:

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said the overriding message from Tuesday's election was that many Wisconsin voters are sick of the "recall madness," which has led to recall elections against 13 state senators, Walker and Kleefisch.

"People are tired of recalls, and they don't think a recall was justified," he said.

Exit polling (which, admittedly, was shown last night to be flawed) backs that up. 60% of voters polled believed that recalls "are legitimate only for official misconduct."

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Recall Turnout Matters. Where Voters Turn Out Matters More

Here we go. These are likely the final independent polling numbers we'll see for the gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin tomorrow.

Reuters:

Two public opinion polls released on Sunday show Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker with a lead of three and six percentage points two days before the election to recall him because of a new law reducing the power of public sector unions.

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm, said Walker was leading 50 percent to 47 percent over Democratic challenger Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in its final survey. Angus Reid polling had Walker ahead 53 percent to 47 percent. Both findings were within the margin of error so the results could be even tighter.

The PPP margin of three percentage points compared with a five-point Walker lead in their survey three weeks ago.

"If the folks who turn out on Tuesday actually matched the 2008 electorate, Barrett would be ahead of Walker by a 50-49 margin," says PPP's Tom Jensen. "It's cliche but this is a race that really is going to completely come down to turnout... This is a close race, closer than it was a couple weeks ago. Scott Walker's still the favorite but Barrett's prospects for an upset look better than they have in a long time."

CONTINUE TO POST>>

In the Wisconsin Recall, It's the GOP Who Are Acting Worried

Embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker knows something that the pundits don't. While everyone else is looking at Walker's single-digit lead in the polls (within the margin of error for most and closing, by the way) and declaring Walker the winner of a contest still a week away, King Scotty is hidden away in his castle. The rabble are much closer to storming the gates than the court seers are willing to admit. His grip on power is as fragile as an egg and must be handled very, very gently.

Politico:

With a slim lead in the polls and just a week to go until the June 5 recall election, Scott Walker isn’t taking any chances.

The Wisconsin governor is running under the radar in an attempt to freeze the race where it stands and limit the chances of a momentum-shifting mistake.

His engagements in public venues have tailed off. Retail events have given way to rallies with supporters at campaign offices. Walker’s passive debate performance Friday, where he seemed more comfortable withstanding rhetorical blows from Democrat Tom Barrett than landing many of his own, offered more signs of his play-it-safe homestretch approach. The governor even passed on asking Barrett a direct question — usually a ripe opportunity to place an opponent on defense for a perceived weakness.

Reading that does not bring to mind the word "confidence."

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Walker Sitting on Job Numbers That Almost Certainly Prove He's Lying

Gov. Scott Walker has a secret. And he's not sharing it with you. At least, not immediately. He'll have to sometime, but there's this whole big recall thing going on here in Wisconsin and now would be a bad time. After the election he'll break the bad news.

See, Walker was getting a lot of flack for sucking at job creation. His numbers were the worst in the nation. Then, he dug up different numbers -- mostly meaningless and almost certainly inaccurate numbers no one else uses -- and everything was great. Wisconsin had added 23,000 jobs since he took office, Walker declared, despite the fact that the number was an estimate based on a very slim handful of data. Needless to say, a lot of people were unconvinced.

For example, PolitiFact rated Walker's claim mostly false. Here they explain the problem:

The 2011 numbers are based on the jobs census, which covers about 95% of employers. They are deemed more accurate than the monthly numbers, which are based on a survey sample of about 3.5% of employers, then extrapolated to get a state number...

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Hitting Walker for the John Doe Investigation and Abuse of Office

Yesterday, I went to a street fair. A block party fundraiser for the local community radio station. Bands played, much beer was imbibed, and -- of course -- talk turned to the recall election.

Walker's involved in a John Doe investigation where people around him are dropping like flies. Walker claims he's not the target of the investigation, but he's set up a legal defense fund -- something that, by law, someone not under investigation is not allowed to do. In other words, his actions belie his words. I was asked what I thought Tom Barrett should do next and I said compare Walker to Rod Blagojevich -- make it a choice between getting rid of Walker now or spending months in a media circus trying to get rid of him later.

So I woke up today, dialed up the superfeed, and saw the video above from the Barret campaign. It wasn't exactly what I'd described -- but it was close.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Scott Walker, RINO

"Republican In Name Only" or "RINO." As far as I can tell, it's a term coined by anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist. It describes a Republican who's insufficiently ideologically pure. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered a RINO, despite being a darling of the right immediately after winning his office. Likewise, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown was a Tea Party hero for a bit -- before revealing himself to be less insane than they'd all hoped he would be. Republicans like to talk about the power of the individual and individualism, but the truth is that they hate individualism with a passion. If you're not 100% ideologically pure right down the line, you're a RINO -- these "individuals" must be ideological clones of one another. No independent thought or actual individuality is allowed.

If the right weren't so enamored of embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker right now, they'd notice he's talking like a RINO.

Associated Press:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Thursday he's not afraid to lose the historic recall election he faces in less than three weeks, but if he wins he intends to govern in a more inclusive, consensus-building way.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

'Divide and Conquer' May be Good Politics, But it's a Lousy Way to Govern

The battle of the Wisconsin recall race is a battle over the independents. A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that recall target Gov. Scott Walker leads opponent Tom Barrett 49%-45%. With a margin for error of plus or minus 3.4% that's not so awfully bad for Barrett, but obviously not where he wants to be.

The partisan breakdown is strikingly mirror-like -- 85% of Democrats support Barrett, 88% of Republicans support Walker -- so it's in that narrow middle that the game will be won or lost.

On that count, Barrett leads with independents, 49%-42%. And he slaughters among self-described moderates, 59%-33%. I suppose it's a sign of how stark our political divisions are that the dominance among middle-of-the-roaders makes absolutely no difference at all.

But it does demonstrate just how partisan the support for Walker has become. In ideological terms, he leads only among conservatives and Republicans (mostly redundant, I know).

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Scott Walker Admits to Wanting to Divide Wisconsin

It should be a blockbuster of a revelation. As Wisconsin Gov. Walker prepares to launch his campaign of union-busting under the guise of a budget repair bill, he tells his biggest donor, Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks, that it's his intention to divide Wisconsin. Hendricks, according to the report, has "given $510,000 to the governor's campaign," making her "Walker's single-largest donor and the largest known donor to a candidate in state history."

The exchange was caught on video by filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein, who was documenting the work being done to return jobs to Janesville, an area hard hit by a GM plant closure.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

In the video, Hendricks told Walker she wanted to discuss "controversial" subjects away from reporters, asking him:

"Any chance we'll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions -"

"Oh, yeah," Walker broke in.

"- and become a right-to-work?" Hendricks continued. "What can we do to help you?"

"Well, we're going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill," Walker said. "The first step is we're going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer."

CONTINUE TO POST>>

In Recall Race, Wisconsinites Just Want to Win

A lot of the commentary on the Wisconsin recall primary seems to be leading to a consensus; that this was a big loss for unions. "It was a very bad night for WEAC and AFSCME," Mark Graul, a GOP political consultant, said. "When a union-backed candidate loses by 20 points in a Democratic primary, you have to question what sway the unions now have, not only in politics, but with their own members."

And other, less partisan observers agree. That Tom Barrett, who didn't have major backing from labor, so soundly beat Kathleen Falk, who did, shows that labor's backing didn't have a lot of influence on voters. Or, if it did, that influence wasn't positive. "This was a major overreach by unions and, frankly, it makes organized labor as a political force look almost like an empty suit," said UW political scientist Mordecai Lee.

I think this overlooks what has become sort of a theme in this recall cycle -- money and ads don't really matter. For example, a recent Gannett investigation found that 78% of all political ad spending in Wisconsin this season has benefited Republicans, yet all this spending has had zero effect on polling numbers. Walker's numbers haven't budged. One explanation (the one I subscribe to) is that the state is so polarized that changing minds is a lost cause -- and that everyone's mind is made up. There are almost no undecideds. The fact that Walker's ad spending hasn't bumped up the needle suggests he may have reached a very uncomfortable ceiling of less than 50%. Or worse, his numbers seem to be declining.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

WI Recall Primary Shows Dems with Advantage, But No Room for Complacency

One of the great joys of following election night on Twitter is watching low-information voters grab onto incomplete sets of data and run wild with them. It's not unusual to see a post declaring a candidate is "killing!" with only three or four percent of the vote in. It really is pretty funny to see.

Following the Wisconsin recall primary last night, I wasn't disappointed -- my favorite election night dumbness ran rampant. For the early part of the night, Gov. Walker had more votes than the entire Democratic field combined. Not extremely surprising, since small rural districts would get their numbers in faster and those districts would be more conservative on average. In the end, Walker did not beat the combined total of his Democratic rivals -- total 670,278 dems to 626,538 Walker -- but I checked before writing this and the "Walker's beating the combined dems!" tweets are still circulating among the wingnuts. As always, the right finds comforting untruths preferable to liberal reality -- and bothering to check your facts just leads to disappointment. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett took the night, but the big news on the right were old, stale, and no longer accurate numbers showing Walker "killing."

That said, the numbers as they are don't tell us a lot. If Walker had beaten the combined dems, then you'd have something to talk about. But the Republican primary was a race between the governor and an old-style La Follette/Roosevelt Republican who stood no chance at all (although he did slaughter the GOP's fake dem, 19,920 to 4,842), so who knows how representative that number will be of the final numbers in the Big Game. We can swap around protest candidate numbers if you like, but I don't think they make much difference -- who votes for those candidates? Does the confuse-the-voter tactic work or do voters cross party lines to cast mischief votes? Probably a little of both, making it impossible to tell where the votes would've gone if the protest candidates hadn't been in the race. Better to leave those numbers where they are and call it close enough.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

New Poll has Wisconsin Recall Effort at Slight Disadvantage

Wisconsin is generally considered a swing state, despite the fact that it only seems to swing one way. In presidential races, it's usually a close race between the Democrat and the Republican, but when election day comes, the Democrat wins. In fact, the last time a Republican won the state was during the Reagan landslide against Walter Mondale. Wisconsin always seems tantalizingly within the grasp of the GOP candidate, before it slips away. Maybe Republican strategists have a different nickname for the Badger state -- perhaps one involving the word "heartbreak." Applying the "red/blue" measurement the media likes to use, Wisconsin is a purple state. But generally a bluish purple.

A new Marquette Law School poll shows a race shaping up to be like most other years -- the Democrat leads, but not yet with a majority.

The poll only measured an Obama/Romney race, which -- despite Mitt's recent polling decline -- still seems the most likely. If that race were held today, 48% would vote for Obama, while 40% would vote for Romney. Eight points is a decent lead and much better than the national average, which puts the president just 1.9% ahead -- a squeaker. But since Obama hasn't cracked 50% here, Team Mittens has to think there's some ground to be taken. It's not neck and neck now -- but it could be.

On the recall front, the situation is different. The best number for dems comes from a rematch with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett -- the opponent Gov. Scott Walker eventually beat in 2010. Walker wins that 50%-44%. This may seem like good news for Walker, until you consider that he's already running a campaign to keep his office. He's been running ads statewide, trying to convince everyone he's just the best governor ever, and the best he can do is a six-point lead over a man who not only isn't running any ads at all, but isn't even a candidate yet. He hasn't officially declared. Scooter's been trying his little heart out and Barrett's within six without even raising a finger -- and that's within the poll's margin for error. In fact, of all the possible Democratic contenders in the poll, only one has numbers below the margin for error.

CONTINUE TO POST>>