For those of you who don’t know about it, here is the background. On Tuesday of this week, Wisconsin held an off year election to pick a Supreme Court Justice, which drew a record number of voters for an off year election. In all, over 1.5 Million citizens of the Cheese State showed up to announce their choice. The Unions battled hard and spent a fortune in both money and time. They believed that their astroturfed efforts to sway public opinion against Scott Walker and the Republican Party were working. They believed that their grandiose shows of launching recall campaigns against all things GOP were effective beyond their own sphere of sycophants. They were using the utmost of their public relations and organizing arms to tell America that the Wisconsin law dealing with an out of control Public Sector had cost the Republicans dearly, and that the Conservative movement would rue the day that they showed backbone. The Unions in this country decided to draw the battle lines in Ohio, Indiana, and most of all in Wisconsin. Wisconsin, the solidly blue state turned purple recently, was probably their best chance of succeeding. They lost. I will repeat that, just because it feels so good to say. They lost. In the end, it was very close, just beyond the .5% margin for automatic recounts, but with their organization and resources blown, this one has to sting a bit. It also bears ramifications for both parties going forward. Beyond the immediate result, whether or not the new PEU Law would eventually be upheld or struck down, it goes a long way towards predicting a National mood, and strikes another nail into the coffin of what used to be considerable power in this Country wielded by the unions.
The unions did manage to sway support to their cause, although that added support came from Public Sector Workers only. The only county which added a net support for the Democrat candidate was Dane County. This is where the State Capitol is, and all of those Public Sector Union employees happen to live. Throughout the rest of Wisconsin, amongst the people who are paying for the party so to speak, The Republicans had a net gain of support. The unions in Wisconsin, had spent on behalf of Kloppenburg some $3.5 Million in, “Public Education,” advertising during the last week of the election. Kloppenburg outspent Prosser by a huge margin, (when the union’s public education messaging is accounted for,) and the full organizational weight of the left was employed, and yet, Prosser came up victorious. What does that mean for Wisconsin and the nation at large? It means this, the backlash we have been hearing so much about from various media sources in regards to the GOP finally showing some backbone and sticking to their campaign promises is just an illusion. The real backlash will occur should they stray from what they promised, like they did in 1995, and 2005. The political left has pulled out all of the stops with this round of fighting as well. The stakes of this fight were huge, and the left realized this. This Law in Wisconsin will put an end to the taxpayers being forced into financing the Democrat Party against their will. This will eventually put the Private Sector on an even footing with the Public Sector in having a voice in political self determination.
Such is the price of believing your own hype. They produced these huge shows and demonstrations to convince others that they held a huge advantage in public support. Obama himself arranged to have busloads of agitators and professional protesters show up in both Madison and Columbus to give the illusion of a swelling backlash against Republican Administrations who wanted to follow up on the mandates which swept them into office. In hind sight, they should have realized that the illusions that they created were in fact just the illusions that they created. Losing means more than just losing now. A few may realize the astroturf tactics used were not real. That the next time they see the bussed in crowds chanting those cliched slogans, it represents the opinions of the demonstration organizers only. The real loss is the fact that they opened up their funding war chests, and came up empty. They bought in effect nothing, and will now be forced to be much more discriminating in how to distribute their dwindling funds. Further, if they couldn’t win this in bluer than blue Wisconsin, than they will have more trouble in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Virginia, and Iowa.
All in all, we can sum up the past week as such:
The Republicans in this country are showing the glimmerings of a backbone starting to grow. This week’s events should help to keep that backbone growing. It was a good week.
