I attended the Wisconsin post-mortem session this morning, which featured four people who had worked on the ground there. I came away with a mixed picture of what caused Tuesday’s loss.
Let’s start with the ads. Walker aired 24,000 TV ads versus Barrett’s 9,000. That moved Walker’s approval/disapproval from 41/59 to 52/48. “Walker owned the airwaves,” one panelist said.
Even so, Matt Sledge from HuffPo asked a good question: Walker’s favorability and polling had recovered by January, so did the ads really make a difference? The panelists pointed out that Walker was up with ads before January, and that much of the money spent by Walker and his allies was used to dig him out of his hole. Maybe–but even though the panelists wanted to blame the ads and money, they agreed that the election hinged on more than money.
The panel was fairly critical of the Barrett campaign’s messaging. As some of the people at my table pointed out, Walker said loud and proud that he thought the recall law was “dumb”. One panelist said that he thought that there wasn’t good counter-messaging for the anti-recall message, which exit polls showed was accepted by 60% of voters.
Another example of messaging fail was jobs. Wisconsin had some of the worst job numbers in the country. Walker’s people countered with an ad pointing out they had created ~32K jobs, without putting it in context. One panelist called it a “remarkable piece of political propaganda that looked like an Apple commercial”. He suggested that we watch the Tom Barrett ads to see just how poor the pushback was.
Finally, there was a lot of discussion at my table about the fact that voters have come to hate elections, because they hate the ads, and there was a backlash against this election because people simply didn’t want to have another one. I don’t know about Wisconsin, but in my home town, the local TV stations run obligatory “it’s election season again, oh, noes, here come the ads” pieces at the same time that they’re counting their money.
Stuck in the Funhouse
I’m pretty sure that a political battle and special election to unseat a governor elected just 17 months prior, that there were some serious diminishing returns with the money advantage, especially for a fairly small state. I think I’ll trust the the exit polls that made perfect sense to me, the notions of propriety of a recall election under the conditions this one had. Walker won by 7 points, only, and the senate flipped back to the dems. And those 7 percent that handed a victory to Walker, also told the exit pollsters they planned to vote dem and Obama in November. The math ain’t that hard to work out what happened, imo.
Walker
I am curious how much the infamous “Midwestern politeness” helped sell the “recalls are bad” message.
Southern Beale
Yes, They’re counting THEIR money. All of them. They are getting rich off of our political dysfunction. Every election is a boon to local, regional and national broadcasters. The very same people who package and present the news to us voters have a vested interest in making sure that every race is close and bazillions of dollars worth of advertising has to be spent on THEIR outlets to swing voters to one side or the other.
Conflict of interest much?
Brachiator
Finally, there was a lot of discussion at my table about the fact that voters have come to hate elections, because they hate the ads, and there was a backlash against this election because people simply didn’t want to have another one. Was voter turnout particularly low? If people hate elections, did this mean that they were not that angry at Walker, or were willing to give him a chance despite their anger?
Did the voters believe that they didn’t have the right to try to oust Walker, weren’t supposed to be too revolutionary?
Where do the the citizens of Wisconsin go from here? Do the victors, and here I mean the voters not the politicians, really want to see more dismantling of unions and more cutbacks?
TenguPhule
So give it to them good and hard it is then?
Linda Featheringill
Overkill is a problem that we ran into in 2010 with gotv.
I wish there was something else we could do other than call people and nag them.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
when you look at how many people voted for obama in 2008 and walker in 2012, and you look at 36% of union workers, and some of the other numbers(i realize that was day after poll numbers) it appears that there were about 18% of the people who just didn’t like the idea of a recall.
that is a scary number when you consider our side champions issues like social justice and abortion that were won, or that we can and will win in court. people want the government to work, not fight itself in court.
of course we can stick them every chance we get with citizens united and such, but god help me, we are trying to play the both sides do it game.
Violet
According to exit polls, a lot of people in WI didn’t like the recall being used in this way. That definitely affected the vote.
As for money and ads, I think a good counter measure would be to run ads showing who’s behind the various SuperPACS. They don’t have to be super dramatic, but pithy and short and mention Bush. Like:
“Crossroads GPS is run by Karl Rove who brought you President Bush.”
My other suggestion is to figure out how to make a game out of naming the money behind the SuperPAC and make it fun for the average person. Maybe someone needs to create a SuperPAC Bingo game, or some other kind of game where you win if you can name the money behind the SuperPAC – like you see the commercial start, pause the TV (if you can) and everyone in the room has to guess the SuperPAC and the rich person running it. Give it a catchy name, turn it into a drinking game, that kind of thing.
I realize that only works if people are watching TV together, which doesn’t always happen these days, but maybe someone can come up with other ideas.
Fargus
What of the fact that the actual election was so far removed in time from the actions that precipitated it? It’s got to have been damn hard to keep peoples’ ire up for a whole year and a half.
Fargus
@Southern Beale:
I believe it was on Rachel Maddow that they were talking about the fact that some laws make political advertising (over other advertising) not that great a deal for networks. Something about having to sell ad time at the lowest rate to political advertisers.
shortstop
One factor I wonder about that I haven’t seen discussed much is the time lag factor combined with election fatigue (that is, being sick of elections in general rather than specifically believing that recalls are wrong). This thing took place months after the peak of the outrage over Walker’s union busting and came on the heels of other hard-fought and acrimonious campaigns–the earlier recall for state senators, the Supreme Court election and the primary for this recall election.
The Dangerman
Related to TV ads, I was disappointed to see CA Prop 29, a strong favorite early on, go down to the Tobacco Industry saturation bombing over the airwaves. The final count was 50.1 to 49.9, so it was almost they knew exactly how much they would have to spend. It must be a fascinating algorithm….
some other guy
In 2010, Scott Walker received 1,128,941 votes (52%) and Tom Barrett received 1,004,303 votes (46%).
In the recall election, Scott Walker received 1,334,450 votes and Tim Barrett received 1,162,785 votes. Total turnout was 2,511,585.
As per the NYT exit poll posted previously on Ballon Juice, 47% of the recall election voters had cast ballots for Scott Walker in 2010 and 94% of those them once again voted for Walker. That works out to around 1,109,618 votes (2,511,585 * 0.47 * 0.94), or 98% of Walker’s 2010 vote total. So virtually everyone who voted for Walker in 2010 turned up to vote for Walker again in the recall election.
At the same time, the NYT exit poll reported only 34% of yesterday’s voters cast votes for Barrett in 2010 and 94% of those voters once again voted for Barrett. That works out to 802,702 votes (2,511,585 * 0.34 * 0.94), or around 80% of Barrett’s 2010 vote total
All other things being equal, if Barrett, like Walker, had been able to draw 98% of his 2010 voters instead of only 80% then Barrett would’ve narrowly beat Walker. Why didn’t Barrett voters from 2010 show up again in 2012?
ant
I got bombarded pretty hard here in wisconsin over this election.
Republicans called my cell phone with automated messages multiple times daily for weeks. and left prerecorded voice mail as well.
Then the dems joined in the last three days before the election, but with live people.
There was also a ton of crap that showed up in my mailbox.
I dont watch any TV that has commercials, so I can’t say about that.
I think people got irritated with the whole deal. We’ve already gone through this with other recall elections, and primary elections, and so on, all this year.
Seems like every other week there is another election here in Wisconsin.
And as a side note, just last night, somebody called me asking for money for Tammy Baldwin. Her senate primary election is in august she said…. I thought it weird that she only will have 2 months to mount a general election campaign for November.
Another irritant is that republicans keep changing the rules about the process of voting.
Mnemosyne
I have to admit, I’m starting to get kind of pissed off at how many goddamned elections I’m expected to show up at in a year. There are always at least two every year (June and November), and some years we’ve had four in a single year depending on what was going on.
I’m sorry, but that’s way too much to ask of people. Even two elections per year is pushing it, IMO.
fuckwit
Look, this isn’t too hard. We need to force them to keep spending themselves into the ground until they go bankrupt, like Ray-gun’s “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan did to the Russians in the 1980s, and are still doing to us right now.
Citizens United is the Afghanistan of politics. They spend, and spend, and spend, and we keep fighting, and fighting.
I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK IF WE WIN, I JUST WANT THE ASSHOLES WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST TO KEEP WASTING THEIR MONEY. Force them to defend everything. Keep fighting. Sneak away to the mountain caves.
This is guerrilla war, really. Moar recalls! More contested seats in play. Keep at it, make them spend idiotic amounts of money just to stay in office AFTER THEY JUST WON AN ELECTION! This is offense. Make them defend. So what if they successfully defend; that’s expected.
How is this not a win? We made them fight another election only a year after they won one! Keep it up!
Yes, I know, we don’t have unlimited resources either. We certainly don’t have unlimited money. But the higher unemployment goes, THE MORE TIME WE HAVE TO FUCK WITH THEM. So we’ve got that. Muaaahaha.
That’s my insane rant of the day, I’m done. I’m giddy. I’m exhausted.
The way you win against Citizens United is by using their strength– their wealth– against them, over time. It’s a long fight though.
Butch
Barrett was the wrong guy to put up; it had only been a couple of years since he lost to Walker. I think Barrett also erred in trying to be too hard to act as the reasonable centrist; saying that you’ll “stand up to your friends” when “your friends” are the reason you’re running is just dumb.
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve gotten very close to Kevin Drum’s stance that we should vote “no” on every proposition because they’ve become a substitute for the legislature doing their goddamned jobs.
I get especially pissed off at mid-year propositions — to me, it doesn’t seem fair that the handful of people who vote in April should get to re-write the state constitution.
kideni
I saw some of the live stream, and for the most part, it seemed like good analysis (anytime you have Emily Mills on a panel, you will be well informed — she’s great).
I actually wasn’t all that impressed with the HuffPo guy’s question. The 41/59 poll result had actually kind of been an outlier from early in the fall, and more often than not, polls had been finding his numbers closer to 50/50. Plus, Walker was running ads pretty much nonstop from November on, during a time when he could rake in cash by the cartload and our side was putting all its resources into keeping the petition drive running smoothly. It would have been great if we could have been running counter-ads at the same time, but for some reason that Soros check never came. Yes, of course there were other issues, but the money difference was huge.
I did like the pushback against Dana Loesch’s loaded questions about unions. As they said, the statistic that’s getting reported is about union households, not union members. It does seem to be a sign of divided houses (literally) that apparently only 51% of union family members (spouses or kids of a union member) voted for Barrett.
pk
I got a call from freedom works which made no sense. It said they were a bipartisan group, devoted to education reform and vouchers and said republicans were blocking reform. Told me to contact the local republican representative and tell her to stop blocking reform. I had no idea what they were talking about.How does this make any sense? Why is freedom works calling democrats to make calls against republicans? The only thing I can think of is when there is so much money involved in the election process, at some point everything will stop making sense. Everyone will make calls against everyone else and cancel each other out.
techno
Here in Minnesota we got to see those political ads. Walker’s were pretty dumb but Barrett’s were atrocious. The recall was damn near revolutionary while the ads were barely boilerplate. No defense of collective bargaining. No defense of Progressive economic theory. No defense of public-sector unions. And worst of all, no defense of Wisconsin’s progressive history and traditions. What a pathetic representation of what all those folks standing in the cold were trying to achieve!
Just think! The Dems in Wisconsin got their asses kicked by possibly the most revolting character in American politics. It was literally pathetic to watch—in fact, I couldn’t press the mute button fast enough.
Culture of Truth
Romney, today, on Obama:
“He wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
Culture of Truth
Really – that’s not my impression.
4tehlulz
@Culture of Truth: MORE FIREMEN POLICEMEN AND TEACHERS ARE BAD
sharl
I don’t know the rules governing advertising, but remember that these SuperPACs are (heh-heh) not political organizations, but ISSUES advocacy orgs, so it may well be that the rules governing political ads don’t apply to them. Furthermore, even if there is law requiring broadcasters to charge the lowest rate for political candidate ads, I would bet such laws don’t apply to nice li’l innocent ISSUES-ORIENTED SuperPACs.
Of course, local media would not be influenced in their news coverage (assuming they have any) to address these issues, when they’re making money hand-over-fist in this sweet, sweet arrangement. Nope, nosiree, wouldn’t happen, you can trust ’em on that, pure as the driven snow…
japa21
@Culture of Truth: So now, teachers, firemen and policemen don’t count as American people? Romney just gave the Dems a great opening, but I doubt they will use it.
Regarding Wisconsin, my brother-in-law in northern Wisconsin told me last night how the Dems in his area are just plain stupid, voting for Walker because doing a recall was wrong. And there is little doubt that is what carried Walker across the line. The mistake Barrett and the Dems made was not to use the anti-recall school of thought to their advantage. Admit that doing a recall is unusual and normally would be inappropriate just because you disagreed with the policies. But when the elected official never outlined those policies prior to being elected, in effect that official lied to the voters. And that justfies the recall.
Talk about why this recall was okay while still agreeing that recalls, in general, were inappropriate.
piratedan
@Violet: Call it something that we’re apparently gaga for as everyday Americans…
My Political Billionaire!
see which fat cats support what legislation…..stay tunes as we unravel the mystery of how they hide themselves from knowing what they really support…. kind of make it like E! television and state this is what the politically en vogue reclusive Billionaire is supporting in This Year’s election….. If only we could find some smarmy Brit to talk it up like the Political Lives of the Rich and Unknown……
lol chikinburd
@Butch: Barrett and Falk should both have been sat down in the same room and told in no uncertain terms not to run again, and if an eminence grise like Obey or even Ron Kind couldn’t be recruited, the whole party, including even the two monstrous egos in the room, was to unite behind some completely fresh face who could at least build name recognition for 2014 in case of a 2012 loss. Falk has to be mentioned alongside any mention of Barrett’s inadequacies, mostly because Falk was why Barrett won the nomination in the first place — “we need the candidate most capable of winning” was always very thinly veiled code language for “JESUS CHRIST DON’T RUN FALK”.
Thinking about it further, more blame can be apportioned to Democratic mistakes from years earlier, placed mostly at the feet of Jim Doyle. You know who’d have been a miles-better candidate this year, with statewide appeal? Barbara Lawton. Too bad the state party thoroughly alienated her.
NCSteve
Something people don’t seem to get is that all that oligarch money doesn’t just buy airtime. It buys the very best (i.e. most sociopathic) polling, focus grouping, messaging, and P.R. professionals who craft the message for the commercials. That’s where the whole “recalls are bad” thing came from. It didn’t just pop out of some coup-loving, election-stealing democracy hating Republican politician’s head on it’s own.
And, compounding the problem, even when they have the money to buy airtime, Democrats are just constitutionally incapable of fully embracing the dark arts of advertising and P.R and make the ads work. It’s all that sordid profit-centered grubby commerce business we so abhor, dontcha see? It’s why Democratic consultant suck compared to Republican consultants. Always wanting to go on and on about policy and statistics instead of catering to base emotions like fear and patriotism and lust. (Okay, Republican ads don’t actually do lust, but we could. I swear I think Democrats ought to just get over their qualms and go for it. “Vote Democratic! Republicans Oppose Sex, but We Love It!”)
Citizen Annoyed
Do you know how fucking annoying it is having to participate in elections?
What kind of Republic is this anyway??
And extra reading? Holy fuck!!
Jon Rockoford
Posted this in another thread but it deserves repeating: Blame whatever you want on the loss in WI, but what came loud and clear from all the exit polls is that a large majority of people now accept the totally debunked conservative economic equation: austerity + budget cutting + low taxes on the rich – regulations – public services – unions = jobs, jobs, jobs.
There’s been a slow-burning conservative coup over the last 20 years or so that took over the judiciary and defanged mainstream media. So, go ahead and blame it on money in politics, unelected wingnut judges and our feckless media. But the bottom line is this: voters vote for these clowns, over and over, despite irrefutable evidence that many are certifiably insane, ignorant of science and history and crooks to boot.
I don’t give a shit whether some WI voters took a principled stand over recall elections or whether Tom Barrett was an asshole. Voters voted for a guy that repeatedly lied, had an awful record on the economy and may end up getting indicted soon. They made a horrible decision based on myths and horseshit and they’re responsible for it. So, fuck you American voter. You get what you deserve.
owlbear1
@NCSteve:
“Republicans, they’ve invaded your wife’s vagina, how long before they come for your dick?’
NCSteve
@4tehlulz:
Well duh! Of course they’re bad! Did you not hear the man explain how they’re not American?
Butch
@techno: I live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and as a result of a quirk in FCC rules, can receive only Wisconsin stations for local news. I just about wore out the mute button; Walker’s were flat-out lies but Barrett’s were just awful.
lacp
So, to recap:
1. They had lots more money.
2. Our candidate sucked balls.
3. Our campaign sucked even worse.
4. Voters are teh stoopid.
You had to go listen to a panel to hear that? You didn’t hear enough of that right here?
Mnemosyne
@NCSteve:
When I think of bad political advertising, I think of the pro-gay-marriage, “No on Prop 8” ads that ran here in California. I swear to god, the message was, “It’s okay for you to hate gay people as long as you let us get married.”
They didn’t have any ads that even started talking about civil rights until about a month before the election, and by then the polls showed that Prop 8 was going to win.
When liberals are willing to play hardball, the ads work. There was a proposition a few years ago that was going to require parental consent for abortions, and they had really great “step outside your bubble” ads that told parents that, yes, of course their daughters would come to them if they got pregnant, but what about girls who don’t have good parents? The commercial ended with the sounds of an argument coming from next door that ended with a teenage girl being slapped by her father. And, like magic, the prop lost even though it started off polling ahead.
That’s what we need more of.
piratedan
@owlbear1:
FTFY
some other guy
My first comment is in moderation limbo for some reason (maybe all the links and math?), but the gist of it is that if you apply the NYT exit poll data to the final vote totals you’ll find that while virtually all of Walker’s voters from 2010 showed up to vote for him again in the recall, only 80% of Barrett’s voters from 2010 did the same.
20% of Barrett’s voters from 2010 did not show up at the polls at all– they didn’t vote for Walker instead, they just didn’t show up. If they had shown up to vote for him again then Barrett would’ve narrowly beaten Walker. Barrett won a majority of the new voters (those who didn’t vote in 2010), but somehow couldn’t get 1 in 5 of his previous voters to the polls. WTF?
WeeBey
You gotta get outta there.
Go. Do it now.
NCSteve
@Mnemosyne: This.
ellennelle
i’ve been wondering for eons why it is we never hear about where all the campaign money ends up, which is in the pockets of the media.
the old adage is follow the money, but in this case it not only applies to where it comes from – a crucial agenda, of course – but where it goes. because the media is the recipient of almost all that billion dollars of campaign cash that will be spent this year, the media has become perhaps the main self-serving culprit in this spiral dance to the death of our democracy.
way too ironic, given the power franklin and our founding fathers gave the fourth estate at the country’s inception. but then, like all powers, it cuts both ways.
the only way to keep the positive power of the media operating for democracy is for all citizens to become active in the process. had more of us been more diligent and vocal over the past twenty years or more, ownership rules would have never been relaxed to the point of supporting monopolies, monopolies that by definition destroy the point and purpose of a free press. with more involvement from the populace, murdoch might not have been able to pull off the fraud of his application, and then the fraud of his “news” corporation.
with all the gnashing of teeth and despairing of the current status of things, i have to say the most powerful solution always comes down to this, citizen participation. how else to implement the principle and ultimate freedom of self-government?
Tripod
@lacp:
Post-mortems are for losers. DougJ is right about Obama’s emergent majority but anybody that thinks it will look anything like the 20th century farmer-labor left needs to put down the fucking crack pipe.
mouse tolliver
@Mnemosyne:
Sort of like how here in Virginia we had plenty of Democratic ads that talked about a willingness to work with Republicans, which is halfway to endorsing Republicans, but I didn’t see a single ad that talked about the extremism of the Republican party.
When will Democrats figure out that you can’t win an argument if you barely make an argument?
JGabriel
mistermix @ Top:
If people hated the election, they wouldn’t show up to vote.
Walker won this with ads, lies, and propaganda. Not because people have grown to hate elections.
The right’s biggest coup in this race was convincing the electorate that recalls are for official misconduct only.
No. Impeachment is for official misconduct. Recalls are for bad policy and egregiously running the state into the ground.
.
grandpa john
@Culture of Truth: This piece of condescending ignorance should be the feature of a few ads. the way to help people is to have fewer policeman, teachers, and fireman. the man is a damn idiot who displays absolutely no inkling of self awareness, no wonder he is called a robot, he is incapable of feelings,
David Koch
What about the blogosphere, did they get any credit or blame?
Tom Q
@some other guy: Possibly the fact that the election was held in June, when school was out and college students were scattered, had something to do with the disparity.
muddy
I don’t understand why, if people hate all the ads, then why don’t they hate the guy running the most ads? I would. We don’t usually get many ads here, too small and blue to bother. Thank the gods.
kideni
@Tom Q: That’s definitely part of it. It was actually part of the Republican strategy to make sure this election would be held no earlier than June. Also, although the voter ID requirement has been injuncted, the rest of the voter suppression legislation that was passed last year was still in effect. Early voting was cut short (the time period was much shorter, and it stopped the Friday before instead of including the weekend before), residence requirements were increased from 10 days to 28 (which definitely caught up some students). There’s other stuff that’s not coming to mind right now. Also, remember that people do die and move away.
There really needs to be an analysis of what the Repubs did to get out their voters vs. what we did, and if there’s anything we can learn from that. Americans for Prosperity had something like 70 paid, well-trained staffers on the ground coordinating their efforts, but our side was relying much more heavily on volunteers, who come and go and get exhausted by the constant guilt-tripping requests to somehow fit a canvassing shift into all the other things you have to do in your day-to-day life.
kideni
@muddy:
Yeah, that’s one of small number of things I miss about living in Nebraska, although from the other side — it’s too red for the national Democrats to bother running ads, so I’d never see them. Living in a swing state is hell. Philadelphia was worse, though, since you’d get ads for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
FlipYrWhig
@mouse tolliver:
Virginia Democrats _like_ running as Democrats-but-not-that-hippie-coddling-tax-hiking kind. And they sometimes win by doing that. Until more of them win by running as Democrats-fuck-yeah, that’s going to continue. That’s the problem: when Democrats show they can win by being loud and proud, more Democrats will do it, but until they do, we’ll keep getting weak sauce.
FlipYrWhig
@muddy: I thought that too at first. But maybe the people who hate the ads super much just stay home, creating an election settled among only the people who can stand the onslaught of ads from all sides.
muddy
@FlipYrWhig: I guess that group are the oblivious?
wiscomom
@FlipYrWhig:
Definitely agree it was the ads that might have played a role in driving people from actually voting. They were omnipresent and after so many months gave everyone a sense of constant tension/conflict. We got to the point where we couldn’t watch tv.
In seeing Gov. Rick Scott’s most recent approval ratings, I think the “powers that be” should have not gone forward with recalling Walker. He’d have been far less popular by now around here, I think, with a combination of the John Doe questions and the unemployment situation in the state.
As it was, the Republican machine was able to effectively harness their base (the people with Stand By Walker signs in my neck of the woods seemed to all have just gotten back from wintering in FL just in time for the election?)
I would have given Tom Barrett more credit than seems to be given at the Netroots level. He actually came across as a decent person. But decent isn’t good enough these days.
Going forward, the Dems should be happy they now have the State Senate, so Walker is effectively stymied for now. Let’s see how he plays his “Brats and Burger Summit”. Will he step back and try to be a Wisconsin politician, or will he think he’s got bigger places to go? Will he know that John Doe is coming for him and lie low? We will likely know in the next few weeks.
Well, all said, I don’t know as much as the rest of you. But I just happen to live here.
kideni
@wiscomom: Since Walker said the same conciliatory things after last year’s senate recalls, albeit without the bipartisan sausage fest, I doubt he’ll change his tune in any significant way. I imagine he’s already trying to work on the more centrist Dems in order to do what he does best: divide and conquer. There’s been a definite change at the Capitol this week, and not for the better. Activists have continued to have a presence to assert first amendment rights and rights of assembly (e.g., the Solidarity Singalong and holding signs inside the rotunda), and the Capitol Police have stepped up their harassment, saying that since we didn’t recall the governor we should just go home. I’m so glad I put in so many hours trying to make it so they’d get back their collective bargaining rights (the Capitol Police were one of the public safety unions that wasn’t protected from Act 10). As if we should accept the abuse of power just because of an election. I’d been concerned that after the recall Walker’s henchmen would feel less constrained in cracking down on dissent, and it looks like that’s starting to happen. Maybe I’ll get myself arrested sometime this summer.
wiscomom
@kideni:
I respect and admire your diligence at holding Walker and his henchmen and their feet to the fire by protesting in Madison. I’m thinking I might decide to be a poll worker here in Appleton.
When I went with my 25 yr old son to make sure he could register there was a little push back as to his previous address. I stood there and made sure both he and the college student next to him were able to register (there was no evidence they had voted in the primary and they both had valid WI driver’s licenses with addresses to match the ward). That’s my plan to make sure our rights are met this fall. Should I do more…definitely!
Divide and conquer is Walker’s well stated plan of attack. We all know it now. So our task is to figure out a way of fighting against it. There are seeds planted of distrust in his agenda. We just need to work on making sure more and more people are aware of the far reaching consequences in whatever ways we can. The fact that he’s also about to be indicted will help us.
Forward!