Despite What Liberals Say, the Wisconsin Recall Lesson is Clear: It’s the Policy, Stupid
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Listening to the MSNBC carnival barkers, you’d think that the Wisconsin electorate was a bunch of nincompoops overcome by a Governor Walker mind meld
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In between hyper-ventilations and endless repetitions of the 7 stages of grief, Liberals are trying to explain (read: rationalize) why Governor Walker won his recall election on Tuesday. Their (current) narrative generally boils down to 2 reasons: the greater amount of money that Walker supporters spent as opposed to his opponent and, perhaps resulting from such money that bought ads, a possession of the voters to make them do what was seemingly otherwise against their interests.
In a particularly somber editorial in The New York Times today, the board marveled that “nearly a third of union voters (presumably from private-sector unions) voted for Mr. Walker……….as did nearly half of voters from union households who were not union members.” The editorial went on to diagnose how such could have occurred: “With the aid of more than $45.6 million.” This is a particularly stark revelation of this new phenomenon of money in politics which probably only dates back to the beginning of humanity.
And on MSNBC’s The Ed Show election night, Reverend Jesse Jackson was dusted off and propped up to support the argument that money played an out-sized role in the campaign. Of course, this fit right into Ed Schultz’s theme for the evening after he had to quickly abandon the standard Democrat’s voting improprieties canard when the margin of victory became to large.
But such arguments give short shrift to the judgment of the Wisconsin voters.
The truth of the matter is that since Governor Walker’s elimination of collective bargaining rights for government employees, state and local fiscs have looked much better, the state’s bond rating has improved and real property taxes have stabilized from their steep trajectory. The voters, including union voters, realized this and decided that half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. This is a lesson that much union leadership across the country has failed to come to grips with.
James Carville famously said during the 1992 presidential campaign “it’s the economy, stupid.” Despite how Liberals try to spin their wipe-out in Wisconsin on Tuesday, the fact is that this election was about policy, stupid.
-I.M. Windee
