Wisconsin Recall Roundup - Given Reality, A Victory for
Progressives; What Next? (five views from progressives)

* Wisconsin Recalls Take Two, Needed Three (Jim Cavanaugh in
  Labor Notes
* Wisconsin - From the Progressive Change Campaign Committee
* So Close - A 2011 Recall Against Walker - sort of a
  Spanish Civil War prior to the big event.(Ed Kilgore in
  The Democratic Strategist)
* We'll Keep Fighting (Jim Dean, Democracy for America)
* What We Won In Wisconsin (Isaiah J. Poole, Campaign for 
  America's Future)
  
==========

* Wisconsin Recalls Take Two, Needed Three

by Jim Cavanaugh
Labor Notes
August 10, 2011
http://labornotes.org/2011/08/wisconsin-recalls-take-two-needed-three

From the first day of the Wisconsin uprising last winter,
chants of "Recall! Recall!" repeatedly sprang spontaneously
from the crowds.

After petitioners collected tens of thousands of signatures
for recall last spring, yesterday, finally, the voters had
their say. By defeating only two of the six Republican state
senators up for recall, Democrats fell one vote shy of a
majority in the Senate. Two Democrats facing recall next
Tuesday are expected to win their elections.

The two victorious Democrats are solid progressives.
Jennifer Schilling, in the La Crosse area, has been in the
Assembly for the past 10 years, compiling a 98 percent
voting record on the state AFL-CIO's roll call. Jessica
King, deputy mayor of Oshkosh, is an attorney with a
compelling personal history. The four Republicans who won
reelection had all served in the legislature at least 16
years and were able to ride that incumbency to victory in
solidly Republican districts.

The only candidate who is a current union member - teacher
Shelly Moore - was handily defeated.

Governor Scott Walker and company, sensing losses ahead,
began downplaying the importance of these elections several
days out, but that did not stop various front groups funded
by the likes of the Koch Brothers and the De Vos family
(Amway) from pouring millions of dollars into the elections.

All told, there were nine recall elections - six Republicans
and three Democrats (one of the Democrats won his election
easily on July 12). According to the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel, almost twice as much money was spent on these nine
races ($35-$40 million) as was spent on all 116 Wisconsin
legislative races in November 2010.

In the wealthy suburbs north and west of Milwaukee, $8
million was spent on behalf of just one incumbent, Alberta
Darling, who was Walker's point person on the powerful Joint
Finance Committee. In what may well have been the most
expensive state legislative race in the country's history,
the incumbent got 54 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, moderate Republican Senator Dale Schultz, who was
not up for recall, has gone from marginalized to majordomo
overnight. Schultz, who is known for working across the
aisle and who has no love for Scott Walker, was the lone
Republican vote in the Senate against Walker's union-busting
bill. What this means for organized labor is that Right to
Work is probably off the table for the rest of this
legislative session.

On Message

On the Republican side, nearly all the outside money was
spent on radio and TV ads, which degenerated into tried and
true racist smears about "welfare fraud" and "illegal
aliens" as election day drew near.

By and large, however, the Republican candidates themselves
stayed on message. That message was that they had closed the
budget deficit without raising taxes. They accused Democrats
of addressing the previous budget deficit by increasing
taxes. The Republicans neglected to mention that those tax
increases came mainly in the form of closing a major
corporate loophole and increasing the income tax for the
very wealthy by 1 percent.

Meanwhile, the Democratic challengers said Walker and his
allies had closed the budget deficit via draconian cuts in
state aid to education and local government while giving tax
breaks to corporations.

For the average voter, however, the message around budget
cuts was largely theoretical. Local governments are
currently preparing their budgets for next year, so cuts in
local services have not yet been felt.

Because of mandated property tax freezes, some places,
particularly smaller school districts, will face devastating
cuts, despite the public employee concessions required by
Walker's union-busting legislation. Even large jurisdictions
like the city of Madison will be hit hard. The city
negotiated concessions from its union workforce but is still
staring at an $11 million shortfall.

But all of that pain is in the future.

Turnout

Given the fact that these elections were held during the dog
days of August and that only one race was on each ballot, it
was assumed that voter turnout would be the key.

Organized labor, its traditional allies, and many others
whose interests had been gouged by Walker's reverse-Robin
Hood budget worked together under the "We Are Wisconsin"
umbrella to produce a ground game unlike any previously
seen.

Going into get-out-the-vote weekend, four days ago, hundreds
of volunteers had already knocked on 275,000 doors and made
nearly three times that many phone calls. The We Are
Wisconsin effort, which also included media buys, was
estimated at nearly $10 million, mostly from unions.

Dozens of We Are Wisconsin staff and loaned union staff
worked with hundreds of volunteers in each district. In
addition, union volunteers from outside the recall districts
aided the effort with phonebanks, data entry, packet
stuffing, and carpooling into the districts for door-to-door
canvassing.

For weeks prior to election day, the halls of the Madison
Labor Temple, which is about an hour away from the nearest
recall district, were packed with volunteer phoners,
canvassers, and packet preparers. All told, over 5,000
volunteer hours were logged at the Temple prior to GOTV
weekend and another 1,650 hours during the GOTV effort.

In the end, voter turnout was huge, matching gubernatorial
votes in most areas and approaching presidential votes in
several. And when turnout is huge in Republican districts,
Republicans usually win.

The four Republican winners are in very Republican
districts; indeed, all six Republicans being challenged had
won election in 2008 when Obama carried Wisconsin handily.

Recall Walker?

Some argue now that failure to win at least three of these
races puts a damper on efforts to recall Walker. But Walker,
when he is recalled, will be running statewide. Hell not
only have to win these six districts by significant margins,
hell have to make inroads in Democratic strongholds where he
is passionately loathed.

Last spring's statewide race for Supreme Court, where an
unknown came within 7,000 votes of defeating a longtime
incumbent ally of Walker, is probably a better yardstick of
Walker's chances than were these elections.

Wisconsinites face a daunting task in trying to reverse the
damage that the Walker administration has already wrought.
Yesterday was a first small step. Winning the two recall
elections next Tuesday is another small step.

Recalling Walker would be a big step, and changing the state
Assembly in November 2012 would be another big, possibly
final, step.

These steps will only be accomplished, however, if the
massive civic involvement of last winter's street
demonstrations, this past spring's recall petitioning, and
this summer's voter education and GOTV efforts are
sustained. That's a tall order.

[Jim Cavanaugh is president of the South Central Federation
of Labor, headquartered in Madison.]

==========

* Wisconsin - From the Progressive Change Campaign Committee

by Stephanie Taylor, Adam Green, Amanda Johnson, and Keauna
Gregory in Madison

Progressive Change Campaign Committee
August 10, 2011
http://act.boldprogressives.org/signup/signup_recallupdates/?source=bp

Last night, we stood in a crowded square outside the state
Capitol in Madison. Teachers, fire fighters, police
officers, moms, and dads chanted, "This is what democracy
looks like."

It was powerful. And as the election results came in,
something else was clear: The voters are powerful.

When Republicans declared war on working families, we could
have retreated. But together, we took the fight onto their
home turf and put them on defense for a change. And in 2 of
6 Republican strongholds, we won.

History will deem last night a victory for progressives.
Here are some key facts:

    * Gov. Scott Walker no longer has a working majority in
    the Senate. His extreme anti-worker bill passed by only
    2 votes, thanks to 1 moderate Republican. Our 2 wins are
    game changing.

    * If last night's election was statewide, Democrats
    would have won in a landslide. We forced neck-and-neck
    races in Republican areas.

    * In 2012, if Democrats achieve last night's rate of
    success in Republican House districts, Speaker Nancy
    Pelosi will have a 274-seat majority.

    * We sent a national message that when Republican
    politicians hurt working families, voters will punish
    them -- even in Republican areas.

    * We also proved that when Democrats stand strong for
    progressive principles -- as Wisconsin Democrats did --
    they will be rewarded by voters and volunteers.

Thanks for all you did to achieve last night's historic
success.

PCCC members made 382,623 calls to voters, gave over 120,000
grassroots donations, and helped air 5 powerful TV ads.
Yesterday, one "Call Out The Vote" volunteer even called
Jennifer Schilling, who defeated Dan Kapanke last night --
she said to tell everyone thank you!

This morning, the Wisconsin Democratic Party chair sounded a
forward-looking note, "We went on their turf and we won. We
will not stop, we will not rest until we recall Gov. Scott
Walker."

If you'd like to help defeat Scott Walker when he's eligible
for recall next year (and potentially see Russ Feingold run
against him), sign up here.

Also, tonight at 7:00pm Eastern, "Wisconsin 14" Senator
Chris Larson will join us to thank PCCC members and debrief
on last night's elections. To listen on the web, sign up
here. Spots are limited.

Thanks for being a bold progressive. Onward!

-- Stephanie Taylor, Adam Green, Amanda Johnson, and Keauna
Gregory in Madison...

...and the rest of the PCCC team: Michael Snook, Jason
Rosenbaum, Forrest Brown, Neil Sroka, Kari Thurman, Matt
Wall, Abby Blum, Matt Burgess, Jeremy Feigenbaum, Caroline
Dean, Lori Zibel, Jake Conarck, Adam Levy, Allie Carter,
Taylor Sappington, Clare Joyce, and DeVeria Flowers.


PCCC, 1630 R Street, NW, #703, Washington, DC 20009
http://boldprogressives.org/home

==========

* So Close - A 2011 Recall Against Walker - sort of a
Spanish Civil War prior to the big event.

by Ed Kilgore
The Democratic Strategist
August 10, 2011
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2011/08/so_close.php

As you probably know, the recall election involving six
Republican state senators fell one seat short of the three
needed to flip control of the Wisconsin State to Democrats,
and only a bit over 2,000 votes separated the candidates in
the decisive contest. All six districts were carried by
Barack Obama in 2008, but also by Scott Walker in 2010, and
as Nate Silver has characterized them, they are clearly a
bit more Republican than the state as a whole.

Both sides in the particularly harsh political/economic
struggle in Wisconsin, which is rapidly becoming a microcosm
of the national struggle, will be examining not just the
results, but their strategies, tactics, GOTV methods, and
paid media investments, for weeks and months to come.
Labor/Progressive efforts to boost turnout appeared to have
succeeded; turnout across the six districts came very close
to that of the 2010 general election, a pretty remarkable
development for a late-summer special election. After-action
reports will seek to determine whether pro-recall GOTV
investments were effectively countered by tea party groups
and the local GOP, or created a polarizing atmosphere that
boosted turnout across-the-board.

Sheer money was obviously a factor; an estimated $8 million
was spent in one district alone (the 8th, won by Republican
Alberta Darling in what turned out to be the crucial contest
in terms of control of the Senate). It will be a while
before the spending numbers can be sorted out, but the CW
going into election day was that conservative groups had
outgunned progressives financially down the stretch, much as
they did in the narrow Supreme Court election in April.

For Wisconsin Democrats, the key question is whether the
results justify an expensive and difficult effort to recall
Gov. Scott Walker next year. If you extrapolate yesterday's
numbers, a similar result in a statewide race would probably
be enough to topple Walker, but it would be very close. In
terms of national politics, however, the 2011 recall
elections should be viewed as a laboratory for the 2012
presidential election--sort of a Spanish Civil War prior to
the big event. Wisconsin is by any definition a state
Democrats will have to win in a successful presidential
campaign, but more importantly, the resource allocations and
messages being tested in Wisconsin must be measured against
the many decisions Democrats and their progressive allies
must make in a complex national landscape.

==========

* We'll Keep Fighting

by Jim Dean

Democracy for America
Aug 10, 2011 11:08 AM
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/blog_posts/37799-well-keep-fighting

I'm not going to sugarcoat it -- we came up short in
Wisconsin last night. We needed to win three seats to take
back the State Senate and we got two.

This was always going to be a tough fight. These were
Republican districts and these six Republican Senators were
backed up by tens of millions of dollars from big
corporations.

The fact that we won two of these elections and came so
close in a third is a testament to the strength of our
grassroots movement. Your work on the ground and across the
country built a people-powered campaign that went toe-to-toe
with everything the right wing and big corporations had to
offer and came within a few thousand votes of winning three
seats in their territory.

The country has seen the work we've done in Wisconsin and
they know we won't be stopped.

We're going to fight in Ohio, where voters have a chance to
repeal another anti-union, anti-middle class law in a
special referendum this November. We're going to fight in
Michigan, where the governor has launched an all-out war on
local governments.

We're going to fight until we win -- and next year, we're
going to beat John Boehner and his right-wing Tea Party
majority.

Thank you for everything you did in Wisconsin as part of our
campaign. I am honored to work with DFA members like you
everyday, and I look forward to the work we have ahead of
us.

Jim Dean, Chair
Democracy for America

Democracy for America
PO Box 1717
Burlington, VT 05402

Phone: 802-651-3200 -- Fax: 802-651-3299
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/

==========

* What We Won In Wisconsin

by Isaiah J. Poole
Campaign for America's Future
August 10, 2011 - 1:58pm ET
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011083210/what-we-won-wisconsin

Ignore the chest-thumping from the right following the
Wisconsin recall elections Tuesday night. The fact that
Democratic challengers prevailed in two of the six races,
and came within less than 1,100 votes of unseating a third
in a race where almost 51,000 votes were cast, is, to
paraphrase Vice President Joe Biden, a big effing deal.

One of the two Democrats who won, Jessica King, won in an
area that has a longtime Republican congressman, Tom Petri,
and which voted for George W. Bush handily in both 2000 and
2004, and which President Obama barely won in 2008. The
other victor, Jennifer Shilling, was in somewhat friendlier
territory but she defeated a two-term state senator.
Nonetheless, as John Nichols points out at The Nation, all
of the Democratic challengers were "running in districts
that were drawn to elect Republicans, that have consistently
elected Republicans for generations, and that all backed
Walker last November."

Both King and Shilling overcame a tsunami of money from
conservative groups and corporate interests that made these
recall efforts, already historic in that it was the first
time ever that six state legislators had to face recalls
simultaneously, the most expensive legislative elections in
the state's history (as much as $40 million, according to
some estimates).

Markos Moulitsas captured the significance of the election
for progressives as well as anyone:

    We took the fight into red territory, and took two
    seats. What was a safe 19-14 GOP advantage is now a
    narrow 17-16. If we had those numbers going into 2011,
    the anti-labor bill would never have passed - one GOPer
    voted with the Democrats (and hey, Sen. Dale Schultz,
    the water is mighty fine on our side of the aisle!).

    ... Beyond Wisconsin, if we can enjoy a similar "loss
    rate" in Republican-held districts (picking up 33
    percent of them), Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a huge
    majority in 2013. We had a message that resonated with
    large numbers of working people in overwhelmingly white
    working-class districts that shifted hard against
    Democrats in 2010. GOP overreach is winning them back
    for us. Just think, before today, only 13 state
    legislators had been recalled in the entire history of
    this nation.

    So yeah, I feel strangely energized and elated.

There is good reason to be. There was broad revulsion
against the extremist conservative agenda of Gov. Scott
Walker, who led an attack on worker bargaining rights under
the guise of closing the state's budget deficit while
muscling through tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy
that worsened the deficit and set the pretext for cuts in
vital state services to low- and middle-income state
residents. Now we know that revulsion can be channeled into
a viable political movement that can sometimes propel
progressive candidates into office and at other times at
least force conservative candidates to keep watching their
back.

This results of this movement take away any doubt about the
proposition that Walker had no mandate for his extreme
attack on public workers and on struggling families. The
effort that is currently underway to recall Walker himself
next year can take comfort in Tuesday's victories. So can
activists who are pursuing a referendum in Ohio to overturn
an anti-worker law pushed through the legislature by
conservative Gov. John Kasich.

Josh Marshall makes a compelling analogy to rebut arguments
that the Wisconsin effort, by failing to place the Senate in
Democratic hands, was a wasted effort.

    "But it's wrong to see political energy and resources as
    finite and something to be marshaled. It's not a zero
    sum game. This kind of effort doesn't take away from
    something else. It adds to it. It builds organizational
    muscle. In fact, it's like muscle. You build it by
    exercising it. I don't lose part of my allotment of
    muscle by doing some bench presses. I build it up. And
    the exercise itself demonstrates that a political
    movement can bite back."

To be sure, the results also make clear the scope of how
uphill the fight is and will continue to be in a political
landscape where corporations, and the millionaires and
billionaires who run them or profit from them, are prepared
to throw unlimited cash into these elections on behalf of
politicians who will insulate them from paying their fair
share or bearing their share of accountability for the
country from which they profit. And it is not just the flood
of money. When Walker on Tuesday, as voters were standing in
line at the polls, signed into law a redistricting plan
designed to disempower citizens who disagreed with the
right-wing agenda, that was just a taste of what the
conservative establishment was prepared to do to stay in
power - in some cases, even if it meant making it harder for
people to vote, or using lies, deceit or law-breaking.

The right response to all of this is not to be discouraged;
that would guarantee that the political forces that are
seeking to dismantle the work of the New Deal, the Great
Society, the union movement and the equality fights of the
past eight decades will succeed. Instead, we regroup. We
assess our strengths and learn from our mistakes. We fine-
tune our message. We get back up again, confident that as
Dr, Martin Luther King said, the arc of history is long, but
it bends toward justice - all the more when people pursuing
justice stand up to the forces of economic injustice.

==========

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