On, Wisconsin! Or so it was meant to be with a union-led recall in the home state of Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr., the populist governor and senator who once shaped the cry for anti-corporate social justice in this nation. After La Follette there was the Wisconsinite William Proxmire, the great conscience of the U.S. Senate, followed by the equally impressive Russ Feingold, who, despite being exactly correct in warning of the consequences of unfettered banking greed, was turned out by Wisconsin voters in 2010. Perhaps if the original McCain-Feingold legislation -- gutted by the Supreme Court -- was still the law of the land on campaign finance, the Democrats and their union base would have survived Tuesday's election.
Certainly that is the excuse provided by what remains of the liberal media, which point to the lopsided advantage in funding for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and to the high court's Citizens United ruling in seeking reasons for this "billionaire's victory" over "people power." But the larger truth is that the spirit of populism has been perverted by the Republican tea party right and that Democrats are left defending government bureaucracy while remaining incapable of responding to America's widespread economic pain.
At a time when so many are worried about obtaining or holding on to work, it's difficult to rally around the guaranteed job security and high pensions of some privileged government employees. Not all public workers fit into this category, to be sure. But nonpublic workers who must struggle with the vagaries of private employment have seen more than enough examples of government employee unions, the last stronghold of organized labor, exercising their power to ensure what appears to be outsized compensation for their members.
Of course this argument is a red herring. The budget crises of state and municipal governments were not brought on by excessive pay to firemen, cops and other civil servants, but rather by a banking meltdown that has enriched those who engineered it. Housing values, and the local taxes dependent on them, are down because of financial shenanigans that wrapped mortgages into collateralized debt obligations, and that is the root cause of government red ink. But the job security and pensions of government employees make terribly convenient scapegoats at a time when so many Americans are lining up at food banks.
The electorate in Wisconsin, and San Diego and San Jose, Calif., that voted Tuesday against public employee unions were not expressing a rational response to the crisis, but rather a tantrum stoked by the lavishly financed demagogues of the right. The voters bought their story because the opportunism of the Democratic Party leadership has left progressives without a believable alternative to the tea party's narrative. Indeed, job creation became a bigger issue than collective bargaining in the Wisconsin race, and the dismal national unemployment figures that came out just days before the election didn't hurt the Republicans' cause.
By refusing to campaign in the state before Tuesday's vote, President Obama proved he has no heart for engaging in a real debate about the sources of our economic crisis. As Bloomberg News reported in an editorial titled "All Eyes on Wisconsin, Except Obama's," the president made two fundraising stops within 50 miles of the Wisconsin border last Friday, but studiously avoided entering the state he easily carried in the 2008 election. Instead of visiting, Obama tweeted: "It's Election Day in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I'm standing by Tom Barrett. He'd make an outstanding governor. -bo." Not a word of support for the unions that so slavishly support the president and spent millions propping up Barrett.
"Bo" emerged with his popularity intact, according to exit polls, and he will do better in November than Barrett did this week, despite media attempts to treat the Wisconsin election as an omen of things to come.
Few Midwestern independents and moderates will fault Obama for saving the American automobile industry from extinction, if Mitt Romney plays that weak card in campaigning against the president. Nor will the president lack for funds to finance his message. Democrats who made such a big deal about the money from the superrich that poured into Wisconsin were frequently reminded on Internet comments pages that Obama raised more money from the well-heeled than did John McCain in the last election. And to paraphrase those old Smith Barney commercials, Obama got Wall Street's money the old-fashioned way. He earned it.
That cannot be said of the unqualified support Obama has received from organized labor and the working people it attempts to represent. He has failed both at every turn.
Jim Wallis: The Missing Religious Principle in Our Budget Debates
Byron Williams: What Does Wisconsin Say About the General Election?
Lincoln Mitchell: The Bad News for Labor From Wisconsin
Therefore, Democrats...pay attention...claim your stances that have led to lost wages..., as is the case with Republicans…
And then try to fix the problem...sincerely!
Obama should not campaign for unions that have overreached, any more than he should campaign for corrupt politicians. His support for the working people does not have to support travesties like 'union run monopoly health care', 20 years and out, tenure, the protections of perverts within the school systems, or the ill-gotten wealth accumulation of corrupt politicians.
Let's get the issues on the table and fix what's broken, and not continue on this road to 'throwing the baby out with the bath water'. All of the systems and institutions that Republicans are attacking in their own self interest are 'fixable'. Let's start by fixing what's broken instead of endowing Republicans with the inalienable right to replace Democracy with their own particular brand of totalitarianism.
Even though they invented their own brands of religious fervor and harnessed it's power, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao did not do much to advance cause of human civilization. We should have learned the lesson by now, and we should have learned when to recognize a fascist movement when we see one.
Continued below
The hate filled, fear filled, jealous, bigoted, vengeful, desperate, save-the-white-Christian-founders-of-America-at-all-cost, anti-woman, anti-color, anti-secular, anti-freedom, pro-business-at-any-cost Republican movement has all the essence of an elitist fascist movement.
We need to stop it in it's tracks, and return the country to a path of diversity, unity, and success FOR EVERYONE. Trump, Romney, and their buddies can do with one less house, and one less yacht.............not just because they didn't earn them, but because they earned them on the platform of a society that has been built on the blood, sweat, and labor of generations of millions who did not fare so well..........because the system is not perfect and no one really knows how much 'time and place' play in the acquisition and accumulation of wealth...........because we should be doing this for people, aka the survival of the species, not for a few 'rock stars', many of whom were just plain lucky.
The Democrats failed Wisconsin because they did not campaign there! The Labor Unions Democrats and there other supporters in total sank about $25 million into the Wisconsin Gubernatorial recall. The Unions put another $40+ million into Wisconsin Senate recall elections. Democrats failed because a solid majority of the people of Wisconsin agreed with Scott Walker.
Then we hear from the left fascist calls for censorship! Since Democrats did not win, it must be the fault of other people's free speech. So the remedy is to by force of law, shut those people up. When you cannot win the debate in the public forum, silence your opponents! This is the Democrat Party way.
Then we see Scheer has blamed the insolvency of state and local employee benefit programs on the mortgage debt crisis of 2008. That is pure nonsense. These public employee pension liabilities have been steadily growing over the last 40 years since the great expansion of government that began in the 1960's with the Great Society. This growth could not continue forever without bankrupting the afflicted states and municipalities. Any depression in local tax revenue growth would bring on the crisis. To argue the public benefit system was sustainable but for [enter your favorite crisis here] is a fallacy.
Those people just voted to shove their own necks, in nooses. The Constitution gave them rope and this is what they do with it, wow... you can't write this. Weren't "we" just wondering what was wrong with Kansas? So, for one thing this isn't a localized phenomena:
Then there's the money trail. Which means, the CURIOUS (something that will NOT, be associated with Wisconsin for the immediate, if not foreseeable future) would have KNOWN BETTER, than to let Walker stay.
Now, for the good news; there is only one protection from that level of obsequiousness, national character. One can have either a Kennedy Moonshot (a future), or Wisconsin; life as miserable, but perfect cattle. Really the only cognitive argum
I think the reason many average voters appear to vote against their own economic self-interest is because when Democrats are running things there doesn't seem to be much change in these voter's economic status. Working and middle class folks lose ground no matter who's in charge. If the Democratic leadership wants to win in the future in places like Wisconsin, if they want to capture working and middle class votes, then they need to start being more aggressive in standing up for 'the little guy'. They need to embrace the liberal/progressive arm of the party and start making a difference. Different words are not enough, average Americans must see and feel the difference. Americans like a fighter, so fight dammit!
The reason?
The Democrats of today are in reality Rockefeller Republicans of old! Social Progressives doing Wall Street's bidding!
The whole state is useless otherwise.
States with low taxes encourage businesses to move there so they can save money right? I'm guessing pretty much all of these states were under GOP control when they lowered taxes.
So businesses move to these states, which boosts employment at the cost of whatever state programs were lost due to low funding.
If other states want to compete for those jobs, they have to follow suit correct?
Isn't this a race to the bottom?
I see a future of 100% employment with absolutely ZERO public benefits. We've even heard talk of removing the minimum wage... that's about as close to slave labor as it gets!