Game, Set and Match
There are times in the sports world when the outcome of a game is unclear. Both competitors are playing extremely well and neither competitor can seem to get an edge. Then, something happens. To continue the tennis analogy, one player doublefaults and loses the game. The edge in the set will lean towards his opponent. This is exactly what is happening in Wisconsin.
Governor Scott Walker thought with his Republican majority he would be able to force the unions into making major concessions which would cripple the unions in 2012 if not for the next 5-10 years. He thought that this would be a cakewalk. Strip collective bargaining agreements. Starve the unions of cash that they need. The plan, he thought, was brilliant. Unfortunately, like many plans that sound great in your head, it hasn’t gone that way in reality. The governor walked into a hornet’s nest. Instead of noticing all the hornets and slowly backing away, the governor took out a baseball bat. The hornets aren’t happy.
With the Wisconsin Senate being unable to do much of anything with the Senate Democrats out of town, the legislature has ground to a halt. Daily protests are not waning. If anything, they have increased in intensity. Now, the Wisconsin Democratic Party has launched a campaign to recall eight Wisconsin Senators. The good news is that the Democrats don’t need to defeat all eight of them in order to take back the Senate. Now, this is democracy in action. Take the legislative process out of the hands of the professional politicians and put it back in the hands of the people.
More information on the recall can be found here.
From FDL:
The Wisconsin recall effort is only a day old, but it’s going strong. The state Democratic Party has launched a website called Recall the Republican 8 to coordinate events. They have volunteer and contribution pages. There’s also a separate ActBlue page set up for the recall. A separate effort to air apowerful TV ad from the PCCC and DFA, filmed on the day of the 100,000-plus protests last Saturday, has already raised over $225,000.
SEIU has been organizing on the recall as well, both on a special Web page and through offline efforts. Other unions have engaged in traditional organizing on this as well, going back to last week. According to SEIU, they have signed up over 3,000 people from Wisconsin who want to get involved in a recall effort in the past 24 hours. 1,300 have pledged to canvas, and nearly 2,000 have pledged to contribute money.
So far, State Senate Republicans have dismissed the effort. One of the Republican 8, Sen. Randy Hopper, who won his last election by only 184 votes, said, “There is no backing down.” But a poll from themost Republican-friendly pollster in America may have Senate Republicans rethinking that.
