Thread: Sweet Vindication

Down in flames, as predicted.

Listened to 'Good to Great' audio book, and was struck that Walker might just be that rare case of a level 5 leader in politics.

On the occasion of this great election I would like to offer these words of comfort.

When you union/progressive/liberal/Democratic activists look back on your quest to begin the Wisconsin recall movement, I want you to appreciate the amazing amount of work that you spent on it. You called. You networked. You wrote letters and blog posts. You contributed to opposition groups. You reached out, and found people just like you, and you banded together to fight. You marched, and you stormed the state capital, and you were arrested. And you kept going, and calling, and struggling, and you put your time, your money, and every atom of your being on the line. For some of you, this was your finest moment. You fought for this. You fought so hard for this.

Oddly enough, I didn’t do any of that, but I won anyway. and you know what? I'm going to win this November. Oh, I'll work harder for that victory, true. But still, that will have little to do with the outcome. What will matter in the national elections in the fall, is the very same thing that mattered in Wisconsin.

The people are tired of your crap. That’s because you and your wet dream union/progressive/liberal/Democratic ideas and programs suck, and me and my ideas don’t.

Well, I didn’t say that they were words of comfort for you.* You lost... get used to it.





*Shamelessly taken in part from my friend Moe Lane

Tuned into the hacks at MSNBC for a bit (primarily to see if they're shows were as balanced in their guest selection as Fox News, and no big surprise, nary a conservative to be seen, unlike Fox which had both liberals and conservatives), and they are blaming Citizens United and poor Tom Barrett being sooooo outspent.

I think of this in the context of those who are deluding themselves into thinking this does not tell us something about the state of play of the electorate come November. The left is treating 2008 as though it is the new default setting of the electorate, despite the fact that you had the following historically advantageous factors working in the democrat's favor:
- Coming off of two terms of the other party being in the White House
- Significant recession beginning shortly before the election
- a terrible (possibley worse than Bob Dole) opponent

And then, if you are one of those who believes that money is decisive (as opposed to being something that only impacts at the margins and has a rapidly diminishing marginal utility provided both sides have a certain threshold of funding to get their message out), Obama massively outspent McCain.

The question for 2012 is what is the "new normal" for the electorate, which had democrats not breaking 50% of the popular vote going back several decades (meaning a slightly right of center electorate) or is it closer to 2008 with the democratic candidate getting 52.9%. Given that Obama is not looking like he has much of a chance of that being a floor, rather than a ceiling on his share of the vote, I would argue that this is still a slightly right of center nation (possibly more so than in 2004 with the backlash the to the irresponsibility and ideological extremism of the Obama administration) and that the following factors are at play compared to 2008:
- Obama is now running on his record, rather than against someone else's (with none of his own, allowing people by his own admission to project their views onto his blank slate)
- Even though close to 60% still blame the recession on Bush, just over 70% of those same people polled say that Obama's policies have either made things worse than they would have otherwise been or did nothing to help
- Romney is no McCain. By all indications he is not deterred from running the type of campaign it takes to counter the chicago thuggery that is the halmark of Obama-Axelrod politics by the MSLM's admonishments. McCain (as I predicted) was completely unprepared for the media turning on him and let them dictate what issues were "relevant".
- If you believe (as the left clearly does) that outspending your opponent massively = buying elections (despite the intellectual discontinuity of not attributing Obama's victory to massively outspending the opposition), the money playing field will be much more level this time around. In 2008 the extra money permitted Obama the luxury of going on the air in states that he ultimately did not need to win, but could afford to make a play at with his massive spending advantage, padding his electoral and popular vote (in fact in the last week or two of the election, they started pouring money into states they had no chance of winning in order to improve their popular vote margin). This time around there will be so much money on both sides, that advantage not only disappears for Obama, but Romney will be able to spend to compete in states that the McCain team abandoned more then a month before the election (Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for example).

I beleive I predicted this elsewhere, but will say it again. Right now I would project the presidential election being anywhere from 51% for Obama to 53% for Romney. Right now I still give Obama a very slight edge overall (incumbency has it's advantages including people who previously voted for someone being inclined not to admit to themselves they made a mistake), but that said, I think his ceiling for margin of victory is lower than that possible for Romeny.

"I wanna thank God for his abundant grace." -Gov. Walker

Originally Posted by tsquare

On the occasion of this great election I would like to offer these words of comfort.

When you union/progressive/liberal/Democratic activists look back on your quest to begin the Wisconsin recall movement, I want you to appreciate the amazing amount of work that you spent on it. You called. You networked. You wrote letters and blog posts. You contributed to opposition groups. You reached out, and found people just like you, and you banded together to fight. You marched, and you stormed the state capital, and you were arrested. And you kept going, and calling, and struggling, and you put your time, your money, and every atom of your being on the line. For some of you, this was your finest moment. You fought for this. You fought so hard for this.

Oddly enough, I didn’t do any of that, but I won anyway. and you know what? I'm going to win this November. Oh, I'll work harder for that victory, true. But still, that will have little to do with the outcome. What will matter in the national elections in the fall, is the very same thing that mattered in Wisconsin.

The people are tired of your crap. That’s because you and your wet dream union/progressive/liberal/Democratic ideas and programs suck, and me and my ideas don’t.

Well, I didn’t say that they were words of comfort for you.* You lost... get used to it.





*Shamelessly taken in part from my friend Moe Lane

I'll give you a +1 on the gloat!

I'm happy to see that the margin was as big as it seems to be. That should eliminate any serious complaints about improprieties that will be bound to surface. It's also good to see that the people of Wisconsin stood up and said, convincingly, that they are tired of this bullshit.

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

The exit polls coming out appear to make this recall election more about how people feel about recall elections than they do about unions.

More than 50% of those polled have a favorable view of unions for public employees while 43% do not, so why is Scott Walker probably going to win tonight? Because 60% polled said that recall elections should be for misconduct, not because you don't like the politico's agenda.

If he wins it's because he won the referendum on whether people think he did something illegal or not.

If he loses, it'll be for the same reason and because Democrats somehow eeked out enough supporters.

I predict Walker 51.5%, Barrett 48.5%.

This election appears to have no baring on November, since the exit poll numbers show Obama at 51%, Romney at 45% among people who voted today.

Interesting stuff.

Well sparky… both you and your exit polls were a bit… off this evening.

Add Jason to the list of folks that lost tonight, for him keeping his prediction streak perfect.

As to having ‘no baring’ on the general election this fall…

CROWLEY: But are there national implications?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: ... engaged. And -- well, I think what's going to happen is that because of our on-the-ground operation, we have had an opportunity in this election, because especially given that Wisconsin is a battleground state, just like we did in the recall elections a year ago, to give this a test run.

And so what I think the implications will be is that ultimately I think Tom Barrett will pull this out, but regardless it has given the Obama for America operation an opportunity to do...

CROWLEY: Test run it.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: ... the dry run that we need of our massive, significant, dynamic grassroots presidential campaign, which can't really be matched by the Romney campaign or the Republicans because they've ignored on the ground operations.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Wisconsin A "Dry Run" For Obama | RealClearPolitics

So just for the record, you claim to know more than the Chairperson of the Democratic Party. (I’m not saying that you don’t know more than she does… not that that is really hard… but still)

Face it…the demographic shift voting against the Dems in the rust belt and Appalachia that began in 2010 has held solid this year. Dem gains out West won’t be enough. WS is in play. IA is in play. PA could be in play. Obama won’t come close in MO.

The left took a huge beating tonight… and lost. Big time. Tonight your feet got wet… come November you are going to be washed out to sea by the GOP wave.

I admit I haven't been following the WI thing very closely for a while now. I knew Walker was leading, but hadn't really followed much on the topic since last year.

A quick review shows Walker governing basically as extreme right as anyone could ever imagine.

He signed Abstinence-only sex ed for school children. What incredible stupidity. As though 8 years of that insanity under bush didn't prove beyond any doubt of the sheer stupidity of Abstinence-ONLY education. Small saving grace: The bill only 'recommends' this stupidity rather than 'requires' it.

He signed a bill preventing victims of discrimination from suing for damages. More stupidity. So let me get this straight: Its unconstitutional to discriminate, but if you do there will be zero ability for the victim to sue you. In one swoop that pretty much completely nullifies the 14th amendment.

He signed a bill piling the workload onto doctors which requires multiple extra medical appointments in the name of preventing more abortions. Although this will greatly increase the cost of abortions, the silver lining is that criminal penalties for women self-aborting are removed, so we might see plenty of women self-aborting as a result, something I'm sure we all wanted to see. Time to start that Pennyroyal Tea distributorship.

It will be interesting to watch the next couple of years and see just how far right a Governor can be. Did Walker campaign on those things? I thought he campaigned mostly on economics not social issues.

Good luck with him WI. If its any consolation, he's probably not any worse than Tommy Thompson was.

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

A quick review shows Walker governing basically as extreme right as anyone could ever imagine.

You clearly don't know any "extreme right" people.

I'm sure there are plenty who are even more to the right, but they're not Governors.

Dissilusioned_1
I admit I haven't been following the WI thing very closely for a while now. I knew Walker was leading, but hadn't really followed much on the topic since last year.

A quick review shows Walker governing basically as extreme right as anyone could ever imagine.

He signed Abstinence-only sex ed for school children. What incredible stupidity. As though 8 years of that insanity under bush didn't prove beyond any doubt of the sheer stupidity of Abstinence-ONLY education. Small saving grace: The bill only 'recommends' this stupidity rather than 'requires' it.

He signed a bill preventing victims of discrimination from suing for damages. More stupidity. So let me get this straight: Its unconstitutional to discriminate, but if you do there will be zero ability for the victim to sue you. In one swoop that pretty much completely nullifies the 14th amendment.

He signed a bill piling the workload onto doctors which requires multiple extra medical appointments in the name of preventing more abortions. Although this will greatly increase the cost of abortions, the silver lining is that criminal penalties for women self-aborting are removed, so we might see plenty of women self-aborting as a result, something I'm sure we all wanted to see. Time to start that Pennyroyal Tea distributorship.

It will be interesting to watch the next couple of years and see just how far right a Governor can be. Did Walker campaign on those things? I thought he campaigned mostly on economics not social issues.

Good luck with him WI. If its any consolation, he's probably not any worse than Tommy Thompson was.

Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of bitter, shellshocked liberals after a clear and decisive defeat. Walker is now likely to win by a larger margin than he originally won by.

Whaaaatt...unions can't swing elections and reverse the will of the electorate ? There's definetly something to celebrate there.

Walker won because 17% of voters who say they will vote for Obama in November, voted for Walker last night.

That's in keeping with the 60% of the voters last night who didn't see this so much as Labor vs. Walker, but framed it more as Misconduct vs. Not Misconduct, and Independent voters sided with Walker's performance as being Not Misconduct.

Go figure.

The President, in all likelihood, will retain Wisconsin in November. All politics really are local until they aren't, and that accounts for historically weird ironies such as these.

The historically weird irony that the person voted into office is the person that most of the voters wanted in office?