While the right celebrates the fact that David Prosser seems to have emerged as the winner in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race over JoAnne Klopenbuerg, POLITICO points to some disturbing implications about what should have been a rather routine win for Prosser in an off year state level election.
Essentially what happened in the wake of the dust up between a newly elected Republican governor and the public service unions was the race became nationalized. And with that came a tremendous influx of money and manpower from the left bent on changing the balance in the Supreme Court – a court that will eventually have to rule on the legislation which has stripped public sector unions of their collective bargaining powers. Defeating Prosser would have meant the court went from a 4-3 conservative court to a 4-3 liberal court. Most feel the law, now under court stay, would have been declared invalid by the Supreme Court had Klopenbuerg won.
While there were some irregularities in the election, they don’t seem to be show stoppers or anything which will invalidate the close win by Prosser. But take a look at the context of this outcome. This shouldn’t have even been that close:
So in a period of less than two months, Kloppenburg went from an extreme underdog to a candidate who nearly tied the incumbent and won 19 more counties than the Democratic candidate for governor last year.
In no time at all, the left was able to make this not only a referendum on WI Gov. Scott Walker, but give it national implications by framing it as a GOP attack on labor in general, citing several states, such as Ohio, where GOP governors were following a similar path.
Obviously, in a very short period of time, union “get out the vote” campaigns were able to swing into action and produce an outcome that nearly succeeded.
It points to something which wasn’t evident in the 2010 mid-term Congressional races – an energized and enthusiastic Democratic base who turned out to vote. The obvious hope, of course, is that Democrats can use this issue on a national level to re-energize and rather disenchanted base and get them back into the active role that gave them majorities in Congress and the White House in 2008.
But the news isn’t all bad for the GOP. While the race became close, the GOP candidate still won. That in a state which is normally considered to be blue. In fact, President Obama took the state by 56% and all 59 counties. Gov. Walker won by 52% and 59 counties. The Prosser-Kloppenbuerg race broke down into 32-27 respectively in counties won by each.
The results certainly show the effort by the left to get out the vote, but it also shows that not everyone has abandoned the Republicans on this issue and were energized enough to go out and vote to help the Republican candidate win. And, in fact, if you draw any conclusion from this race, it must be that at the moment Wisconsin is more purple than it is red or blue.
For Republicans that’s actually a positive.
Finally, if you accept the assumption by the left that this fight was a proxy for a much wider national fight, again given the strong union tradition in Wisconsin, the results favor the GOP.
Wisconsin is going to be a state to watch closely as 2012 approaches because the nationalized fight is going to continue there. First the court fight over the law, then the recall elections all will draw attention to the state. But there is obviously an silent portion of the Wisconsin citizenry who have decided – despite all the whining, complaining and tantrums thrown by public service union employees and all the national money pumped into the state – that the governor is on the right track.
