Will Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett end the “ideological civil war” that he says Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., started in the state? Not likely.
Barrett has faulted Walker for campaign “drive-by shootings” and ideological overreach, but Barrett is beholden to his Democratic race and capable of some punchy rhetoric himself.
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“We would get that bill passed through the Senate, I know we would, and we would put so much pressure on the Assembly that they’d be quaking in their boots,” Barrett told a group of Democratic and union supporters, according to video entitled “The Real Tom Barrett” that the Walker campaign says came from a meeting during the Democratic primary.
Barrett was apparently referring to legislation that would reverse the collective bargaining reforms passed by Walker — even though those reforms are working. For instance, Milwaukee — where Barrett serves as mayor — will “save more in health-care and pension costs than it would lose in state aid, leaving the city $11 million ahead in 2012—despite Mayor Tom Barrett’s prediction in March that Walker’s budget “makes our structural deficit explode,” as the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported and Christian Schneider observed in the City-Journal.
To pass the legislation through the Senate, Barrett would have to overcome a slim Republican majority (Democrats failed to capture three Senate seats despite forcing a recall campaign against six Republicans).
“I’m getting into that boxing ring,” Barrett told the supporters. “Night after night after night, because I’m taking it to them.”
Given his public campaign messaging, Barrett seems to understand that Wisconsin voters are getting tired of the permanent political fight underway ever since the unions began their effort to recall Walker. Given his promises to the base, though, this fight has a long future if he is elected.
