First why did Walker win? Obviously, he doesn't care about the Wisconsin people, How did Walker win? Well, that's a bit more interesting....
First, Walker outspent Tom Barrett 8:1...and that don't count a bunch of other money that was in the shadows...like the money that had people wearing signs( signs saying that Barrett was a baby killer/immoral/approved of gay marriage, you know, those so-called values that the right scares people with), Walker minions would pay $100 per sign to have home owners put them in their yard(Barrett signs didn't come with that dividend), and then there were the commercials....NRA sponsored an ad stating that Barrett wanted to take away hunters' rifles(specially deer rifles--BIG FAT LIE), other ads about Barrett hating babies and loving gays...
Yes, money made a difference, but there were some other issues as well:
- Walker lied about his "gain" of thousands of jobs since he took over when the truth is that Wisconsin is 51st in job recovery in the nation(and has lost over 10,000 jobs). Although Tom Barrett and his staff came out and said it was a lie(well, he prolly used the old, "misspoke" quote), Walker was not challenged by the main stream media.
- Many people thought that Walker didn't deserve to be recalled because, as far as they knew, he hadn't done anything wrong, of a criminal nature and were somewhat worried that recall elections could become...umm...trendy. If someone didn't like what happened at the real election, they'd just come up with millions of $$ and fight it. OK, that's a bit of sarcasm, but I just couldn't help myself. Of course, the average Wisconsin voter hadn't been following the "John Doe" state and federal investigation. They might just end up with dingbat Kleefish as governor.
- Because of the "new" voter laws(that Walker and the republicons rammed thru), students did not vote in the same amount as is usual(and you know those kiddies...they vote liberal more than not). The new law states that you must live in your residence for 28 days, rather than the 10 previously. Five of the largest universities dismissed classes 10-21 days before the recall which left many of them disenfranchised(couldn't vote). Marquette University did make arrangements that students could come back and vote and they had a very good turnout, but in reality, if that's a 2-3 hour drive for someone just to vote and then turn around and go home? How many people are going to be able to do that? Another interesting fact: the Walker campaign stalled the recall process by three weeks back in January when they said they were trying to decide if or when they would challenge the signatures--just enough time to screw those students....hmm......
Also, many voters, when asked, said they made their mind up in May...and at that time, the Dems were still in the primary stage. I'm conflicted about this. Part of me feels that its important to allow the voters to choose their candidate...OTOH, we also knew that there were dirty tricks on the other side--the right had "fake" dems running in primaries(for state general assembly), we knew that time was short...couldn't we just have the state dem association...just this once(or for this type of craziness) get all the candidates together and choose one?!?!?!? Republicons do it often enough, sometimes we need to just act together, instead of acting like cats chasing some shiny feathery thing.
So, how much effect will the recall election have on November, probably not much. This election did show us how votes can be bought...thank you SCOUTUS and Citizens United--but considering how much money was spent, Barrett wasn't beat by that much(considering he only had about 13-15% of the money in the race, he should have only received 13-15% of the vote) Racine flipped red to blue(yes, I know there is a recount going on) and Obama won the "exit polls" over Romney 5:1 and, in California, Orly Taints only received 3% of votes in her bid for U. S. Senator. What does that mean? That there are only 113,000 crazy bigots in California!
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