Human Events... Wisconsin GOP ‘Darling’ Deals
Democrats a Blow Felt Nationwide
by John Gizzi
08/10/2011
Photo:
State Sen. Alberta Darling
Few—if
any—observers in or out of
Wisconsin expected the nationally watched recall elections for six
state senate
seats to turn out the way they did last night.
With more than $28 million nationwide flowing
into the Badger State, and
the Republicans’ 19-to-14-seat majority in jeopardy, three of the six
GOP
senators held onto their seats against hard-hitting Democratic
challengers, and
did so with relative ease. But
Democrats
did manage to unseat Republican Senators Randy Hopper and Dan Kapanke,
meaning
that control of the senate hinged on the outcome of the sixth and
closest race
of all.
By
midnight in Wisconsin, after a long
night of results that seesawed in the Milwaukee-area’s 8th District,
Republican
Sen. Alberta Darling claimed victory.
Darling, a close ally of conservative Gov.
Scott Walker and co-chairman
of the committee that sent his controversial budget to the senate
floor, had
won 54% of the vote over liberal Democrat and two-term State Rep. Sandy
Pasch. If the
67-year-old Darling’s
victory holds up (and threats of legal challenges by State Democratic
Chairman
Mike Tate go nowhere), Republicans will have clung to a majority in the
senate
of 17 to 16.
But
the outcome of the six contests
last night unarguably transcends the boundaries of the Badger State. Had Democrats won a
majority in the senate
last night, they would have not only dealt a major blow to Walker’s
conservative agenda, but set the stage for a recall of the governor
himself in
January (under Wisconsin law, a governor cannot be the subject of a
recall
until he has been in office at least one year).
Coupled with a Democratic takeover of the
senate last night, a recall of
Walker would have clearly energized Democrats nationwide—critical in a
presidential year.
Even
more significantly in terms of
national politics, pundits and pols saw a Democratic win in Wisconsin
on
Tuesday as igniting movements in the 18 other states that permit
recalls to
overturn control of legislative chambers or take out governors in
states where
conservative policy is being implemented.
Already in Michigan, liberal forces are
mobilizing behind a campaign to
gather signatures and recall Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and eight GOP
state
legislators who supported his budget that cuts back state pensions.
But
with Republicans hanging on to the
senate, talk of recalling Walker has now dimmed, and liberals in other
states
may be having second thoughts after investing so much in the recall
process and
falling short in Wisconsin.
In
what veteran GOP consultant Scott
Becher described as “cherry-picking vulnerable Republican senators,”
Democrats
gathered enough signatures on petitions to secure recall elections
against the
six Republican senators who had had the closest calls in their last
trip to the
ballot box. Sen.
Randy Hopper of
Oshkosh, who had last won reelection by less than 200 votes and had
since gone
through a public divorce, faced Democrat Jessica King in a district
with two
prisons and a university. King
won by a
margin of 52%. Veteran
Sen. Dan Kapanke
was downed by Democratic State Rep. Jennifer Shilling in the
LaCrosse-area
district that had given Barack Obama 61% of the vote.
In both cases, Republican incumbents were
pilloried by Democratic challengers for supporting Walker’s landmark
legislation limiting collective bargaining for certain state employees,
and his
budget that cut $800,000,000 from public education and $1 billion in
aid to
localities.
But
in the other four districts,
Republicans were similarly attacked as allies of Walker and his
conservative
agenda and, in three of the four races, GOP incumbents overcame their
opponents
rather handily. In
Darling’s
photo-finish triumph in Milwaukee County (where Walker was county
executive
before winning the governorship last year), the GOP incumbent never
backed down
from her close association with the governor and with House Budget
Committee
Chairman Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.), whose plan to reform Medicare was tied to
Darling
by Democrats (even though the state senator would never have to vote on
it).
The
Wisconsin saga is not over
yet. Next Tuesday,
Republicans get their
turn at trying to take out incumbent Democrats in two Senate districts. For now, however, one can
almost hear a
collective sigh of relief and something of a cry of triumph from
Republicans
from Wisconsin to Washington D.C.
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it at Human Events
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