Wisconsin aftermath: Voters in disbelief over Walker victory

[sybylla]

38. Recall timeline determined by our constitution.

Recalls, when they were put into our constitution by the progressives in the early 1900's were intended to be a speedy remedy - just like someone charged with a crime gets a speedy trial.

Why Barrett? He wasn't chosen by the party, he was chosen in an open primary from a list of four possibilities. Could we have had a better choice come forward and put their name on the primary ballot? I believe there was at least one, but they didn't come forward. I partly blame that on the party. I don't think they did their homework very well when it came time to run test polling and recruiting the best candidate. But, when you're running against a 30:1 money disadvantage, WTF are your chances anyway? How many candidates who might have had a better chance saw this as a suicide mission?

Avoid a primary? That's not the Wisconsin/Progressive way. The people chose the candidate. In WI, we do not register to vote by party. The Dem Party is a dues-paying membership based organization - one in which few people actually are members (as a percentage of the voting population). To have the party come forward and make that choice would have been heavy-handed and turned even more people off to the recall. Those who worked to collect the signatures, those who made the recall happen, would have felt betrayed.

That long time Walker had to raise money and to campaign definitely put him at an advantage. But I cannot say the Dem Party and the unions didn't drop the ball here. Knocking doors and talking to voters confirmed the view expressed in exit polling that people didn't like the recall process itself or didn't believe it was warranted in this case. The party and the unions could have spent the last six months spending money on ads and mailers that would have persuaded voters otherwise. They didn't. They let Wanker define the process early and never made an effort to counter his BS.