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| -Election 2012 |
| Noonan: What's Changed After Wisconsin |
| 2012-06-08 |
| The Obama administration suddenly looks like a house of cards. What happened in Wisconsin signals a shift in political mood and assumption. Public employee unions were beaten back and defeated in a state with a long progressive tradition. The unions and their allies put everything they had into "one of their most aggressive grass-roots campaigns ever," as the Washington Post's Paul Whoriskey and Dan Balz reported in a day-after piece. Fifty thousand volunteers made phone calls and knocked on 1.4 million doors to get out the vote against Gov. Scott Walker. Mr. Walker's supporters, less deeply organized on the ground, had a considerable advantage in money. But organization and money aren't the headline. The shift in mood and assumption is. The vote was a blow to the power and prestige not only of the unions but of the blue-state budgetary model, which for two generations has been: Public-employee unions with their manpower, money and clout, get what they want. If you move against them, you will be crushed. Mr. Walker was not crushed. He was buoyed, winning by a solid seven points in a high-turnout race. President Obama's problem now isn't what Wisconsin did, it's how he looks each day--careening around, always in flight, a superfluous figure. No one even looks to him for leadership now. He doesn't go to Wisconsin, where the fight is. He goes to Sarah Jessica Parker's place, where the money is. It just all increasingly looks like a house of cards. Bill Clinton--that ol' hound dog, that gifted pol who truly loves politics, who always loved figuring out exactly where the people were and then going to exactly that spot and claiming it--Bill Clinton is showing all the signs of someone who is, let us say, essentially unimpressed by the incumbent. He defended Mitt Romney as a businessman--"a sterling record"--said he doesn't like personal attacks in politics, then fulsomely supported the president, and then said that the Bush tax cuts should be extended. His friends say he can't help himself, that he's getting old and a little more compulsively loquacious. Maybe. But maybe Bubba's looking at the president and seeing what far more than half of Washington sees: a man who is limited, who thinks himself clever, and who doesn't know that clever right now won't cut it. Because Bill Clinton loves politics, he hates losers. Maybe he just can't resist sticking it to them a little, when he gets a chance. |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #5 "Steal Underpants" But what about task #2? |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-06-08 19:10 |
| #4 Underpants. Lots of underpants. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2012-06-08 18:24 |
| #3 How many of that 50k were from out of state? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2012-06-08 17:00 |
| #2 Fifty thousand volunteers made phone calls and knocked on 1.4 million doors to get out the vote against Gov. Scott Walker. Apparently the good citizens of Wisconsin saw things differently. That's democracy in action. IMO that we can't continue as a nation with public unions taking over state and the feral government. The taxpayers cannot afford the cost of government. Public unions were a mistake. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2012-06-08 16:42 |
| #1 Hell hath no fury et cetera, et cetera... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2012-06-08 14:42 |