Tuesday was Election Day, Part I
You'd think I'd learn. I really should stop making bets about elections having lost three out of three. Now I will just have to, once again, last longer than Schmengie in the BARGE No Limit tournament to undo the monetary effects on me of the Walker debacle.
It still amazes me that over 1,000,000 signatures on a recall petition could be turned in on a voting base of 2.5 million and it would be possible to lose. But there it is, 1.16 million to 1.33 million. (The polling, by the way, was spot on. The average of the polls was 6.6% to Walker and he won with 6.9%.)
Let's be clear. This was a massive defeat. There's no spin you can give to putting in such an enormous effort by tens of thousands of unbelievably fired-up volunteers and then getting a result essentially no different than the 2010 election.
There was one saving grace -- it does look like the Wisconsin Senate has gone Democratic majority -- of the four State Senate recall elections, one appears to have been won by the Democrats, giving them a 17-16 majority (the result is still unofficial, being very close, but there aren't enough absentee ballots to close an 800-vote gap). Insofar as the Wisconsin Legislature is not in session and there are elections for 1/2 of the Wisconin Senate seats in November -- which could easily give control back to the Republicans -- it's a pretty small bone to have been tossed. What it does do is prevent Walker from calling any special session that he might have been thinking of had Republicans regained their Senate majority. The seat that the D's won will not be contested until 2014, so that also makes it harder for R's to have control in November, though still reasonably likely)
It still amazes me that over 1,000,000 signatures on a recall petition could be turned in on a voting base of 2.5 million and it would be possible to lose. But there it is, 1.16 million to 1.33 million. (The polling, by the way, was spot on. The average of the polls was 6.6% to Walker and he won with 6.9%.)
Let's be clear. This was a massive defeat. There's no spin you can give to putting in such an enormous effort by tens of thousands of unbelievably fired-up volunteers and then getting a result essentially no different than the 2010 election.
There was one saving grace -- it does look like the Wisconsin Senate has gone Democratic majority -- of the four State Senate recall elections, one appears to have been won by the Democrats, giving them a 17-16 majority (the result is still unofficial, being very close, but there aren't enough absentee ballots to close an 800-vote gap). Insofar as the Wisconsin Legislature is not in session and there are elections for 1/2 of the Wisconin Senate seats in November -- which could easily give control back to the Republicans -- it's a pretty small bone to have been tossed. What it does do is prevent Walker from calling any special session that he might have been thinking of had Republicans regained their Senate majority. The seat that the D's won will not be contested until 2014, so that also makes it harder for R's to have control in November, though still reasonably likely)