raghu wrote: > ... this recall was a > referendum on Walker's attack on the public unions. This election > proves very clearly that the voters of Wisconsin approve of his > actions.
As Matt Rothschild noted at the beginning of this thread, many people saw recalls as inappropriate unless Walker [no relation to the Sandwichman] actually had been caught committing malfeasance. It's also a vote for or against a known quantity who would be replaced by a largely unknown quantity (because he'd never been governor) who was not exciting or inspiring. Of course, the killer is that the pro-Walker forces has much more power (i.e., money) and it seems a better strategy. No matter what people are voting for or against, money and strategy can and do play a major role. The anti-Walker forces knew they were against the power of Big Money, but they forgot or never knew that if you don't have Big Money yourself, the best path is to organize people power. (Big Money doesn't always win: for example, Michael Huffington didn't get elected US Senator from California in 1994, but his opponent was Dianne Feinstein, who is also rich, so that in many ways it came down to personalities.) > When asked to choose between two sides one representing public unions > and the other representing corporate interests, the people of > Wisconsin chose the corporate interests. For the vast majority of voters, the choice wasn't stated this way. Maybe "objectively" it was so, but "subjectively" it was not. In any event, many see a vote against public workers to be an indirect vote against all workers. Objectively, that's what it is. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
