For Wisconsin, it seemed that the 2012 election had come a summer early. Until August 16th the airwaves were full of ads by campaigns and outside groups urging voters to turnout and support a candidate of choice in one of the nine recall elections around the state. What would have otherwise been a tranquil summer was brushed aside when a torrent of money, activists and professionals swept the state in a prolonged battle that started in the late winter and early spring over the issue of collective bargaining reform.
The political landscape of Wisconsin didn’t change much as a result of the costly and noisy recall elections. But that doesn’t mean some important lessons weren’t learned. Elections this historic always yield important information and raise intriguing possibilities about how future political battles will play out. In a state historically split nearly 50-50 along ideological, if not partisan, lines with independents often progressively minded, the summer campaign offers some lessons that conservatives can take heart from.
Even though Democrats are touting their ability to knock off two incumbent state senators as a major success in the face of failed GOP attempts to go after three Democratic senators, Democratic gains are shallow. Every incumbent senator who faced a recall challenge (regardless of party) survived except when a massive personal scandal or political earthquake hit. Sen. Randy Hopper’s ill-timed affair with a staffer exploded early in the recall cycle and irreparably damaged him politically. Sen. Dan Kapanke’s district had for years been trending Democrat, and his personal connection to voters was not enough to outweigh the long-developing party shift that finally flipped the seat’s party affiliation.
One thing that was successful in the recalls was the use of Wisconsin as a test-state for the 2012 election. Voters were the subject of numerous tests of message strategies, volunteer mobilization tactics, and voter registration and turnout models that could be used nationwide next year. By the final weeks of the campaign, both sides had developed targeted messages detailing how the issues in question impacted people’s communities and everyday lives. The election was nationalized in importance, but the message and tactics were localized in their application.
Leftwing groups both in and outside the state gave the election everything they had. Total spending for the nine elections swelled to nearly $40 million, most of it being raised and spent by unions and other opponents of Governor Walker’s reforms. It was not unreasonable in their minds to think that voters could be persuaded to, after a mere 7 months of governing, give up on their mandate to Republicans in November of 2010 and return to their progressive ways typified by the 2006 and 2008 elections.
The left was wrong.
Wisconsin voters said very convincingly this summer that they were not ready to return to the era of governing that created higher taxes, huge deficits, excessive regulations, and more people employed in government than in the state’s shrinking manufacturing sector. The reforms pushed through by a conservative governor and Republican legislators involved difficult decisions. Nobody told Wisconsinites that change towards a state government that is responsible and friendly to job creation would be easy. But they understand that it has to be done.
Fascinatingly, the one issue that sparked the large protests in the state capitol and led to the recalls was the one issue the left didn’t talk about very much during the summer. Instead of being the third-rail of state politics, collective bargaining reform became an issue that supporters, and not opponents, spent time talking about. The savings created for local governments and the equality with comparable private sector employees that it imposed on public employees made sense in the minds of voters. If Wisconsin voters can see the common sense of collective bargaining reform, nothing but political ineptitude should prevent legislators and governors in other states from embracing similar reforms.
Some questions remain unanswered by the recalls. With an approval rating of 50% and a Democratic Party battered by repeated losses, will President Obama carry the state next year? Will unions that have lost time and time again over the past 10 months be able to muster the strength they need to wage a full battle statewide in 2012? Vast amounts of money have been spent to no significant gain by the left; will they be able to pour that much money into the state for the next cycle? Those questions will have to go unanswered until next year. For now, at least, Wisconsinites can return to their regular summer activities having beaten back a national attempt to reverse the reforms they want.
By: Brian Sikma
Mr. Sikma is the communications director for Media Trackers, a conservative non-partisan investigative watchdog group in Wisconsin.
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