Noman has taken great interest in political developments in Wisconsin, a ridiculously liberal state north of Illinois, an even more ridiculously liberal, and crooked, state. Apparently, something happened to the water in Lake Michigan because, except for Chicago, there has been a conservative tilt in recent elections on both sides of that great lake. Yesterday featured the latest endorsement of sensible and fiscally responsible governance in the cheesehead state. Disaffected public unions threatened by Governor Scott Walker's legislative initiatives earlier this year attempted to tilt the balance of the state senate by recalling six Republican senators in order to deprive the Governor of a necessary legislative majority. Things didn't quite work out for Democrats, union thugs, community organizers and horrified liberals from New York to Los Angeles.
Union forces in Wisconsin and beyond were dealt a blow Tuesday night after Republicans held onto four of the six state Senate seats in recall races and kept majority control of the chamber. While thousands marched on the Madison statehouse in February over a new law promoted by Republican Gov. Scott Walker that limits collective bargaining rights for public workers, voters in the Badger State turned out in record numbers and sent a message that economic reform trumps the heated power of organized labor. “The outcome yesterday is a win for Republicans, but it’s especially a weakness for Democrats and the union groups because they fell short of their goal,” said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Maybe we could talk about the shows of strength, mobilization and closeness that came from this. But at best what it says is unions will be in for very tough fights wherever they take this issue. It is not going to be one that can easily win.”Noman hopes that Professor Franklin's grip on reality is firm. And, he is very happy with this result, not because he holds any special animus towards unions, but because Governor Walker's policies seem the only feasible alternative to the capital market meltdowns suffered by Greece, Ireland, Portugal, the EU generally, and the USA recently, indeed as Noman writes this sentence. Unions, and Democrats generally don't seem to understand, or care about, the peril America is in because of impossible entitlement promises and cushy deals for government employees. The present course is simply not sustainable.
Note how the Washington Post handles the same story, even going so far as to intimate that Republicans are cheating.
Democrats’ chances came down to Darling’s race against state Rep.Sandy Pasch (D), which was not decided until early Wednesday morning. Democrats have questioned the results given that Waukesha County was one of the last to finish reporting. In April’s Supreme Court election — also seen as a referendum on collective bargaining — challengerJoAnne Kloppenburg appeared to have beaten Judge David Prosser, before thousands of lost ballots were found in Waukesha.Actually, "thousands of lost ballots" were not found in Judge Prosser's successful election. The Post writers must have gotten confused with Democratic Senator Al Franken's stolen victory in Minnesota, which did entail discovery of lost ballots in the trunk of a Democratic campaign worker's car. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out after the Wisconsin judicial election.
Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus told reporters she discovered an error Wednesday afternoon when she was importing the election numbers into a computer file and realized that 10,859 votes for Mr. Prosser and 3,456 for Ms. Kloppenburg had not been counted. "This is not a case of extra votes or extra ballots being found," Ms. Nickolaus said, her voice wavering with emotion. "This is human error, which I apologize for." Ms. Nickolaus is a former staff member for the Assembly Republican caucus and was elected to a four-year term.
Noman linked the article in his 4/7/11 blog entry entitled "Cheese Heads Hanging In The Balance." The Post's professional writers must have been too busy under tight deadlines to dig up the facts.
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