Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Wisconsin Supreme Court Elections

It looks like conservatives are in some trouble in Wisconsin.  Voter turnout was higher then expected and leaned heavily towards the Democratic candidate, JoAnne Kloppenburg - an indication that Republicans who swept elections last year have made a tremendous mistake with their actions against the labor unions and middle class.

Amanda Terkel wrote the following for The Huffington Post:
A divisive budget battle between labor unions and Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) turned a state Supreme Court race into a nationally watched bellwether on the electorate's mood heading into a recall campaign and the 2012 elections.

Nearly 1.5 million people turned out to vote, representing 33.5 percent of voting-age adults -- 68 percent higher than the 20 percent turnout officials had expected. Democrat JoAnne Kloppenburg has already declared victory, with the vote tallies showing her beating incumbent David Prosser by just a couple hundred votes. The race is expected to head to a recount.

Significantly, 19 counties that went for Walker in the 2010 elections this time flipped and went for Kloppenburg, including LaCrosse (59 percent), Sauk (56 percent) and Dunn (56 percent).

On a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate was jubilant over the results, saying they represent a "watershed moment for Wisconsin and a Waterloo for Scott Walker."

"It should give Republicans, who are -- for the moment -- in the majority, pause about how they proceed in enacting Walker's terrible budget," he added.
I suspect we will see similar actions in other states where conservatives made a power grab, like Florida Governor Rick Scott or Ohio Governor John Kasich.  Nationwide, these elected officials have ignored the majority, acting only in the interests of the minority base that supports them.  Hopefully Americans will learn from their mistakes and not forget come next year's elections.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, and of course the Republican hypocrites screamed voter fraud until 7,500 votes mysteriously turned up. The error was discovered by a county clerks who's counting method has been challenged as potentially fraudulent.

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  2. I just read about the votes that were not counted. I went to The Huffington Post and noticed all the right-wingers who are taking over the website laugh about all the "liberals" talking about possible fraud now.

    Personally I find it interesting that these votes just happened to be on someone's spreadsheet that wasn't counted. I am curious as to how the numbers add up. Prosser had a 7,500 lead - for that town/area, would that be statistically correct?

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  3. According to an open records search, a donor from Wisconsin by the name of Kathy Nickolaus donated money to the Wisconsin Republican party in the past...

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  4. Personally, I don't believe that means anything - the donation was ten years old - but contributing to a political party shows a heightened partisan behavioral pattern.

    In the end the election will probably go to Prosser, but I hope these people learn from their errors - especially those who didn't go out and vote. Turnout was in the 30 percent range - now the right wingers will have all three branches of the government to do whatever they like...

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