Wisconsin vs Total Recall

[bronconick]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

And 3/4 of the Republican base are doing the same thing nationally.

You guys are acting like this is a stunning, once in a lifetime occurrence. Hint: It happens somewhere in this country in every election.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Which is my point. As soon as a group has its "champion," even if it isn't the one they wanted, they then back him. There's plenty of time to write bitchy books about him after the election.

 

[Rover]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

And 3/4 of the Republican base are doing the same thing nationally.

You guys are acting like this is a stunning, once in a lifetime occurrence. Hint: It happens somewhere in this country in every election.

Right on.

Regarding recalls, I'm not generally in favor of them. I'm curious what people expected when they elected Walker. Perhaps my fellow lefty pals will take the lesson from 2010 and actually show up and vote this year, because there is indeed a large difference between the two parties.

As far as constant recalls go, I think the process is pretty cumbersome. You need a pretty high % of the voters to sign a petition, you have to wait a year or two before a recall election can take place, etc. Voters may be better off going the initiative route, which I believe happened in Ohio because there is no recall law, so the bill to restrict unions got overturned by the citizens of the state.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Right on.

Regarding recalls, I'm not generally in favor of them. I'm curious what people expected when they elected Walker. Perhaps my fellow lefty pals will take the lesson from 2010 and actually show up and vote this year, because there is indeed a large difference between the two parties.

I used to believe the cure for the faults of democracy was more democracy. Then I lived in Oregon.

 

[Rover]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Wisconsin is going to be fascinating because its all about the turnout now. The issues are known, the candidates are known as they just ran against each other. Really it should all be about the GOTV. IF unions want to stay relevant, they need to pull this one off. Any special interest group can make noise, but at some point they need to hang a few scalps on their wall. For example, Teabaggers needed to win the Lugar race to prove they're still kingmakers after giving us Linda McMahon and Christine O'Donnell among others. Unions are going to need to same high profile victory.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Wisconsin is going to be fascinating because its all about the turnout now. The issues are known, the candidates are known as they just ran against each other. Really it should all be about the GOTV. IF unions want to stay relevant, they need to pull this one off. Any special interest group can make noise, but at some point they need to hang a few scalps on their wall. For example, Teabaggers needed to win the Lugar race to prove they're still kingmakers after giving us Linda McMahon and Christine O'Donnell among others. Unions are going to need to same high profile victory.

They pulled it off in Ohio when Kasich tried to pull a fast one. Hopefully Wisconsin follows suit.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Tea [party partisans] needed to win the Lugar race to prove they're still kingmakers after giving us Linda McMahon.

Linda was not a Tea Party favorite by any means. The Republican Party in CT is nearly bankrupt, they merely wanted her money. Schiff was the favorite for the two dozen Tea Party members remaining in CT and he got all their votes and very few more, finishing a distant third.

The only Tea Party people who live in CT are those who cannot sell their houses and move away. The rest have already left the state.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

They pulled it off in Ohio when Kasich tried to pull a fast one. Hopefully Wisconsin follows suit.

Huge difference in Ohio though was that the reforms never went into effect. So, when unions preached that a trail of doom and gloom would follow if the bill was allowed to take effect, people found it plausible.

In Wisconsin, the reforms have now been in effect for over a year - the burden of proof is now on the unions to actually show signs of the aforementioned doom and gloom. Voters aren't buying it. Note the change in how people viewed public sector collective bargaining a year ago and how they view it now that I referred to earlier in the thread.

To hear labor leaders tell it, once the bill passed, Wisconsin was to become a hellscape. Now that a year later it has not, that's a pretty darn tough sell. Which is why you'll barely hear it mentioned these next 4 weeks.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

*sigh*

I've long felt that no matter who wins the recall, we all will lose.

I'm more convinced of that than ever.

Walker's an elitist *******, and he's up for sale.

Barrett's too dumb to balance a checkbook.

By all accounts, both are perfectly nice people, but I would be perfectly happy if they both managed to lose every election they ran in.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Three weeks to go....

To a certain extent, it appears that Gov Walker may have already "won":

Ostensibly the recall election was triggered by Gov Walker's reforms of the relationship between the state government and the unions that represent state employees.....yet

A recent Marquette University Law School poll showed only 12% of Wisconsin voters listing "restoring collective bargaining rights for public employees" as their priority.


More states may start to pay attention.....no matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we need to restore balance to state budgets. If you are a progressive, labor costs that are "too high" suck up all the money, so that there is nothing left over to fund your causes. If you are a conservative, well, then you merely want parity between public sector and private sector. You don't want to punish state workers, you merely don't want them getting a better deal than anyone else could get merely because mandatory union dues are magically transformed into political campaign contributions to politicians who are supposed to represent the public but instead sell out the public.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Not a big union guy here. The only reason I think its an issue is that it cuts education spending in places where its most needed, teachers...that's a pretty bad road for any state to head down.

No facts here...intuition. But I'd say its likely that if Walker gets back in, it could well mean 3-4 extra pts for Obama this fall. Folks like balance.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Not a big union guy here. The only reason I think its an issue is that it cuts education spending in places where its most needed, teachers...that's a pretty bad road for any state to head down.

No facts here...intuition. But I'd say its likely that if Walker gets back in, it could well mean 3-4 extra pts for Obama this fall. Folks like balance.

The odds of Wisconsin going to Obama are pretty good regardless of if Walker is the Governor or not. The last time Wisconsin went to an R for President was 1984 for Reagan. As for the Teacher thing...I think you're over reacting. Teacher pensions needed as much adjustment as any other private sector, not to mention the fact that Teachers should be able to be let go based on merit, not because they are the newest hire.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

No additional election funds needed. It matters.

The odds of Wisconsin going to Obama are pretty good regardless of if Walker is the Governor or not. The last time Wisconsin went to an R for President was 1984 for Reagan. As for the Teacher thing...I think you're over reacting. Teacher pensions needed as much adjustment as any other private sector, not to mention the fact that Teachers should be able to be let go based on merit, not because they are the newest hire.

Teaching performance can likely be improved in every state. As NCLB showed, its outcomes are often not best for the kids.

Cutting unions can be fine. But the net result is that without additional resources, the teaching profession in the less rewarding. Heck throw on top a Walker $900 m (or 9%) cut in education this year alone...and the fact that WI had the 8th largest per pupil education spending cuts since 2008. Good luck Milwaukee.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Walker pulling ahead. DNC pulling out. Say goodnight, Gracie.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

But the net result is that without additional resources, the teaching profession in the less rewarding.

It's not at all clear that the data actually supports this conclusion. More and more resources have been devoted to education over the past decade yet despite these additional resources, there is no evidence that student learning has improved at all; if anything, student performance has declined at the same time spending per student has increased.

Some people say that school systems have too many administrators relative to teachers and that sucks up the money; other people say that too little teacher time and energy is actually spent in the classroom itself; some people say that the money has gone into benefits and not into improved teacher performance. I'm not sure whom to believe on this score; however based on our own local, contentious budget battles between the town and BoE, it's pretty clear that the BoE wants to spend additional money "for the kids" on things that don't appear directly to benefit "the kids" at all; and people are getting tired of feeling like they are being manipulated (when they say "it's for the kids" and clearly it isn't, you wonder....)

 

[bronconick]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

The new thing is all these podunk commissions, board of educations and other groups that meet once a month for an hour and don't actually do squat are now carving out chunks of the budget to purchase themselves IPads "for business purposes." Seen it tried in three different places between where I and my parents live.

 

[joecct]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

This begs the question "Are we better off without a federal Department of Education?"

 

[Handyman]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

This begs the question "Are we better off without a federal Department of Education?"

Not the current one no. They should set minimum guidelines and that is it.

You can't leave it up to the states completely or some backwater state will make it mandatory to teach the story of Jesus riding the Dinosaur

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

Not the current one no. They should set minimum guidelines and that is it.

You can't leave it up to the states completely or some backwater state will make it mandatory to teach the story of Jesus riding the Dinosaur

And that's fine because it should be left to the states

 

[Kepler]

Re: Wisconsin vs Total Recall

This begs the question "Are we better off without a federal Department of Education?"

I think the real question is are we better off with federal funding of schools? If you eliminate the DOE you should pull all federal dollars from education and let the states stand or fall on their own. South Carolina can teach that photosynthesis is caused by Jesus kisses. People with kids they want educated will vote with their feet and in fifty years the red states will have local economies equal to the Sudan and half their current EV. Problem solved.