Big labor loses, Americans (and esp. Wisconsonites) win

[August]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

And most of the money he raised came from out-of-state - people who could never vote for him anyways. Hence the point - the election was bought.

He raised more than three times as much from Wisconsin voters than his opponent did. If anyone bought the election it was Wisconsinites.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Even though I think that Walker is a short-sighted idiot for gutting education, I am glad that he won. Recall elections should be reserved for official misconduct, not becausey you disagree with policy. Public officials are elected to set policy; if you do not like said policy, vote him out at the next election. Don't try to run an end-around on the election process.

Hear! Hear! Saying that somebody is not allowed to win an election is just stupid. Elections have consequences. Looks like Walker made some tough decisions that nobody would want to have to make. In spite of the fact that those decisions he refused to fiddle while Rome burned. That's called courage.

You can't solve a crippling debt problem by borrowing more money. You have to cut back. That's never going to be popular.

Hang on to your hat, I'm betting that impeachment is going the same way as these recall elections. We went through 8 years of impeach Bush madness and commenced for years of equally inappropriate impeach Obama. How long before this mob rule takes over our republican government, leaving officials no time to do anything other than campaign for the next recall/impeachment deal? Elections are meaningless in that context.

So let's restrict recalls/impeachments to officials that violate the law in some consequential way.

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

And most of the money he raised came from out-of-state - people who could never vote for him anyways. Hence the point - the election was bought.

Pro-recall forces spent just about the same amount to recall walker.

http://billmoyers.com/2012/06/05/how...-in-wisconsin/

Scott Walker raised $30.5 Million to defend his job. Thats the MAX he could have spent.

Yet at a MINIMUM - $63.5 Million was spent on the recall.

Thus - Pro recall forces outspent Walker by at least $3 Million.

And look - they even use your graphic Mookie....

The fact is - pro union forces spent nearly $30 Million (and how much of that was outside money, hmmmm?) just to force the recall. They are the ones that BOUGHT the election. They wanted it - and they paid to get it. Then they didn't have the money to fight it.

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...-30-million-/1

So one sides spends $30.5 Million - the other spends at least $33.5 Million - and the person who spent less wins. So the loser cry that the election was "bought".

Anyone see the irony here?

[the_tyrant]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Pro-recall forces spent just about the same amount to recall walker.

http://billmoyers.com/2012/06/05/how...-in-wisconsin/

Scott Walker raised $30.5 Million to defend his job. Thats the MAX he could have spent.

Yet at a MINIMUM - $63.5 Million was spent on the recall.

Thus - Pro recall forces outspent Walker by at least $3 Million.

And look - they even use your graphic Mookie....

The fact is - pro union forces spent nearly $30 Million (and how much of that was outside money, hmmmm?) just to force the recall. They are the ones that BOUGHT the election. They wanted it - and they paid to get it. Then they didn't have the money to fight it.

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...-30-million-/1

So one sides spends $30.5 Million - the other spends at least $33.5 Million - and the person who spent less wins. So the loser cry that the election was "bought".

Anyone see the irony here?

Effectively showing how you should spend your money effectively.
Don't spend it all on starting a conflict, leaving yourself nothing to actually fight with

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Not even the 119% voter turn out in Madison could save them.

Union dues well spent!

Just think of all of the cool stuff they could have purchased....
New car, new boat, cool vacations.
Oh well.

Congrats Aramike.

@ Haplo, by big labo(u)r, you mean public sector, not private sector unions.

Thanks!

I've been pretty much walking on a cloud since the results came in. I've followed and campaigned for Scott Walker since his early County Executive days - if there's a straighter shooter out there, I've never met him.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Elections can be bought. What a wonderful world that the Citizens United decision has brought us.

I'm sorry, Mookie, but that's total horse manure coming from someone who doesn't have a clue of what he's talking about beyond the talking points he's been willingly consuming from a spoon feeding.

Besides what others have aptly pointed out here, I love how the lefties have ignored the fact that the unions and out-of-state interests have been pouring money into this process for months, INCLUDING a failed FOUR MILLION dollar investment in the failed union-preferred candidate for governor, Kathleen Falk.

The democrats have been pouring literally MILLIONS into this effort for over 16 MONTHS and have failed at virtually every turn (Prosser/Kloppenburg, the recall of Alberta Darling, etc). Sure, they got Randy Hopper but that guy had about three hundred other problems that made him vulnerable.

The facts don't support this BS claim, and if you've paid any attention at all to what's be going on around here, there were no shortage of the left and unions getting their messages out. Sure, if you ignore the PACs, the mobilization efforts, the union spending on voter-drives and bringing in PAID out-of-state workers to supplement these efforts, the amount of money spent on the preferred candidates, etc, yes, Walker did better fund-raising than Tom Barrett.

I'll even stipulate that, and I'll concede the point for the sake of argument. Now I'd like you to tell me how that money was spent that specifically led voters to vote for Walker in droves. I know, I know ... in the mind of the average person on the side who loses just assumes that the opposition are idiots.

Tell me, Mookie, what part of Barrett's plan did you like? Us in Wisconsin can't even identify ANY plan from Barrett. Even better, what part of Walker's actions did people still hate? I mean, a projected surplus after a $3.6B deficit? Positive job growth and depletion in unemployment rate?

How about this: where were the democrat millionaire/billionaire donors? Is Soros on vacation? Is Hollywood tapped out after Obama's mansion fundraisers? Do you object to Obama's fundraising successes?

This was nothing more than an epic fail for the Democrats in Wisconsin, and they know it. The state convention is next week, and I suspect that their leadership faces being thrown out. Have you ever heard of Graeme Zielinski? He's their spokesman, and he makes Reverend Wright sound reasonable.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has been infiltrated and taken over by activist antagonizers, and the results of Tuesday were a clear repudiation of this. You can delude yourself into thinking that the Democrats haven't been spending millions in support of this recall for over a year, and additional millions by proxy, but that's nothing more than the delusions that made the left think this was a good idea in the first place.

The irony is even thicker, though - while the left's extreme, crybaby behavior here was designed to defeat Walker and his reforms, it has done nothing but to give Walker and the conservatives an even stronger mandate. Yet, if they merely would have behaved reasonably, they may have had a decent chance of winning the state back in '14.

Now, they and their interests, and a principle source of their funding, have been utterly destroyed as an effective driver of public policy. They have no one to blame but themselves.

[Aramike]

Good links about the funding myth (in fact, when all's said and done, the Dems may have outspent the Republicans):

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives...-in-wisconsin/

http://thekansascitian.blogspot.com/...l-myth-of.html

http://startthinkingright.wordpress....just-happened/

http://www.mortgagegrapevine.com/thread/?thread=604067

I could go on. I will tell you for a fact that there were no shortage of anti-Walker ads. No, this election wasn't bought. This election was won because it was a fool's errand to begin with, and the best candidate the Democrats could put up was a perennial loser who literally had NO PLAN WHATSOEVER.

On Wisconsin!!!

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Even though I think that Walker is a short-sighted idiot for gutting education, I am glad that he won. Recall elections should be reserved for official misconduct, not becausey you disagree with policy. Public officials are elected to set policy; if you do not like said policy, vote him out at the next election. Don't try to run an end-around on the election process.

*Sigh*

This is yet another statement fostered by union talking points. He didn't "gut" education. He did TWO very important things: cut state aid to school districts, and ... wait for it ... implemented Act 10 as a tool to allow those districts to compensate for the cuts!

In other words, he made the communities themselves responsible for their school funding. They still have the property tax levy, but now they can implement reforms to cut labor costs in order to compensate for the money the schools aren't getting from the state - money that the STATE DIDN'T HAVE.

Now, we could've taken the Illinois route, but, well, that's worked, right?

Part of why this recall failed was because the unions promised the sky would fall, and more than a year later, it didn't. That's why Barrett did NOT run on a platform of restoring collective bargaining - he barely even paid lip-service to it. The Democrats figured out they lost that issue months ago even though the unions didn't - they blew four million dollars on Kathleen Falk.

Ironically, some of the hardest hit school districts are the ones that attempting to avoid Walker's Act 10 reforms by hurrying into union contracts (Janesville comes to mind). The districts that embraced said reforms are quite healthy.

It's amazing the kind of fiscal health that can be achieved when you don't have to buy health insurance FROM A UNION COMPANY and an INFLATED RATE (WEA Trust).

What shouldn't be missed here is that all of this could have been avoided if the unions would have acted in good faith. FDR was right - public employee unions simply cannot work. Afterall, they simply funnel their dues into electing people that will give them whatever they want.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Pro-recall forces spent just about the same amount to recall walker.

http://billmoyers.com/2012/06/05/how...-in-wisconsin/

Scott Walker raised $30.5 Million to defend his job. Thats the MAX he could have spent.

Yet at a MINIMUM - $63.5 Million was spent on the recall.

Thus - Pro recall forces outspent Walker by at least $3 Million.

And look - they even use your graphic Mookie....

The fact is - pro union forces spent nearly $30 Million (and how much of that was outside money, hmmmm?) just to force the recall. They are the ones that BOUGHT the election. They wanted it - and they paid to get it. Then they didn't have the money to fight it.

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...-30-million-/1

So one sides spends $30.5 Million - the other spends at least $33.5 Million - and the person who spent less wins. So the loser cry that the election was "bought".

Anyone see the irony here?

Precisely.

I mean really, the hypocrisy here is great. Mookie, can you link me to your complaint about Obama outspending McCain by insane margins? More importanly, TRUE margins of outspending that include all of the other forces involved?

[mookiemookie]

Was it a failure from the point of view of the Democrat side? Yes. One would be a fool to argue otherwise. The pro-recall side raised money from out of state sources and tried to buy the election, just as much as the other side did. Walker happened to raise more money from out of state sources and bought the election before the other guys could buy the election. It doesn't mean that the other side didn't try to buy it any less, but he still bought it.

You can go on all the Skybird-length rants you want about how I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, blah blah blah. But the candidate who outspent the other 10-1 won. And that candidate raised the majority of his money from out of state donors who couldn't vote for him.

If you'd care to read what I posted instead of strawmanning away and putting words in my mouth, you'd see the only argument I was making is that anyone can buy an election if they raise more money than the other guy.

Tell me, Mookie, what part of Barrett's plan did you like?

You're rebutting an argument I made that exists only in your head.

The candidate who raises more money will most likely win. Candidates who raise money from people that can't vote for them are buying the election. I don't care to debate with someone who's so arrogant enough to dismiss anyone else's point of view with "oh you don't live here so you don't have a clue." I'm really tired of being assigned every liberal argument and opinion as if I were the designated representative for every crackpot left-wing idea ever. If you want to debate someone that said the things that you're rebutting, I'd suggest you actually you know....find that person and rebut them.

Mookie, can you link me to your complaint about Obama outspending McCain by insane margins?

I can tell you that this chart is a bad thing, regardless of who's outspending who:

[Bilge_Rat]

Its a bit silly to argue that the candidate who spends the most money will always win, that has never been the case.

As others have pointed out, the Walker side did not outspend the Barrett side by 8 to 1. Once you factor all the cash in, it was probably roughly equal.

The talk about Walker buying the election is all spin. Dems thought beating Walker would be a cake walk, but instead he did better than in 2010.

So the Dems need a scapegoat. They are trying to spin this that the GOP brainwashed the voters of Wisconsin.The answer surely can't be that voters preferred Walker over Barrett!

The fact that Dems are trying to spin this to their advantage is no surprise. I am surprised though at how many people are simply parroting the spin with no critical analysis whatsoever.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Its a bit silly to argue that the candidate who spends the most money will always win, that has never been the case.

BZZT. Wrong. It is, in fact, usually the case. What's silly is to build an "he who spends the most will always win" strawman. No one ever said that.

In congressional races in 2010, the candidate who spent the most won 85 percent of the House races and 83 percent of the Senate races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The center found that in 2008, the biggest spenders won 93 percent of House races and 86 percent of Senate races. In 2006, the top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. And in 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to candidates who spent the most, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.

The most recent figures, from the 2008 election cycle, show that 80 percent of state legislative candidates with the monetary advantage won their contests. In 2006, it was 83 percent; in 2004, it was 84 percent; and in 2002, it was 82 percent. (The group's figures for 2010 are due to be released in the next month or so.)

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...ys-94-percent/

To ignore the chilling effect that money has in politics is to ignore reality.

[Bilge_Rat]

Most of those are incumbents who are well known, therefore well financed and therefore spend more.

What you have to do is look at runs for open seats where there are no incumbents and candidates are relatively unknown.

For example, Deb Fischer won the GOP Senate nomination in Nebraska even though she raised and spent far less than her opponents:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...QwTU_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...GfSU_blog.html

Money allows you to get your message out, to introduce and define yourself and other candidates to voters which is of course, a competitive advantage. It does not buy results.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

BZZT. Wrong. It is, in fact, usually the case. What's silly is to build an "he who spends the most will always win" strawman. No one ever said that.



http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...ys-94-percent/

To ignore the chilling effect that money has in politics is to ignore reality.

Mookie is correct. Wealthy donors make the difference between win or lose. As a result it lessens the peoples voice.

[August]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

You can go on all the Skybird-length rants you want about how I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, blah blah blah. But the candidate who outspent the other 10-1 won. And that candidate raised the majority of his money from out of state donors who couldn't vote for him.

You can keep ignoring it but the fact remains that even among funds raised from Wisconsinites Walker still brought in 4 times as much as Barrett.

Oh and your 10-1 margin is false as it doesn't count any of the many millions spent by the union and their leftist supporters getting the recall started.