REPUBLICANS HAVE every reason to be happy about the result of what many see as a dress rehearsal, a US presidential election in microcosm, in the swing state of Wisconsin. In an unusual recall election on Tuesday, the trade union-led bid to displace Governor Scott Walker half way through his first term saw the incumbent romp back home by a seven-point margin.
Walker, who has risen Palin-like from obscurity to become a darling of conservatives and is now spoken of as potential vice-presidential material, faced a strong backlash from public service unions after he had attempted to strip them of negotiating rights. The battle had seen mass mobilisations and demonstrations unprecedented in the state’s history, culminating in the recall ballot, clearly a strategic mistake by the unions, whose failure may only have exposed their relative weakness and encourage and legitimise further erosion of their rights.
Democrats had run with Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee rather than the favoured union man as candidate, and exit polls suggest that nearly a third of union voters, presumably mainly from the private sector, backed Walker. In reality, however, the result was more a defeat for the labour movement than for Barack Obama, with polls showing the same voters preferring Obama to Mitt Romney by 51 to 44 per cent. Obama, aware of the danger of failing, distanced himself from the campaign in its final weeks, though Bill Clinton went on the stomp.
The state is one Democrats had been confident of winning in November, given Obama’s 17-point margin of victory in 2008. The party hopes its economic performance will stand to Obama’s credit with swing voters.
Although the Democrats built a formidable get-out-the-vote machine on the ground – 40 offices and more than 100 paid staff alongside union and state volunteers – and successfully pushed up turnout, Republicans heavily outgunned them on the cash front. They pulled in seven times as much from supporters: more than $45.6 million, most of it from outside the state, with heavy backing from big industry and several libertarian billionaires delighted by Walker’s “courageous” anti-union stance. Republicans also successfully played on voters’ apparent disquiet at the idea of recalling an elected official half way through his term. Recalls, many felt, should only be used for misconduct.
The state’s rules on political donations – ie, virtually no limits – mirror the national effect of the Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case. This is the terrain that Obama will fight on, as the president of union confederation the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, put it, “a new era of elections, and it’s not a pretty picture”. Pro-Republican fundraising committees are expected, courtesy of Citizens United, to raise some $800 million for the presidential campaign, almost double the sum that John McCain brought in last time and roughly the same as Obama’s record-breaking haul.It’s going to be an expensive election.