Democrats won’t vote for Gov. Scott Walker in today’s recall election, right?

Well, why not? Ann Althouse gives not one, but five reasons Democrats should vote for Walker, including:

1. The recall grew out of the protests — the vibrant, passionate protests — against Scott Walker’s cutback of collective bargaining rights, and Tom Barrett, by campaigning on anything but union rights, has betrayed the original intent of the recall. …

4. If Scott Walker loses, it won’t be by much, and the people who support him will be outraged and energized. Remember how you felt when he announced his reforms in February 2011? They’ll feel something like that. It will be the Tea Party Summer, going into the fall elections.

5. Vote against recall politics generally. This is not a normal way for a democracy to work. You can show some sympathy with the ordinary Wisconsinites who don’t like their lives disrupted this way.

Reason number five should be particularly persuasive. Consider that recalltombarrett.com has been in someone’s hands since April. If Barrett or lieutenant governor candidate Mahlon Mitchell win, their recall in a year or so is absolutely guaranteed.

Here’s reason number six, though Matt Rothschild probably didn’t intend it as such:

Shame on Barack Obama for forsaking progressive forces in Wisconsin in their hour of need.

It was bad enough that Obama or Joe Biden never showed up during the historic protests in February and March of last year.

But it is unforgivable that they’ve failed to show up during the last weeks of this crucial recall campaign. …

Back in 2007 on the campaign trail, Obama said:

“If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.”

That somebody is not Barack Obama today.

He betrayed his promise. He abandoned his principles.

All because he and his political team don’t want to be too closely associated with organized labor. …

Obama and his team don’t want to risk anything for Tom Barrett.

Well, they risked a lot by not risking anything.

They’ve alienated their base in Wisconsin. People here are furious at the White House, and that won’t help Obama come November.

Put another way: Obama is just another politician concerned only with votes. And the national Democratic Party hasn’t exactly exerted itself on its Wisconsin members’ behalf.