I’m trying to decide whom I miss most: Pink Slip Guy, Crying Man (“Democracy ended tonight.”), Segway Boy, Ms. Hippie Bongstocking, Michael Moore, Jesse and the Teamsters, the Assembly Democrats in their shocking orange T-shirts, the drum circle ashram in the rotunda, or the Flee-baggers. I’ve decided it’s Comrade John Nichols and Mr. Ed on the MSNBC set election night on Monona Terrace. They looked like they’d just swallowed a package of Ex-Lax when the network called the recall for Scott Walker less than an hour after polls closed. A cherished memory. It’s no small irony that state Democrats are meeting for annual convention this Friday and Saturday, still nursing their recall hangover — minus Graeme Zielinski, poster boy for Tourette Syndrome, the Baghdad Bob of babble.
Right Wisconsin passed on this ridiculous montage from MSNBC one year and one day ago:
Christian Schneider recounted some of the stranger things you may have forgotten about, including …
Walker, a preacher’s son, has always given off a wholesome vibe – which is why his opponents were always willing to jump on any rumor that made him appear to be a hypocrite. (See: the last minute smear some Democrats tried to push leading up to the recall election.)
That is why, incredibly, it became news that Walker’s spokeswoman, Ciara Matthews, had once worked at a Hooters restaurant in college. This revelation led to unseemly comments about Matthews’ “unnatural sexiness,” and led one local blogger to deem it “Hootergate.” Some claimed that working at Hooters is somehow incompatible with being pro-life.
How did Matthews reply?
“What is the connection between my being pro-life and working at Hooters?” she retorted. “Is there a hypocritical angle here that I’m not aware of? Is Hooters performing abortions?”
I was asked by Right Wisconsin for my thoughts on what I called Recallarama and it calls the “permaprotests.” Consider this a longer version of the 100 or so words I was asked to contribute (without foul language).
One question I was asked was whether I’d be celebrating the one-year anniversary. No, I’m not. I didn’t celebrate Walker’s winning. I went to work the next day. I’m going to work today. Politics is a game that never ends, therefore there are no permanent winners. (Although voters and taxpayers could be said to be permanent losers.)
My first thought is that I am honestly surprised no one — protester accidentally, or elected official deliberately — was killed during Recallarama. I actually predicted someone would be killed, partly because of the depths to which political discourse has been degraded in this country, and in part because, well, that’s the People’s Republic of Madison for you. The protests were at an unprecedented (for this state, anyway) level of nastiness, exceeded only by the UW–Madison Vietnam War protests.
First question: What did we learn, before and since?
We learned that Gov. Gaylord Nelson made a stupid decision in 1958 when he granted state employees collective bargaining. (Collective bargaining basically means (1) you cannot stand up for yourself in dealing with your employer and (2) you are an interchangeable part.)
We also learned that there are some Wisconsinites who lack the manners to keep their mouths shut. Where I live, based on yard signs you would have thought Walker had no chance of winning. And yet, Walker did. A lot of the 54 percent of voters who voted for Walker fit into two possibly overlapping categories — people who prefer their votes to speak for them, and people who didn’t necessarily like Walker, but believed that legislation with which they disagreed was not grounds for a recall.
There is no question that the public opinion of government employees dropped considerably in the past two years. Not every public employee is a union stooge — some even vote for Walker and other Republicans once in a while — but since stereotyping is a human tendency, it is largely their own fault if voters and taxpayers look at their work more critically and skeptically. Many voters perceived a holier-than-thou attitude that public employees are more important than mere voters and taxpayers. That came from their union puppeteers, but again, guilt by association is a human trait.
Newspapers lost subscriptions because the newspaper dared to take an editorial stand. (Which says more about those who can’t views contrary to theirs enter their brains than those newspapers.) Friendships were strained, and in some cases ended, particularly online friendships. (Which should call into question how strong the friendship was in the first place.) Even family relationships were stressed, which makes you wonder how many people realize what’s truly important in life. If politics is one of the top five most important things in your life, you need to get an actual life.
We witnessed the absolute contempt liberals have for conservatives in this state. Conservatives, not liberals, were bullied into silence in everyday conversations that dared veer toward political topics. Businesses were harassed for their owners’ and employees’ daring to exercise their First Amendment rights. (On the other hand, Kwik Trip, Johnsonville Sausage and Menards have more customers now.)
Some would argue that the sturm und drang was the logical result of government’s taking money out of public employees’ pockets through Act 10. Which means that public employees now are required to pay less of their salaries for their benefits than the people whose taxes pay those salaries and for those benefits. As for the alleged tradeoff of lower salaries for better benefits: The average yearly personal income in Wisconsin, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2011 was $27,915. How many government employees do you know who make that little?
Some would also argue the lack of job creation in this state is the direct result of Act 10. To believe that, you have to believe that this state’s economy is powered solely on discretionary spending of government employees. (Remember: No government employee was laid off as a result of Act 10.) The state’s economy is what it is because of what Barack Obama has done to the national economy, and because the GOP has done nothing to undo decades of bad policy, particularly in state and local taxes. (More on that later.)
Second question: How did this work out for the Democrats?
After the November 2010 elections, Wisconsin had a Republican governor, Republicans controlled both houses of the state Legislature, the state had one Democratic senator and one Republican senator (elect), and five of the state’s House of Representatives were held by Republicans.
After Recallarama’s 2011 and 2012 editions, including the recall election one year ago today, and the November 2012 elections, Wisconsin had a Republican governor, Republicans controlled both houses of the state Legislature, the state had one Democratic senator (elect) and one Republican senator, and five of the state’s House of Representatives were held by Republicans.
So what was accomplished? Democrats got rid of two Republican state senators, Dan Kapanke of La Crosse and Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac. (Hopper’s loss was more an example of political suicide.) Hopper was replaced by Democrat Jessica King of Oshkosh, who was in office long enough to lose to Republican Rick Gudex of Fond du Lac. Republicans, meanwhile, replaced the retiring Sen. James Holperin (D–Conover) with Sen. Tom Tiffany (R–Hazelhurst). Net gain: Zero, a good description as well of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s “leadership.”
Democrats would claim that Recallarama energized the party and got people politically involved, blah blah blah. They still lost. They deserved to lose. They were 100 percent in the wrong.
Third question: How did this work out for those of a conservative political orientation?
Legislatively, not much beyond Act 10 and causing a dramatic drop in public employee union membership, along with the separate issue of finally allowing concealed-carry, as 48 other states allowed before Wisconsin. Of course, politics is not only about accomplishing what you want to do, but preventing your opponents from accomplishing what they want to do. (Read this if you think the November 2010 and recall elections didn’t matter at all.)
The $2.2 billion in tax increases enacted by the Doyle administration are largely all still in place. The state budget is legally, not factually (as in by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), balanced. Government is still far, far too large and does far, far too much. School choice is still limited to Milwaukee. The state still is spending tens of millions of dollars every year to take land off the tax rolls, generating billions of dollars in debt. The process has not begun (which means it won’t) to enact permanent (as in constitutional) controls on taxes and government spending. At least some Republicans are starting to notice.
The fact that should have been clear well before now is that politicians are interested principally in their own careers. I’m not sure when after Nov. 6 Walker and Republicans lost their nerve, but all the people who worked for Walker’s win in the recall election and for Republicans in 2010 and 2012 have the right to be more than a little disappointed.
Final question: Now what?
I predict that the way political campaigns are conducted in this state is permanently scarred, but not just because of Recallarama. We’ll know that after the November 2014 elections, except that the nastiness will ramp up again merely because Walker will be running for reelection. Walker has now reached the level of George W. Bush and before him Ronald Reagan in the unique ability of the mild-mannered Walker (unlike his haters, I have actually met him) to drive liberals to states of frothing rage. I do not think Walker or any other Wisconsinite will ever become president, but I enjoy talking about Walker’s presidential prospects because it makes Democrats absolutely unhinged.
I conclude with this brilliant observation I made one year ago: I am under no illusions that the vast divide of our state’s politics will magically fill itself and that we go back to a previous day of not particularly caring about what the politicians do. That is the fault of both parties, which have inserted themselves into our lives in areas government does not belong. Government takes too much of my money, and regulates things of my life that it should not be regulating. (For instance, whether I wear a seat belt while driving.) Everything wrong with campaigns today traces back to this: the stakes in elections are too high because government does too much regardless of which party is in power.
Republicans maintained what they had, Democrats failed to gain anything between the legitimate 2010 and 2012 elections, and Wisconsinites with sense learned to hate politics and politicians. If you ever wondered if government and politics play an outsized role in our lives, Recallarama proved it.
Former UW System student (like myself) Kevin Binversie on the United Council of UW Student Governments:
Never before have I been more proud to be a BluGold (UW-Eau Claire, Class of 2002), than I was last week Thursday.
It was the request of my alma mater’s student council that led to the Joint Finance Committee’s vote to cut the “mandatory refundable fee” the UW System charges to finance United Council. UC is the so-called nonpartisan lobbying group for UW System students which has been around since 1960.
The move now forces United Council to personally appeal to students at its 10 schools where students currently pay membership dues of $3 per semester. In the past, the money to finance the organization was automatically charged to students as a line-item to their tuition costs. Students not wanting to pay the fee would have to personally request refunds. …
To label United Council as “pointless” and “incompetent” is almost an insult to the definition of both of those words. The organization continually says its primary goal is to lobby for cuts in tuition costs and increasing in financial aid. While typically getting the aid (in the form of more government-subsidized student loans), tuition continually skyrocketed as the group often laid down to the will of the UW Regents. Over the past decade alone,tuition rates have taken offat UW-System schools. In 2001-02, average undergraduate tuition was $3,568 at Madison, $3,462 at Milwaukee and $2,776 at the other four-year schools. By 2011-12 it was $8,592 for Madison, $7,669 for Milwaukee and $5,970 at places like Eau Claire, Green Bay and La Crosse.
Those figures do not include room and board costs.
At the same time, United Council must have felt they had to keep with the rise in tuition costs. In 2001-02, per student per semester membership was only $1.25, or $2.50 a school year. As mentioned above, today it$3 per student per semester, or $6 a school year.
With tuition up over 120 percent over the last decade, why exactly would the chief lobbying organization committed to keeping it under control “reward itself” by increasing membership dues by 140 percent during the same time frame?
No wonder students have wised up to United Council’s empty promises are asking for a refund and for the group to justify its existence to them. They’re not getting their money’s worth and it is likely they never have.
So if UC has failed miserably at keeping tuition under control, what exactly does the group do?
Why help advance the liberal agenda of course.
State Democrats have relied on United Council for years as aready-made group of protesters for anything from Voter ID to staging a zombie protests at Special Olympics events in 2011 (United Council officially disavowed the activity, but they were at Rep. Robin Vos’ office only hours before the main event).
Glancing at its staff bios gives you plenty of empty platitudes about “social justice” and “student empowerment.”Stay on Google long enough and you’ll wonder if a prerequisite for employment is activism in liberal causes or Democratic campaigns.
Now that United Council has lost its subsidy of confiscated money from students it barely represents, are now more than free to seek out newway ways to fund raise. If push comes to shove, hold a bake sale. …
The Joint Committee on Finance has now given students the same freedom they gave public employees in 2011. They have the option to join whatever group they’d like, and the dues will be voluntarily submitted, not taken.
It is a concept so simple even a zombie could understand.
Luke Hilgemann of Americans for Prosperity–Wisconsin wonders what is so progressive about Wisconsin.
Many on the Wisconsin Left like to beam with pride about the state’s “Progressive past.” Such a stance would imply the state has been an unenviable pillar of progress for over one hundred years.
Hardly.
Would you call it “Progress” that Wisconsin has one of the highest tax burdens in the country?
Where is the “Progress” when even after Illinois raises its income taxes by 66% as it did in 2011, it still has a lower tax rate than most Wisconsinites pay?
How is “progress” five tax brackets designed to punish success?
Is it “Progress” when earning $30,000 annually makes you eligible for a tax rate of over 6 percent?
How is it “Progress” when for over the past one hundred years, state politicians in both parties have felt the best way to achieve competitiveness for Wisconsin was to carve out tax credits for favored industries or connected lobbyists?
In reality, there is little about Wisconsin’s progressive tax code which helps aide it in being competitive for the 21st Century economy. It has stiffened growth. It has let opportunity be wasted. It has sent jobs packing, kept jobs away from the Badger State and only added to “Brain Drain.”
Remind me once again, where all the promised “progress” in that progressive agenda went exactly? …
It always amazes me how quickly – and solely for political gain – many Wisconsin liberals and progressive jump on the policies of Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature for everything economically wrong with the state, but never seem willing to turn the examination table on themselves. We’re still living under tax rates passed by Jim Doyle in a system that dates back to the days of “Fighting Bob” La Follette.
That can’t have an effect on things, could it?
A hundred years later, it blows the mind how this kind of thinking and these kinds of policy are somehow still labeled as “Progressive.” Frankly, it’s time to be honest and call it for what it truly is: Antiquated.
I would have used the word “wrongheaded” instead of “antiquated.” The fact something is old doesn’t necessarily make it wrong. (See Constitution, U.S.) But for a state with an economy between 20th and 25th among the states to have the fifth highest state and local taxes makes it obvious that the way the state has been doing things since possibly the beginning of the Progressive Era isn’t working.
There is a specific event of note today. See if you can find it in this list of today in …
350 A.D.: Nepotianus proclaims himself emperor of Rome, backed up by the parade of gladiators who accompany him into Rome.
1083: Henry IV of Germany storms Rome, capturing St. Peter’s Cathedral.
1326: The Treaty of Novgorod determines the borders between Russia and the portion of Finnmark known as Norway.
1509: Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon, his first (but not last) wife.
1539: Hernando de Soto lands at Ucita, Fla., and claims Florida for Spain.
1540: Having taken a year to get there, de Soto is the first European to cross the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina — a trip that now takes about 11½ hours by car.
1621: The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherlands, known today as New York City.
1781: Jack Jouett, not Paul Revere, begins his midnight ride to warn Virginia Gov. Thomas Jefferson and legislature, not Boston, and Thomas Jefferson of an impending raid by British Gen. Banastre “Bloody Ban” Tarleton.
1800: President John Adams moves to Washington, D.C., and lives in a tavern, because the White House isn’t finished yet. Adams moved in later in 1800, only to move out after he lost the 1800 presidential election to Thomas Jefferson.
1804: Richard Cobden, British economist and statesman known as the Apostle of Free Trade, is born.
1808: Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederacy, is born.
1851: The New York Knickerbockers baseball team wears a straw hat, white shirt and long blue trousers — the first recognized baseball uniform. (Presumably previous teams wore clothes, but not uniform clothes.)
1861: Stephen A. Douglas, who defeated Abraham Lincoln for the U.S. Senate in 1858 after the Lincoln–Douglas debates, but was defeated for president by Lincoln in 1860, dies. (Here’s a historical what-if for you: Douglas, the Northern Democratic candidate for president, received just 12 electoral votes, finishing fourth. But what if Douglas had won, and then died three months after taking office, in the midst of tensions that led to the Civil War? The Civil War began before Douglas’ death, but one wonders if an insurrection wasn’t inevitable regardless of who was elected president, given that Southern Democrats bolted both Democratic conventions — the first one was adjourned after 57 ballots for the presidential nomination — and nominated their own candidate, Vice President John Breckinridge. The 1860 northern Democrats’ vice presidential candidate was Georgia Gov. Herschel Vespasian Johnson, chosen to balance the ticket.)
1864: On Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ 56th birthday, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee wins his last victory of the Civil War at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Va., where more than 6,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded in one hour. (Perhaps that’s why June 3 is Confederate Memorial Day in Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee.) That same day, Ransom Eli Olds, who created the Oldsmobile car and REO truck (for which the rock group REO Speedwagon) was born.
1876: Harper’s Weekly publishes a front-page cartoon by Thomas Nast about Congress’ attempt to impeach President Ulysses Grant. Congress had just impeached Grant’s war secretary, William Belknap, despite the fact that Belknap resigned before the impeachment vote. Other Congressional attempts to impeach Grant focused around an accusation that Grant had used public funds for his 1872 reelection campaign, an accusation that foundered when the accuser was discovered to be an escapee from an insane asylum, and a complaint that Grant had been out of Washington an excessive number of times. (You cannot make these things up.) A century later, Richard Nixon was impeached in committee, an impeachment attempt was made against Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton was impeached, and impeachment attempts were made against George W. Bush.
1880: Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first wireless phone message from the top of the Franklin School in Washington, D.C., on his new “photophone,” which transmits sound via light beams.
1881: A 55-year-old Japanese giant salamander, believed to have been the oldest amphibian, dies in a Dutch zoo.
1886: Charles Lwanga, a Catholic catechist, 11 other Catholic men and boys and nine Anglicans are burned alive by the orders of King Mwanga II of Uganda. Pope Paul VI canonized Lwanga and the other Catholics in 1964 and named June 3 the Feast Day of Charles Lwanga and Companions.
1888: Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat” is published in the San Francisco Examiner.
1904: Charles Richard Drew, who pioneered blood plasma research, is born.
1929: Producer Chuck Barris, creator of The Gong Show, is born. (If you’ve never heard of The Gong Show, or you think TV is bizarre now, watch this and this.)
1937: Edward VIII marries American Wallis Warfield Simpson. That same day, Negro Leagues baseball player Josh Gibson hits a 580-foot home run at Yankee Stadium.
1939: Steve Dalkowski, on whom the Nuke LaLoosh character in “Bull Durham” and the Steve Nebraska character in “The Scout,” is born. In an era before radar guns, the left-handed Dalkowski could regularly throw over 100 mph, but not necessarily over the plate, which is why Dalkowski never pitched in the majors. He did have the reported distinction of having the highest number of strikeouts and walks per nine innings of any pitcher in pro baseball history.
1940: While the German Luftwaffe bombs Paris, Allied forces exit Dunkirk, France, saving their troops but losing all their equipment.
1943: In Los Angeles, Navy sailors and Marines fight Latino youths in the Zoot Suit riots.
1944: Italians say “Arrivederci” as German forces exit Rome.
1946: Members of three iconic classic rock groups are born today — Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople, bassist John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, and drummer Michael Clarke of The Byrds.
1949: “Dragnet” premieres on radio in Los Angeles, the start of a franchise that included four TV series and two movies, and those are just the facts.
1954: Dan Hill, who foisted the horrifyingly bad “Sometimes When We Touch” on radio listeners, is born.
1957: Howard Cosell’s first TV show premieres. Complaints about Cosell begin approximately 12 seconds after the show begins.
1963: Pope John XXIII dies, taking one pope off St. Malachy’s list. (Four more have been taken off the list since then. Pope Francis is the last pope on Malachy’s list.)
1965: Body-builder Suzan Kaminga, actor and singer Jeff Blumenkranz, actor Daniel Selby and Phish bass player Mike Gordon are born. American astronaut Edward White, having flown into space on Gemini 4 earlier in the day, makes the first U.S. spacewalk.
In a hospital room in Madison, a nun shoos the people watching the spacewalk out of the only room on the nursery floor with a TV, so that the new mother inside can get some rest before her constantly hungry newborn son wants to eat again.
1967: Anderson Cooper of CNN is born.
1969: The last, and arguably worst, episode of “Star Trek” airs on NBC.
1973: The Soviet supersonic jet era ends shortly after it begins when the Tupolev TU-144 crashes at an air show in Paris:
1980: Seven tornadoes hit the Grand Island, Neb., area, killing five, injuring 357 and causing $300 million in damages. A movie, “Night of the Twisters,” is made based on the tornado outbreak.
1989: Chinese troops kill hundreds of pro-democracy students in Beijing. The same day, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran dies.
1992: A newspaper geek celebrates his 27th birthday by buying half of the Tri-County Press in Cuba City.
1997: Dennis James, the host of TV’s first game show and TV’s first telethon, dies.
2001: Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” wins a record 12 Tony Awards. CBS-TV, which carries the Tony Awards, anticipates the big day for “Springtime for Hitler” by having Bialystock & Bloom (actually, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick) emcee the awards. That same day, actor Anthony Quinn dies.
2009: “Kung Fu” actor David Carradine dies.
2011: Actor James Arness, brother of actor Peter Graves, dies on the same day that singer Andrew Gold, formerly Linda Ronstadt’s guitar player, dies.
And let me be the first to wish you a Happy Opium Suppression Movement Day.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 