Remember all that hype election night about turnout in Wisconsin? It turned out to be good for a gubernatorial election, but fell short of the 60% - 65% predicted by elections officials -- and way short of what the anecdotes were leading us to believe.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Of course, that wasn't the only hype regarding the recall. One must wonder why the heck all the money, time, and effort was expended. It looks like a giant mistake, and one that could have been foreseen given the results of the first recall, in which Republicans held onto all but one of the recall seats in the State Senate.
Folks are reading all kinds of things into the results, but I think the only message sent by Wisconsin voters was: "We don't like recall elections; they should only be used for misconduct."
One of those consistently incorrect election night was Kos, who kept telling us, "There are more of us than there are of them, so it's all a matter of turnout." Wrong. There were indeed more Democrats, and more voters who prefer Obama to Romney, and a significant number of union voters. But being "us" didn't mean voting for recall.
Failure to understand Wisconsin voters is what characterized the recall effort. That shouldn't have happened. Especially since the voters had already tipped us all off.
And by the way, those characterizing Tuesday night as a "win" because Democrats won one Senate district recall are missing a key point: The legislature doesn't meet again in 2012, and before they do meet again there will be an election in November in which State Senators are elected. So that one small victory is likely quite Pyrrhic.