Joe news is now projecting the winner of Wisconsin's electoral votes in the 2012 Presidential race as...whoever's nominated to challenge Barack Obama.
The tipping point in Obama's defeat is thought by many to have come very early, on Friday, October 29, 2010, when Obama abandoned the Senate re-election bid of Russ Feingold, the standard-bearer of progressive politics in Wisconsin, and the nation. Though Feingold's poll numbers were no worse, at that time Obama chose to spend his dwindling political capital campaigning with candidates like Virginia's Representative Tom Perriello, who's voting record was more to Obama's liking. Now Obama follows in the fate of both. Some, however, believe a dead-man-walking President lead them in this Democratic domino effect.
Feingold's past criticism of the Obama administration's compromises in matters of national security, citizen privacy and safety, the rule of law, anti-trust regulation, corporate exemptions from oversight of safety and environmental regulation, politicization of the Department of Justice, and ignorance of Bush administration crimes was seen as significant in Obama's calculated decision to let Feingold's re-election fall victim to the tide of corporate money unleashed by Citizens United only a couple short, though treacherously long years back. For what's left of the left, too many political calculations, and not enough political will by Obama played directly into the hands of the new right's calculation that a scorched-earth policy of obstructionism would prevail. This imbalance of motivation has now relegated progressivism to an indeterminate period of hibernation, left Democrats with virtually no base, and handed full control of Congress and the White House to a fledging coalition party.
While 2010 mid-term election analysis showed that progressives' apathy over Obama's compromises during his first two years in office hindered Feingold's re-election bid, there is irony in that the final nail for Russ's campaign came directly from the White House itself. A visit by Obama to Madison, Wisconsin one month prior to the final abandonment failed to arouse excitement for Feingold's re-election, and may even have hurt his chances. Feingold, painfully aware of the Obama touch, hedged until the last moment before finally conceding to attend the Presidential rally. That may well have been Feingold's worst decision in an eighteen year Senate career.
Though Feingold's 2012 primary challenge of Obama rejuvenated progressives for a time, the movement again fell victim to the overwhelming secret funding of smear campaigns against both Democratic candidates, even fueling the rumor that Feingold's challenge was a conspiracy to lure Teapublicorp Party members into backing the pliable Obama out of fear of Feingold's fiery appeal to America's relentlessly-growing poor and homeless populations. But that appeal ever coming to fruition under the new voter registration "residency" requirements seems like the quaint fictional tales of overcoming adversity Michael Moore is restricted to producing under the "documentary truth" act.
For the final irony of Obama's loss of a second term, in the closing moments of his wobbling campaign he finally laid full blame for the desperate condition of this nation at the feet of those with whom he chose to compromise for most of his first, gaining a brief blip of support from the desperate progressives who, as a result of his willingness to compromise on virtually anything, had been crushed into near oblivion twice now in two years, simply for lack of earlier recognition.
3 days left, please help to make this fictional.