I'm afraid I'll be barely coherent, but I need some sort of outlet for my wildly conflicting emotions in light of the GOP's perversion of democracy tonight in Wisconsin.
My wife has gone down to the Capitol; I think she suspected with some justification that if I went down there I might end up in jail so I am instead on kid duty.
Earlier tonight I stood in my kitchen when I would have strongly preferred to be eating dinner with my family, instead pacing back and forth, watching Wisconsin Eye's stream of the conference committee and voting.
As those who have seen the coverage probably noticed, the senate clerk was going through his required steps at crazed auctioneer speed, and the GOP senators were voting just as quickly. It was difficult to keep up with the process, but I remember hearing in particular Alberta Darling's "aye" vote. I was astounded because I expected, with most others, that the eight Republicans up for recall would vote against the bill with the other 11 (or 10, since Dale Schultz proved he's actually got some backbone, decency, and one would also think simple electoral sense) still allowing passage.
My thought when I heard "Darling" "aye" was "Oh my God what is she thinking?" I'm truly baffled by the political calculation here. Do she and her colleagues eligible for recall honestly think there is that there is enough Koch and Rove money to see them through? That is the only conclusion I can come to.
The sense that I've been getting lately is one of some complacency. There was some overconfidence about the outcome of recall elections, a sense that we'd already won the battle against Walker's union-busting efforts. The number of demonstrators at the Capitol was dwindling. I was worried that if the union busting provisions of Walker's bill were defeated, it would sap the recall efforts and that we would win a small battle, but ultimately lose the war.
I'm now so furious about (maybe) losing the battle that I can barely sit still to write this, but at the same time I wonder if the GOP hasn't taken a step closer to losing the war. They are on the record, 18-1, voting for a wildly unpopular bill. They have ended all pretense of the union busting being related to the budget, since removing all fiscal provisions was the only way of forcing the vote. They provided some wonderful video from the conference committee meeting of muttering their ayes at a glowering Scott Fitzgerald while Representative Barca was shouting legitimate questions of order and law.
I'm genuinely baffled. Do they really think that people have such short memories? That people are that easily fooled by well-engineered ads? That if you pour enough money in, you can never lose? They have gone all in, and are staring us down, daring us to call their bluff. We need to realize we have the cards to win, if only we have the resolve and the patience to play them.