Before his election to the office of Governor of our fair state, Scott Walker spent 8 years as Milwaukee County Executive. He got that position through a rare process.
He won a recall election. A recall election which he thought was about anger, but was really about hope.
Scotty ran a web ad in the days before the gubernatorial election where he discussed the recall, and how inspiring it was that "not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands of ordinary people did an extraordinary thing. They stood up and took their government back." This ad is making the rounds through the internet today, the first weekend where not hundreds, not thousands, not tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin's citizens start to take THEIR government back.
The video and partial transcript is under the squiggly.
It's a little obnoxious towards the end (hey, it's Scott Walker, how can it not be? you can probably stop about 1:48 in), but he says a lot about the recall that got him started. If you can stand it, I really recommend that you watch at least that much of the video.
(starting about :55 in) You know, the folks that were angry about this, they started a recall. They were told they needed to collect 73,000 signatures in 60 days.
Well, not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands of ordinary people did an extraordinary thing. They stood up and took their government back. In less than 30 days they collected more than 150,000 signatures. It was at that moment I realized that the real emotion on display in my county wasn't just about anger... you see, if it had been about anger it would have been about people checking out or moving out or giving up. But instead, what happened was really amazing.
You saw people standing up shoulder to shoulder, neighbor to neighbor and saying, 'We want our government back.' And in doing so, the real emotion on display was hope. And today I see a lot of the same emotions on display here in Wisconsin and all across our great country."
(bold - my emphasis)
You're right, Scotty. It's not about anger. It's about hope.
1:04 PM PT: 3:03 pm CST - An update - According the to Democratic Party of Wisconsin, we've got over 105,000 signatures through yesterday.
@WisDems Democratic Party WI
Update: 105K signatures collected through the last 4 days. Does not include sigs collected today across WI or at the rally #wiunion
1:52 PM PT: And here's Russ Feingold's take on the recall, at a training session last night: