Democrats were outspent 8 to 1 in Wisconsin. There was never any question they would be dramatically outspent given that the Koch brothers and their conservative allies had fallen in love with Scott Walker and were determined to spend as much as they thought they needed to keep him in office. So knowing that going in, what was the best hope for Democrats to win the recall election? The only possible way to win was to keep the feeling of movement alive, to fan the flames of passion that united workers with students to cause the inspiring mass demonstrations of last year. Without that passion, without that feeling of movement fire, we were going to lose. Instead, the Democratic candidate ran a lifeless, completely traditional campaign divorced from the fight-for-the-middle-class issues that had so galvanized Wisconsin the year before. The people with passion on their side yesterday were Walker’s forces, and Republican turnout showed it, as their turnout was dramatically higher than most observers expected. Republicans rallied to save their man in trouble, while Democrat Tom Barrett excited no one.
Conventional wisdom, business-as-usual politics is not going to win this year. Not with the tsunami of Citizens United money flooding the airwaves, and not with an economy this ugly. If Democrats try to run cautious, careful, passionless campaigns, they will get swamped by big money and angry voters.
Two things stand out in the exit poll numbers. The first is that youth turnout was relatively low. It did not help that the recall was held in June, when students were out of school, but even so a more passionate, movement connected campaign could have changed that dynamic.
The second problem was that 38% of union voters (and a majority of union households!) voted for Walker. Walker was always going to get more union households than some people thought, because older white blue collar voters (as many union families are) have a tendency to vote Republican. But a campaign more focused on middle class economic populism and defending the labor movement from attack (which as you may well remember, was a message that a wide majority of Wisconsinites strongly supported last year) would have lowered the percentage of union members supporting from 38% to 30% or less, and we would have decisively won the union household vote.
Democrats are facing a radically different political environment than they have in the past. They are going to get outspent dramatically in most races below the Presidential line, and even in the Presidential race may well be outspent by quite a bit given all the corporate Citizens United money. And voters remain in a very bad mood about the economy. The only chance Democrats are going to have is if they connect to the movement passions that drive voter turnout, small contributions, and campaign volunteers. Obama and Democratic candidates up and down the ballot need to learn this lesson and start connecting with those passions. They can do that without losing swing voters by being populist on economic issues, which swing voters tend to agree with.
Wisconsin was a bad blow to those who care about progressive policy and the Democratic party, but if we learn the lessons we need to learn and connect our party to the progressive movement, we can spark a fire that will result in victory in November.