Today, a lot of grassroots activists are wondering why, after so much effort, the Wisconsin recall elections are
still so
close.
That is actually an easy question to answer:
- Despite narrowly winning Wisconsin in 2004, John Kerry lost five of these districts. In our top two target districts, currently held by Luther Olsen and Randy Hopper, Kerry lost by 13 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
- Obama won Wisconsin by 14 percent, but only won one of these six districts by more than 4 percent. Outside of Kapanke's district, even during a landslide, the best Obama could do was 50-52 percent.
- In addition to these being difficult districts, recalls themselves are extremely difficult. In the entire history of the United States, only 13 state legislators have been ever recalled. Nationwide. Ever. We are trying to pull off three or more in a few months.
- Finally, while Democrats had a monetary advantage when Obama edged McCain in these districts three years ago, thanks to Citizens United now we are getting outspent. Daily Kos commenter Korkenzieher, who lives in one of the recall districts, explains what the monetary advantage buys for the other side:
Anyway, you wouldn't believe the shitstorm of blatant lies they're hurling at Pasch. She hates veterans. She hates children. She hates the whole community, except, of course, for illegal aliens. These are ads being run on every media outlet in Milwaukee, and this is just for one race in the Milwaukee suburbs. Now consider how much cheaper it'd be to run those same ads in small-town, northwoods or dairy farm Wisconsin.
Honestly, Wisconsin is always a battleground state in presidential elections, and the stuff being thrown at Pasch alone exceeds anything the wingnuts threw at Clinton, Gore, Kerry or Obama in the last few presidential elections. It has an effect. It confuses people.
It's all about turnout. If we do the groundwork, we can still win.
Republicans outperform their statewide numbers by 10-15 percent in the key districts we are targeting. Recalls are extremely rare and hard to pull off. The days when we could outspend Republicans are gone, possibly forever.
This is what I mean when I say it was unrealistic to ever believe in anything except a narrow victory in the Wisconsin recalls. Still, this was the most viable, short-term path to follow after the protests, and there are no moral victories. We have to do this, and the election is tomorrow.
Please GOTV
If you are on the ground, go door to door with We Are Wisconsin. They have knocked on over 100,000 125,000 150,000 doors since Saturday morning.
If you can't go door knocking, you can make phone calls to voters from anywhere with either the Democratic Party of Wisconsin or DFA and the PCCC.
