New rule: If you're going to spend millions of dollars and waste a ton of time trying to recall a sitting governor, you better field a compelling candidate to run against him, not the same guy that got defeated the first time around. You can say what you want about Big Banks, Outside Money, and Corrupt Media - but in the end the loss in Wisconsin comes down to one thing only: the Democratic candidate needed to field votes on the same level as the 2008 presidential election year, not deliver a repeat performance of his 2010 failed run. And it was just never going to happen.
This diary is about venting. This diary is about being angry that I've been proven right about the election in Wisconsin - something I desperately wanted to be wrong on. This diary is about a continual frustration with my political party's apparatus. This diary is about trying to clarify what REALLY happened in Wisconsin.
Virtually everyone with a microphone in front of them or a keyboard beneath their fingers has been describing the Wisconsin election as a referendum on Scott Walker, forgetting that there were TWO candidates in the race. Last night's election was also a referendum on the Wisconsin Democratic Party and Tom Barrett. And the message could not be clearer - if Dems want to take back Wisconsin then they need to front better candidates.
Barrett and Kathleen Falk have been grasping for the governor's seat since 2002. And both of them have been repeatedly rejected, in either primaries or the general. I have to be totally honest here and admit that I, personally, just don't find Barrett to be likeable or compelling...and I am a motivated liberal Democrat. My response is utterly irrational, but likeability, sadly, is a major component of political success. He seems to suffer from a terminal case of "John Kerry" disease - boring and uninspiring. Not the kind of warrior you go into battle with to take on an entrenched governor.
To win in Wisconsin Dems needed a voter turnout similar to that in the 2008 presidential election year - about 2.98 million voters. In Wisconsin, when people vote, Dems win. In order to do that, Dems needed more than anti-Walker anger, they needed a compelling candidate - NOT the same candidate that was beaten by Walker the first time around.
The mystery to me has always been, why, if the party invested so much effort into the recall, did they not work to recruit some solid candidates to take on Walker? My guess is simple hubris - they believed that the average voter was more motivated by hatred of Walker than by a desire to vote for a good Democratic candidate. If anything, the Bush-Kerry election has taught us that American voters don't work that way - we'll stick with the "devil we know" if you don't offer us something that appears to be better.
Last night's numbers illustrate this. The breathless news stories of historic turnout were media hype. It didn't happen. Turnout was virtually identical to the 2010 governor's race - and nowhere near the 2008 numbers. So that means, quite simply, a lot of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents simply couldn't be bothered to vote. They had already formed their opinions of both Walker and Barrett and last night was just a repeat of the election they didn't bother to vote in the FIRST time around! Walker simply did a better job of getting his 2010 supporters to the polls. And while new voters favored Barret by about 11% - it wasn't enough to offset the more tepid support of his base.
But the number that is most illustrative is this: 17% of voters polled who plan to vote for Barack Obama in the fall...VOTED FOR SCOTT WALKER! If that margin had shifted to the Barrett camp, Walker would be looking for a new job this morning.
This election was more than just a referendum on Scott Walker, and Republican Big Money Politics - it was a referendum on how well the Democratic Party is doing in fighting those things. At the end of the day, the party coordinated an historic recall movement and then rewarded voters by throwing at them the same lame candidate they'd rejected for governor before - in both primary elections and the general. People power can only get you so far - we cannot be asked to continually drag limp candidates across the finish line.
Watching Barrett's concession speech proved to me that his support was motivated not by his own character as a politician but by collective anger at Walker. The poor guy even got a slap on the face for his trouble. Our greatest weapon against the big money interests must be compelling ideas and good leadership, not just blind anger at the person sitting in office. Unlike Republicans, we Democrats are not anger voters - we're idea voters. When we get angry WE DON'T VOTE AT ALL!
Dems can retake the governor's office in Wisconsin at the end of Walker's term, but it's going to take some innovation. As a great man once said: "If God had meant us to vote, he would have given us candidates."
6:01 AM PT: UPDATE: Interestingly, a front page diary indicates that about 60% of those who voted actually believed that a recall should only be forced in the event of "misconduct." This might go a little ways to explain the Obama/Walker voters. Perhaps a protest against the recall itself. That seems likely.