Balloon Juice reader and occasional commenter VidaLoca is in Milwaukee County and he sent me some info on how the recall campaign is going:
The cars pulled up to the curb on a west side street and within a minute or two they pulled away, leaving behind the drivers’ signatures to recall Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. The recall drive is rolling around Wisconsin, with petition circulators holding everything from midnight parties to this curbside collection effort. Scores of drives statewide have been held on some days, focusing on everything from Black Friday retailers to deer-cleaning stations, sporting events and holiday parades. This group of about 80 volunteers has been working in shifts of six to eight people to collect signatures on a series of high-traffic Madison streets that are wide enough to let a steady stream of cars pull over safely without having to go into a parking lot. For a week, this group alone has been averaging some 400 signatures a day, with many stops taking less time than the average fast food drive-through.
I wasn’t expecting the reception I got on Saturday in the small southwest Wisconsin town near our family’s cabin. I walked both sides of a long residential street, taking petitions door-to-door for people to sign in support of recalling Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.
In my first three houses, eight people signed. A wife apologized for making me wait, but took the petitions into another room because her husband wanted to sign.
A grandmother and her daughter stopped cleaning out toys from their house long enough to sign. “Do you know how hard his policies are on us?” the daughter asked. “And he’s tried to do even more damage than he’s done!”
The elderly couple with the “We support our troops” sign on their door stopped cutting up their Thanksgiving turkey for a Sunday gathering of the clan to wash their hands and sign. “What he’s done to health care and education is just wrong.”
I believe that the Recall Walker campaign leaders significantly underestimated discontent in rural areas. When the Iowa County office opened up to train volunteers several days ago, over 100 people showed up. And in five days, they have gathered well over 50 percent of the total signatures they expected to gather in that county in the entire two months of the process.
I think the Wisconsin effort is going to be more difficult than the Ohio effort was, so here’s VidaLoca’s take on that:
I think you’re right about the task here being harder, for several reasons:
1. Repealing a law, even if successful, is only a one-off: the governor still holds power and can propose new laws and execute new policies. More importantly perhaps, his friends and supporters are still positioned to received the benefits and perks to which they believe themselves entitled. Remove the governor though, and the whole structure comes tumbling down.
2. And again because the law is a one-off, the referendum allows the voter to consider it and nothing else. Whereas a recall is a vote on the governor’s whole record in office; a voter is more apt to say, “well I didn’t like X but on the whole his record has been pretty good”. Or similarly “well he’s not doing a great job but he won the election so we have to just put up with it and vote him out in 2014”.
3. Also, when the election finally rolls around, we have to put up a candidate who’s simply better qualified to hold the office. And we have to organize a better campaign — you can’t beat something with nothing. Whereas with the referendum, it’s pretty much of a binary choice: “yes” vs. “no”.
Against all these obstacles, what we’ve got going for us is the fact that people are furious. Overall I’m cautiously optimistic about our chances of gathering enough petition signatures to force a recall election. Once that starts it’s anybody’s guess how it will go, though. Elections here have a pattern of being close, like +/- 1%-2%. But that’s a topic for another day.
VidaLoca is at a meeting (w/ACORN? Probably!) but he said he’d try to respond in the comments.
feebog
The election itself is going to be a heavy lift, and if Dems don’t find the right candidate, the entire effort could be for naught. The petetion drive, OTH, looks like it will garner well over 700,000 signatures. IMO, they should be shooting for 1,000,000, as that would be 50%, in other words, the amount needed to recall Walker. That number, or anything close to it would send a pretty clear message and draw the right candidate.
Benjamin Franklin
Nothing more recent, that i can find, than Nov 16- 58% want recall.
550,000 total needed. Didn’t they get something like 100k the first day?
Villago Delenda Est
This is heartening news, that serious buyers remorse has set in on Walker. I look forward to the day when his ass is unceremoniously removed from office.
Wil
My gf’s mom is one of those signature-gatherers…a cute little 60-year-old, bundled up against the cold, trudging around with petitions.
Go Cathy!
dollared
I hope this is as important as it appears. The idea that “Republicans can help us get jobs because they know business” led a lot of Wisconsinites down a very bad path.
Maybe Walker’s removal will put this idea to death.
But I dunno. I just talked to a Spaniard who says they just elected a conservative PM, “but nobody knows what they intend to do, they just are disappointed with the Socialists.” Oh shit o dear.
dollared
I hope this is as important as it appears. The idea that “Republicans can help us get jobs because they know business” led a lot of Wisconsinites down a very bad path.
Maybe Walker’s removal will put this idea to death.
But I dunno. I just talked to a Spaniard who says they just elected a conservative PM, “but nobody knows what they intend to do, they just are disappointed with the Socialysts.” Oh shit o dear.
Turgidson
Any word on whether Feingold would let himself get drafted for this? If buyer’s remorse on Walker is as strong as it seems, remorse for booting Feingold out of the Senate might be similarly so. And as much of an annoying scold as he could be in the Senate at inopportune moments (ex. voting against Dodd-Frank for not being liberal enough), overall the guy is rock solid.
kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
They’re doing really well. If the rural area support for recall turns out to be true, Walker must be fretting. Signing a petition is a decision. I don’t think people go back after that.
Jennifer
Not all that surprised about the buyer’s remorse in rural, Republican-leaning areas. Apparently, no one ever taught little Scottie not to shit where he eats, which is exactly what he did.
Mr Stagger Lee
I wish I could do a “Being John Malkovich” moment and go into Aaron Rodgers and do a interview with an ending saying I support the recall, of course it may piss off wingnuts, then I would respond, would you like me in a Bears or Vikings uniform?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mr Stagger Lee: Without implying anything or taking any position on the issue in the main post or any of the comments, I would simply note that Rodgers is one of the Packers’ union reps.
gbear
Was the guy who ran against Walker in the first place a weak candidate? Wasn’t the election pretty close? How would a straight rematch go?
My sister in Green Bay signed the petition within the first couple days. She has a five year old daughter and she hates what Walker is doing to school budgets.
gbear
@gbear: My friend Google tells me that Walker won with 52%. Tom Barrett got 47%. How would Barrett fare now?
dollared
@Turgidson: @gbear: Milwaukee’s mayor Barrett lost the last election, and it was pretty close. IMHO he’s a better candidate than Feingold, who is kinda geeky and not a great retail politician.
I would love to see Feingold run for state Attorney General. They guy in there now is a hack.
Mnemosyne
I just wanted to re-emphasize this, because that’s part of why our gubernatorial recall in California was such a total frickin’ disaster — we really didn’t have any good Democrats lined up to replace Davis (and let’s not get into the fact that the California Dems ran someone even blander than Gray Davis against Schwarzenegger in 2006 … shudder). So when it was a choice between “keep Davis or have a MOVIE STAR AS YOUR GOVERNOR,” we were pretty much hosed.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: @Mr Stagger Lee: No need to climb into Mr. Rogers’ skin. The Packers were out front on this from very early on. They supported the public employees in a public letter back in February. http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/18/green-bay-packers-players-hit-gov-scott-walker-sign-letter-sup/
Will Reks
@gbear: I don’t think Tom Barrett was a weak candidate. Walker was simply pushed over by the tea party tide.
I live in Kenosha Co. and have yet to sign a petition. Guess I’ll have to go find one to sign.
dww44
@kay: Thanks Kay. That’s it in a nutshell.
In other words a successful recall effort makes the path to electoral victory a lot easier for Democrats. How could anyone not see through Walker? I honestly have begun to believe that conservatives have truly been brainwashed by conservative media.
bleh
As to the question of recalling a governor being more difficult than voting down a law, true enough, but remember that Americans — more than just about any other people — tend to personalize their politics. A situation, or an environment, or an entire period of time, becomes associated in voters’ minds with a particular politician — typically the head of the Executive at the time — and s/he wins or loses in no small part on that basis.
Walker is suffering the same problem Obama will suffer, and that is compounded by the nastiness he and his operatives have created. This is entirely just — couldn’t happen to a nicer guy — but some of what he will suffer for is not his fault.
gbear
@bleh: Both sides do it! They’re just the same!
butler
@bleh: The problem with your example is that Walker’s initial victory was part of a general wave of anti-Democrat sentiment, after which he promptly pissed off a huge portion of his electorate with a highly politicized power grab.
That’s why this recall election has such momentum. Its not because the economy is bad or things are looking grim, its because his policies are radically unpopular (and he’s come off like a jerk trying to implement them). Had he not overreached in the policy arena his job would be safe for now. He might have been unpopular but he also wouldn’t be in any danger of a revolt like this.
Villago Delenda Est
@gbear:
Ah, the witless wisdom of the Village, distilled down to its essence.
I salute you!
Steve
I sure wish the Democrats had a noise machine that could make a bigger deal out of all this anti-recall violence and thuggery I’ve been reading about. Back during the Wisconsin protests, all you needed was one random guy shoving someone and you heard nothing but “union thuggery” for days and days. I am jealous of the bad guys.
pete
@Omnes Omnibus: This amused me:
WIAOTAP? It’s a bit long for an acronym, no?
WTAP isn’t used all that much, according to the Acronym Finder; think we could popularize that?
(They both sound a bit like wiretap, which is a drawback.)
Omnes Omnibus
@pete: I was just adding a disclaimer, but, if I sparked some new acronym, I am down with it.
VidaLoca
First of all, Kay, thanks so much for putting this up.
Second of all, I’m back from the meeting. No it wasn’t ACORN. It was a super-secret Soros-funded cabal of insurrectionists and seditionists that’s trying to undercut the democratically-elected leader of this good State, who’s only trying to do what’s right for Wisconsin and the hard-working people who live here.
To address some of the comments. I’m a little surprised myself by the amount of anti-Walker sentiment that seems to exist in some of the rural areas. For example there are two rural counties which have already met the signature goals they had set — not just for the first two weeks but for the whole campaign. These are areas that have been hurting for a long time, as both agriculture and manufacturing jobs have dried up and small retail businesses have been torpedoed by Wal-Mart. That’s why they voted for Walker in the first place, for his promises of economic improvement. But the economy has not improved and buyer’s remorse is indeed setting in.
On the topic of Russ Feingold. He has said, clearly and on at least two occasions that I can recall, that he’s not interested in a further career in politics. My position on the whole issue is kind of a purist one: I say let’s thank him for his service, and take him at his word. The downside of that is that the Democrats have a pretty thin bench when it comes to people who could step into that job but I’d like to at least hear from someone who really wants the job before I get excited about someone who’s saying he’s really not that interested.
CaseyL
@VidaLoca:
How about recruiting a non-politician, maybe from among the union folks who helped organize the protests? Someone who knows how to run a department, and how to pick good lieutenants (so they can staff their Administration) – that is, someone who is a leader, just not a professional politician.
Jenny
McConnell caves!
Agrees to extend payroll tax cut.
VidaLoca
@CaseyL: There is a gentleman by the name of Mahlon Mitchell from the firefighter’s union who has been discussed as a possible candidate. Apparently there’s an effort afoot to convince him to run, but I don’t know anything about either his record or his positions on the issues.
ruleoflaw
The president of the Wisconsin Professional Firefighter’s Association, Mahlon Mitchell has expressed some interest in running if the recall succeeds(and yes, it’s going to succeed).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Cautious – and wise – of you to do so, if I understand your current career situation.
andrewsomething
@Jenny: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/29/1040940/-Occupy-scores-victory-against-Republicans
buckyblue
I haven’t signed either, and I have a petition on my kitchen table. I’ll take it around the block/neighborhood and see how many I can get. I’m in Waukesha so it might be a little thin. I know a few houses where I can get some signatures, though, we progressives tend to stick together here in THE REDDEST COUNTY IN THE COUNTRY.
lol chikinburd
There’s also obstacle #4: all the ways the Republicans will be able to cheat, given their control of the state Supreme Court and the AG’s office, and the toothlessness of the GAB. Oh, and voter-ID-related chaos. And Waukesha.
And cheat they almost certainly will, given their track record to date; I doubt they could even help themselves. Which is why I suspect this recall effort won’t actually succeed in removing Walker from office, and is still a good idea anyway: make the fuckers cheat, and further tarnish the GOP brand for the rest of living memory.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Yeah, I think so too. And now I am out of this thread completely. Having expressed no opinions whatsoever on the topic.
Arclite
A bit off topic, and a bit down Mr. Mix’s alley, but I saw this headline over at Wired:
Holder Asks America to Remain ‘Vigilant,’ Report Intellectual-Property Crime
So, now you’re supposed to rat your neighbors out. You know who else adopted those tactics? Yeah, the Nazis, the Soviet Union, and Communist China. Telling the difference between the USA, and the autocratic regimes we oppose(d) becomes more difficult on a daily basis.
Will Reks
@buckyblue: I used to live in New Berlin. Great place to live but not very friendly territory for progressives.
Jenny
@andrewsomething: You know how silly that is — last year GOS opposed the payroll tax cut because they felt it would destabilize the financing of social security. They went so far as to say Obama was doing it on purpose in order to create a pretext to “slash benefits” in the state of the union address.
oy vey.
4tehlulz
OT, but FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
S&P downgrades top US banks’ credit ratings
Proving that everyone has their masters:
Villago Delenda Est
@Arclite:
The instant the Berlin Wall fell, George H.W. Bush felt a burning need to recreate the nightmare that lay beyond it in this country. Don’t ask me why. Probably some ying/yang thing.
VidaLoca
@buckyblue: (and hey, everybody else in the greater Milwaukee area who might be reading this) — don’t despair if you’re living out in Waukesha County, Washington County, Mequon County. Come to the Milwaukee Teachers Union (MTEA) office at 52nd and Vliet Sts. on Saturday Dec. 3. We’re planning 2 shifts, at 9 AM and 12 noon. Our goal is to mobilize 500 people to go gather signatures. We believe this is doable; we literally want to flood the city.
kideni
VidaLoca: Are the petitioners as thick on the ground in Milwaukee as they are here in Madison? Here it seems as though petitioners are everywhere, all the time (which is great), but I’ve heard from some people that Milwaukee needs more volunteers.
I’ve only been able to get out to gather signatures a handful of times, but still I’m close to my personal goal of 150. I hurt my foot the other day, though, so my time is better spent doing data collection at the local Democratic Party office (also a good way to get info on how things are going).
As for candidates, I really hope they get someone great. At this point, I think people need to lay off Feingold: he’s said multiple times that he’s not running for anything in 2012, and to keep pleading with him just makes it look like we don’t have anyone. Mahlon Mitchell (the firefighter) is charismatic and a fantastic rally leader, and he’s great at delivering a progressive message, but he’s so young and new on the scene that I worry that he wouldn’t run a good campaign (and quite frankly, I don’t know that Wisconsin is ready for a black governor). Also, for now, he might be better on the outside for now, keeping everyone honest. Tom Barrett has been noncommittal, but from what I’ve heard he’s still planning to run for Milwaukee mayor again. There are other people thinking about it, but right now everyone seems to be holding back.
Bear in mind, though, that for now it’s strategic to not have a candidate, whether declared or not. Walker and the Kochs already blanketing the airwaves with ads, and with all the money they have, they’d just be laying into whoever it is. Also, until there’s a candidate, the Democratic Party can coordinate with other groups, but once a candidate is named, a wall has to go up. It would be really difficult to do all we’re doing if all the groups couldn’t talk to each other.
Yankee Buzzard
Former Congressman Dave Obey may run, as might former Dane County exec Kathy Falk. No question there will be enough signatures gathered, none at all.
VidaLoca
@kideni:
We’ve been doing OK but it’s far from “everywhere, all the time”. That’s part of the reason for the big mobilization this coming weekend that I mentioned above.
Also I agree with your comment about the strategic value of not having a candidate. There will be plenty of time for that discussion once we finish filing the petitions. The “wall” that you mentioned becomes a major obstacle as soon as it goes up.
Gravenstone
Just an amusing aside from this thread – I’ve got a pro-Walker banner ad staring at me from the top of the page this morning. Obviously some of the money boys are worried if they key onto recall Walker sites/thread.
MCA
All I know is that I drove across the state of Wisconsin twice last week, and saw at least 10 or 12 Recall Walker bumper stickers on each trip. My wife even took note despite having to interact with the kids in the backseat most of the trip. Gratifying to see that much support for the effort on display.
REN
I’m as rural in Wisconsin as you can get, and also live in the most Democratic county in the state, and haven’t even seen a petition or petitioner as yet. But then, no one,including Democrats, cares about what happens up north where I am. There just aren’t enough people up here to matter to them. This County voted 60-40 against Walker in the first place, they must just figure they can count on us again.
kideni
@REN: I know the DPW has said that they were trying to do better in rural areas than they had in the senate recall push, but it sounds as though they still aren’t getting there. They said they divided the state up into 8 regions, 4 urban/suburban, 4 rural, but maybe they haven’t figured it all out yet. There are DPW and United Wisconsin offices around the state, but of course they’re more concentrated in the south and southeast and pretty sparse elsewhere.
You may know this already, but the DPW’s Recall HQ site has a section where you can find locations of upcoming signature collecting activities, and there may be something near you. You can also download your own petitions from United Wisconsin’s site or Recall HQ and circulate them among people you know (you can sign and certify your own petition).