Scott Walker Claims Victory in the Battle of Wisconsin President Obama, the governor notes, avoided the state on his recent trip to the Midwest.
WSJ.COM
By ROBERT COSTA Madison, Wis.
It's lunchtime at the Capitol and summering schoolteachers are singing beneath the white-granite dome. They march in circles, waving signs and belting out "Solidarity Forever," a union ditty. Down the hall, in his first-floor office, Gov. Scott Walker shrugs off the spectacle.
"Twenty-five people sometimes sound as loud as twenty-five hundred," he says. Six months since he introduced legislation to limit the power of public employees to collectively bargain for benefits, Mr. Walker, a first-term Republican, has grown accustomed to the hothouse. But Greek-style protests have done little to thwart his agenda.
If anything, Mr. Walker is more determined to battle on, especially after four of six Republican state senators won recall elections this month. Democrats had hoped to spook the governor and his upper-chamber allies, who were thrust into the national spotlight for tangling with union brass. Progressive groups from We Are Wisconsin to Organizing for America hustled to boot eligible Republicans. Tens of millions of dollars poured in, as did party operatives and union workers.
Yet visions of a repudiation were snuffed. Democrats netted two races, but Mr. Walker could hardly be blamed for the losses: One Republican represented a Democratic-leaning district; the other became tabloid fodder after leaving his wife and taking up with a younger woman. In the swing region north of Milwaukee, GOP senators survived comfortably, enabling Republicans to maintain a one-seat majority (17-16). Democrats, for their part, beat back three GOP-spurred recalls. But investing millions statewide to topple only two vulnerable incumbents was a union embarrassment.
Not that union leaders didn't give it their all. From their headquarters in Madison, activists manned phone banks and hit the streets with anti-Walker paraphernalia. The scene "was kind of remarkable," says David Poklinkoski, the president of Local 2304, an electrical workers union here. Together they built a motley political apparatus largely separate from outside labor lobbyists and Democratic Party apparatchiks. That coordination, Mr. Poklinkoski says, will ensure that the progressive movement continues, even when the outsiders go elsewhere.
Reflecting on the recall vote, Mr. Walker points to the strong turnout and four GOP victories as an indicator of where the electorate stands on his reforms. Viewing Wisconsin through the prism of the rotunda rabble-rousers, he cautions, would be a mistake. "You can get a pretty skewed perspective," he says, here in the capital. Beyond Dane County, where gray-beard professors and union heavies roost, Republicans, he tells me, are winning the battle for Wisconsin.
Associated Press Protesters inside the Capitol in Madison, Wis.
That's a sentiment heard more and more around the state. "So it turns out that the sky isn't going to fall on all local governments," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently editorialized, praising the governor for offering tools to municipalities for dealing with the administration's fiscal cutbacks. Mr. Walker has also helped bring thousands of new nonunion jobs to the state, which, he informs me, has surged to 24th from 41st in Chief Executive magazine's most recent ranking of best states for business.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin public-employee unions are fretting, especially the teachers unions, as incoming dues diminish. This week, the Wisconsin Education Association Council announced it will lay off about 40% of its staff. Coupled with the millions of dollars lost in the recall effort, it's a damaging blow. In coming months, once Wisconsinites see that their school districts are increasingly solvent and their property taxes low, Mr. Walker expects many more on-the-fence voters to rally to his side. "People will pop themselves on the head and say, 'I get it,'" he predicts.
The governor, who's been compared by protesters to Hitler and Darth Vader, will probably remain a political bogeyman, at least to Madison comrades who gleefully paper coffee shop windows with "Recall Walker" posters. Per state law, he will be eligible for recall in January. But that appears less likely as his policies take effect. A Public Policy Polling survey released this week shows 47% of voters supportive of recalling Mr. Walker, down from 50% in late May.
"Certainly some people, more intense folks, will push for recall," says Mr. Walker. But, he continues, "We increasingly hear that the White House doesn't want it." Democrats apparently are reluctant to commit forces. In a recent conference call, Mike Tate, the state Democratic chair, was ambivalent when asked about further recalls, emphasizing that "citizen groups" would be responsible for laying any early groundwork. Party favorites are not kick-starting their campaigns. On Friday, former Sen. Russ Feingold, considered Mr. Walker's top potential Democratic challenger, announced he would not seek office next year.
Still, Mr. Walker is manning the barricades. He's collected more than $2 million for his war chest since the start of the year. President Obama, he notes, avoided Wisconsin on his recent trip to the Midwest, but he doesn't expect the president or Democrats to surrender the state in 2012. Mr. Obama won Wisconsin by 14 points three years ago, but with an open Senate seat in play next year, plus 10 electoral votes, it's certain to be a battleground.
Reince Priebus, a former state GOP chairman and current chairman of the Republican National Committee, promises to have Mr. Walker's back should outside labor and Democratic Party supporters come back for another round. "The problem for the Democrats is that the Republicans are here to stay," he says, and "that in fact Wisconsin is a red state and the Democrats—as frustrating as it is for them—better wake up to that reality. Wisconsin voters have had enough of the pigs at the trough. If the public-employee unions want to take another $30 million and flush it down the toilet, they can be my guest."
Don't expect Mr. Walker to retreat anytime soon. As we part, the chants echo anew in the Capitol's marble halls. Stone-faced, the governor turns to the stack of papers atop his oak desk and gets back to work. I ask how he keeps his cool. "You start out the day on your knees in prayer," replies the son of a Baptist preacher. "Then you do a little bit of exercise. The best thing is to get out of the capital."
Mr. Costa is a political reporter for National Review. |
