After Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker survived his recall election last Tuesday, I was disappointed but not depressed. Democrats took back control of the state Senate and there were other reasons to not feel like the progressive sky was falling.
Now I'm feeling even better.
Joshua Holland helped boost my spirits with his "8 Ways Delusional Right-Wingers Are Blowing Wisconsin Out of Proportion." Thanks, Joshua.
In the aftermath of the vote, conservatives, proving typically magnanimous in victory, spun the results like a top. They claimed the outcome spelled doom for Obama this fall, marked the death of the labor movement and was a pure reflection of voters' love for Scott Walker's economy-crushing austerity policies.
We shouldn't kid ourselves; it was obviously a serious defeat for the progressive movement. Yet the triumphalism is more a manifestation of conservatives' wishful thinking than a reflection of objective reality. Here are eight reasons why.
[I've just listed the "headline" of each reason. Read the piece to get more detail.]
1. Wisconsinites Just Didn't Like the Idea of Recalling a Sitting Governor
2. Wealthy Wisconsinites Voted Their Self-Interest
3. About Those Union Households
4. How Could it Be a Referendum on Union Rights When Nobody Ran on Union Rights?
5. This Is What Plutocracy Looks Like
6. Very Little Changed From 2010, Except the Number of Voters
7. A Wisconsin Race That Tells Us Virtually Nothing About November
8. Don't Forget 2011
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