Are Wisconsin GOP senators getting the “wobblies”? Stephen Moore writes in the Wall Street Journal that conservatives are worried that three Republican senators may defect to the Democrats’ side to kill the governor’s union-busting bill.
If there’s any solid evidence Republican resolve is about to crumble, Walker doesn’t say. But Greg Sargent writes that an NBC Wisconsin affiliate is reporting that “four moderate Republicans are wavering and could break with the GOP and vote against Walker’s budget repair bill.”
When even Rasmussen polls show Republicans are losing ground, and with recall efforts underway, some senators must be thinking hard about their political futures and whether they want to be chained to Scott Walker if he goes down like the Titanic.
Last week, conservative apparatchiks like Jennifer Rubin were gushing about Scott Walker’s future as a presidential candidate. This week, Americans for Prosperity (e.g., David Koch) is trying to whip up support for Walker by sending a bus around the state. A Wisconsin ABC affiliate reported,
Americans for Prosperity brought a bus tour to Ashwaubenon Friday morning, looking for people to sign petitions in support of Governor Walker’s budget proposals.
High turnout at the “Stand Against Spending — Stand With Walker” campaign forced organizers to move from Perkins restaurant to the Holiday Inn next door.
Organizers say more than 100 people showed up to give their support.
Wow, that sounds so … rinkydink. And news stories say the bus tour is being met by protesters all around the state, also.
Rick Ungar writes at Forbes that Gov. Walker’s overreach already has cost him and Republicans dearly.
The Wisconsin governor’s desire to be at the forefront of his perceived GOP revolution may not only have doomed the anti-union effort, but it may forever label him has the man who gave the democrats the gift that keeps on giving – the return of the union rank and file into the arms of the Democratic Party.
The governor may be facing the downside of drawing media attention. Isthmus newspaper and the Wisconsin Associated Press today filed a lawsuit over Walker’s failure to respond to a request for access to emails. Scott had bragged that he had received 8,000 emails telling him to stand firm on his budget bill. So, let’s have a look, said news media. Um, we’ll get back to you, someday, said the governor’s office.
But those are The People’s emails, and under the state’s Open Records law, Walker is obligated to cough them up. Stay tuned.
Walker sent out layoff warnings today, although I thought he had promised layoff notices. Is he starting to blink? Or is he about to hit the iceberg?
About Rick Ungar’s comment:
The Wisconsin governor’s desire to be at the forefront of his perceived GOP revolution may not only have doomed the anti-union effort, but it may forever label him has the man who gave the democrats the gift that keeps on giving – the return of the union rank and file into the arms of the Democratic Party.
Though I’d be happy to see the union movement return to the Democratic Party fold, let’s not forget why Walker and the Teabaggers got into power in the first place – Obama. A lot of the died-in-the-wool liberals are so disgusted with Obama selling out to the righties at every opportunity that they stayed home in the last election. It pains me to say it (especially since I voted for him even in the primary elections), but Obama is a Blue-Dog Democrat. If he runs for re-election in 2012, we may have Sarah Palin for president.
The Democratic Party leadership really needs to get it together and decide what they stand for. Are they with their liberal union base, or the Wall Street banksters? I feel like we’re in that final scene of George Orwell’s Animal Farm where the animals looked at the humans and pigs and couldn’t tell the difference.
Sure, Obama is “better than Bush.” Rather like saying skin cancer is better than lung cancer. But I’d rather have no cancer.
This is what I have been watching for. The governor can’t back down. Either the absentee democrats will or the republicans in the legislature will. Behind the scenes, the governor is being told that the GOP legislators facing recall will not be sacrificed for Walker’s presidential ambitions.
I predict a desperate move by Walker to get a vote on the bill. Trickery or an abduction of an absent democrat to make a quorum.
The question which the 2012 election will answer is just how much Walker and friends have riled democrats and ticked off independent voters nationwide.
It ain’t over till its over, and Its going to be a long time before its over.
Candide …I agree that Obama hasn’t been everything we hoped he would be, but I don’t think that he’s responsible for the fleebaggers gaining whatever toe hold they have in the political process. The repugs have a more cohesive and finer tuned political machine, and a large segment of the voting population (independents) don’t show up to vote except in Presidential elections.
It pains me to say it (especially since I voted for him even in the primary elections), but Obama is a Blue-Dog Democrat. If he runs for re-election in 2012, we may have Sarah Palin for president.
I’d go even further than your first statement: If Bill Clinton was the finest Republican president since Eisenhower, Obama is to the right of Bill Clinton. Pals with Reagan even. Tell me anything GW Bush has done, that Obama has undone, I’m listening.
The right moves the country even farther in their direction, and DINOs like Obama merely let them consolidate their gains until their next push.
As I wrote to a friend explaining why I want to leave this country: Each Republican administration is worse than the one before it (just wait until the GOP gets in after Obama), and each intervening Democratic admin is powerless or unwilling to reverse the damage.
But I disagree with your last statement. Sarah’s presence will split the right, giving Obama his 2nd term. Go Sarah!
It extends beyond Obama, though to the majority of the Democratic Party. As Robert Reich put it (in the context of the budget debate in DC):
This notion of “irrelevance” intrigues. To me, it means… redundant. Why are they necessary if they’re only going to go along with what Republicans want, and have no agenda of their own, other than warming a seat, and paying deference to the same class of campaign contributors?
My sense of Obama is that he is inclined to take the path of least resistance, whatever that is. If that path went in a more progressive direction, I suspect he’d take it.
This looks like a good site for following what’s going on in Wisconsin, and what’s coming up.
The Dem14 standing strong and demonstrations that surpassed Vietnam…… and a Guv who is doing every rinky-dink, stupid thing possible to ‘trick’ the Dem14 into coming back. “We’ll start laying off workers, Friday. Did I say Friday, I meant two weeks from now we’ll notify people”. Ok, there’s a reason the man didn’t graduate from college, and WI is starting to notice. The truth is WI and America do not want the T-baggers running the show. Now, count on the Dems to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but if they can play this right they may be able to get some labor back into the Dem fold, where it rightfully belongs.
Check out a Rachel Maddow expose of how Walker: invented a phony financial crisis when he was Milwaukee’s county exec (sound familiar?), fired the county’s union security guards, replaced them with a private firm, and how the whole thing is blowing up right now.
moonbat — yeah, I just posted the clip. I hope everyone in Wisconsin sees it.
moonbat,
You know I love you dearly, and agree with you almost always, but there are key differences between Obama and Little Boots. Would Little Boots have done any of the following?
-Lilly Ledbetter
-Nascent Health Care Reform
-End DADT
-Start to end DOMA
-Not stuck his nose further in the Middle East
Yes, Obama hasn’t been everything a lot of us wanted, but considering the Republican opposition and his Democratic “friends,” I think he’s done a pretty good job. If he did come out as a flaming Liberal (which I never though he was), can you imagine how much worse the right would be behaving? At least up until now when they wear their camouflage and carry guns at protests, they’re not firing off any ammo.
On Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, and other aspects of ‘national security,’ sure he’s been a disappointmend if you expected a Liberal response. But, if anything happened, especially a major terrorist event at home, which the right is DROOLING and PRAYING for, he and the Democrats would just again have ‘proven’ to the ignorant out there that the Republicans are the ones that are willing to be tough on national security – no matter the cost in civil and human rights. Once the genii’s bottle was opened by Little Boots, it can’t be recapped quickly. It’ll have to be done slowly – which means it probably ain’t gonna happen.
As far as Walker and the Democrats, he and the right have handed them an opportunity. A golden one. A populist one. I hope that they seize it like the WI state ones did. But I think the DC ones are too entrenched in right-center Village speak.
I’m looking for local and state Democrats to jump on this around the country. I think most of our Village “D” Senators are too far gone, and so are all but a couple of handfuls of the ones in the House. We need the younger “D’s” to take the populist lead, and we need to help them, and start something from the ground up. Waiting for what we’ve got in DC is like waiting for Godot. We can talk and dream and hope, but that don’t mean anyone’s gonna show up. ‘Cause they sure haven’t lately – with a few exceptions, like the ones above.
I wouldn’t be trusting any defections coming from Walker’s band of merry men. It’s probably just another ploy to trick the Democrat Senators in Wisconsin into coming back into the state. Walker has shown that he has all the marking of a low life,sleaze ball conservative politician.. Take a cue from Reagan..trust but verify.