Scott Walker recall goes live

[Brittain33]

Additionally 200k or more have been identified as probably bogus signatures.

O RLY?

Anyway, Dems seem to be setting up a circular firing squad here...

[Brittain33]

Additionally 200k or more have been identified as probably bogus signatures.

O RLY?

Anyway, Dems seem to be setting up a circular firing squad here...

Yea, a volunteer army has been examining the petitions on an online database.  Scot Walker signed it 50 times, daffy duck, mickey mouse, etc.  MANY people signed more than once, some weren't filled out properly, some forgery's were discovered... you get the picture.  They probably got enough signatures, but a failure rate approaching 40% is a little troubling.   

Do you have a link to a source that says 200,000 signatures are "probably bogus"?

Not to put too fine a point to it, but it doesn't cost anything for random Republicans to make an outrageous, unsupported claim to undermine the legitimacy of the elections.

[Brittain33]

Bill Clinton is going to Wisconsin to campaign for Barrett.

[Brittain33]

Sticking with Walker at 51-52%.

[Brittain33]

Who will you vote for in November for President?

Obama 51%
Romney 45%

Ouch for Romney. I don't know if that saves Barrett's case (I'm not thinking it does), but it makes Romney look bad.

[Brittain33]

reports... GOP base votes in Ozaukee, Washington, Waukesha Counties are off the charts

News is pretty consistent that turnout was high across the board. Good thing that in 15 minutes we'll start to get some real results.

[Brittain33]

have reports from polling locations on Milwaukee's South, North, East sides, and downtown and didn't have any lines/wait.

Where are you getting that from?

His arse, everything I've read says that turnout is record breaking there: 200 new voters registered at one heavily Latino ward in central Milwaukee.

I wasn't talking about the entire day, just that point in time.  chill.  

Who was reporting simultaneously from five places in Milwaukee that no one was voting? I trust this is up on the web somewhere.

[Brittain33]

Who was reporting simultaneously from five places in Milwaukee that no one was voting? I trust this is up on the web somewhere.

Brookfield Elementary (wd11,12,13) 2,687 cast as of 5pm 2,982 cast there, total, in Nov 2010
 
...apparently Stephen Hayes was the source
[/quote]

No offense, but have you ever worked an election in a city before? You get large numbers of people only after work. Do you think they stopped at 5.

[Brittain33]

Where was that post someone made yesterday which showed "Dem-affiliated polls" giving Walker low single digits and unbiased polls giving him high single digits to +12?

We Ask America may not be the new gold standard of polling.

[Brittain33]

How many Senate seats do Dems need to win to take the Senate?

One.

[Brittain33]

The vote totals for Gov vs. Lt. Gov are totally different. It's apples and oranges.

[Brittain33]

It definitely feels like the Walker people are still more confident than the Barrett people (for now).

Well, the sorry fact is that Barrett could have way overperformed expectations and still lose narrowly.

[Brittain33]

Where the [Inks] is Torie to look at ward results in rural Dane County and tell us who won?

[Brittain33]

Yes, it does appear that the exit poll was garbage.

Yep. Bad on me for wanting to believe it and then using it to criticize people for wanting to believe We Ask America... bad exit polls are hardly new this year so I should have known better. In the end it went exactly as polls have been predicting for months.

Interesting in that what we see is that executives seem to survive, but legislators pay the price. 

[Brittain33]

You guys realize that the exit poll showed the Walker recall TIED and that Romney has campaigned ZERO in Wisconsin right?  It's a great idea to hang your hat on that exit poll.

The democrats have a huge permanent turnkey infrastructure in Wisconsin that will produce 45% of the vote every time.  
Vs.
The Republicans have to rebuild their campaign organization every two years.

The democrats thought they could steamroll democracy by using their unfair advantage.  What a monumental miscalculation.  They never seem to grasp how backlash works.        

Republicans spent $30 million defending Walker, Dems spent $3 million.

Dems have now retaken the WI Senate.

[Brittain33]

]
The democrats have a huge permanent turnkey infrastructure in Wisconsin that will produce 45% of the vote every time.   

Bzzt.

1990    Tommy Thompson (R/inc.) 58%    Thomas A. Loftus (D) 42%
1994    Tommy Thompson (R/inc.) 67%    Charles J. Chvala (D) 30%
1998    Tommy Thompson (R/inc.) 60%    Ed Garvey (D) 39%

[Brittain33]

You guys realize that the exit poll showed the Walker recall TIED and that Romney has campaigned ZERO in Wisconsin right?  It's a great idea to hang your hat on that exit poll.

The democrats have a huge permanent turnkey infrastructure in Wisconsin that will produce 45% of the vote every time.  
Vs.
The Republicans have to rebuild their campaign organization every two years.

The democrats thought they could steamroll democracy by using their unfair advantage.  What a monumental miscalculation.  They never seem to grasp how backlash works.        

Republicans spent $30 million defending Walker, Dems spent $3 million.

Dems have now retaken the WI Senate.

And Obama in 2008 spent $310M on ads, McCain $134M. I'm sure everyone's just as offended by this, right?

Yes, I think having a tremendous amount of money in politics is a bad thing. I'm glad that on a rare occasion the Dems had an advantage but overall I'd prefer a more equitable system, especially given the willingness of one party to trade industry donations for much larger legislative advantages (subsidies, repeal of regulation, etc.) as a matter of party philosophy. It's bad for democracy and bad for society and Republicans actively revel in it. It's revolting. Seeing the financial industry buy a party in order to buy its way back into the absence of regulation is dispiriting because it's going to have a real impact on the way our economy lurches from crisis to crisis.

[Brittain33]

Dems spent a year and a half labeling Scott Walker as the spawn of Satan. There was tons of free media. If what Walker was doing was so horrific, the money advantage can't be used as an excuse.

Jon Corzine outspent Bob Franks by how much in New Jersey in 2000? He won by only three points in a Presidential election year as a Democrat. Corzine wasn't unpopular either. Walker, however, had a huge money advantage as well but was supposedly evil. That should be enough to overcome the money advantage, right?

Bottom line: Walker wasn't nearly as unpopular as many imagined and certainly wasn't worthy of being recalled.

And the Dems have the Senate by one seat. That's not a statewide narrative and it will only last six months. It's a victory for Dems/labor, sure, but it's minuscule in comparison to the other race of the night.

I've said pretty consistently here that Walker wasn't going to be successfully recalled. The exit poll gave me false hope it was going to be close, but going back months the projections were clear that there wasn't a majority to pull him out of the governorship.

I was responding to American Nation's comment that the Dems had a steamroller in this race. Do you feel Dems had a steamroller in this race when Walker outspent them 10-1? The national Dems saw the writing on the wall and held back from this. Meanwhile, the Republicans' funding network poured in big money.

If you want to cite Corzine as an example that money doesn't make a difference, you and I both know we can find a few bazillion races in between where it did. And I'm not saying that if it had been $10m to $10m that Barrett would have won, but we can't know, and if it had been Barrett at $30m to Walker with $3m, I can pretty easily imagine your post here about it.

[Brittain33]

How much did Obama outspend McCain by? I didn't complain.

Because it didn't matter and Obama was going to win anyway.

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I didn't "whine" that it's unfair. I also think that since it's exception for a Dem to have this advantage, it would be counterproductive for a Republican to complain.

I gave my reasons as to why I think it's bad for democracy and government in my above post. Do you think having tons of money in politics is good?

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I don't think it was the deciding factor. However, it certainly didn't hurt.

I was responding to American Nation's post that Dems had a steamroller advantage in WI.