The election results will likely embolden Washington conservatives to stand their ground in upcoming budget debates.
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Imagine the crushing effect that a Wisconsin Democratic takeover victory would have had on state-level conservative reformers across the country. After all, our state governments are often the place where new ideas are incubated and then carried to Washington.
I added emphasis to that last part, because that statement by itself is of vital importance to understand why Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives continue to lose elections as well as policy and political questions. The GOP has gone after the states first, have built up their party organization, and have no end of ideas or candidates to bring off the bench into the national spotlight. Those ideas and candidates almost always have a support structure, press, and political review ready when they debut. Not only that, but they already have some idea what opposition to expect and how best to counter or discredit that opposition.
It didn't take long before another Peach Pundit front-pager chimed in:
Republicans are quick to note that Democrats just spent an amount that could run three competitive U.S. Senate races and their result was to pick off two State Senators, one with serious personal baggage. Moreover, they point to the fact that national union interests flooded a major union state with cash and workers, only to have the majority of Republican reformers affirmed by voters.
It isn't just Republicans who should note this dynamic. As I said before, the DLP needed to win or tie the Wisconsin recall elections. They did not. If DLP's can lose to Republicans in Wisconsin over the issue of union-busting and defunding public education, the rout is officially on: in 2012, expect the GOP to add to their number of state legislators, to bolster their majority in the US House of Representatives, to gain the majority in the US Senate, and probably oust the incumbent President of the United States.
And that's just national politics; as far as unions go, this election consigns their current political clout to the dustbin. They are finished under their current operating model. Their two options now is to deny that reality and continue losing competitive elections by inches or come up with a new way of organizing, adding value for their membership, and marketing themselves poltically.
Kyle Wingfield at the AJC puts it more succinctly:
Republicans held onto four of the six — and thus a one-seat majority in the Senate — by an average of 6 percentage points. The cumulative vote was 53 percent to 47 percent in the GOP’s favor.
A union-busting, defund public education GOP in Wisconsin.
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