Caligula: a career model for the modern statesman?
“Elections may be lost by failing to energize the base, but they are only won by charming non-ideological voters who form the majority. Milwaukee and Madison are the state’s most left-leaning cities, but in the eyes of Wisconsin’s rural and suburban majority, they are also the darkest pits of Babylonish whoredom.”
The wheels seem rapidly to be coming off the runaway freight train that was the effort to recall troubled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Nearly 1,000,000 people affixed their names and addresses to a petition to initiate the unprecedented recall procedures against Walker. But as of late April, Walker is polling at least 5 % HIGHER than his most likely opponent, Milwaukee’s mayor, Tom Barrett. WTF?
Here is a brief recap of events since I last wrote about the Madison Uprising:
1. Walker appointees refused to cooperate with a Federal John Doe investigation into Republican campaign violations. To date several minions have been charged with felonies ranging from appropriation of public assets to promote Walker’s candidacy, to embezzlement of funds intended for the surviving families of veterans in the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, to enticing underage boys into sexual relationships over the internet. Walker made some attempts to distance himself from the actions underlings took on his behalf, but those were undermined by the revelation that he had retained legal counsel from a firm renowned for its specialty in defending against white collar criminal cases.
2. Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickolaus resigned in her capacity as elections supervisor under severe public pressure. Diligent readers may recall the Signs And Wonders attendant upon Nickolaus’ miraculous production of just barely the required number of votes to overturn the originally called results in the State Supreme Court race between JoAnne Kloppenberg and Nickolaus’ former boss, and Scott Walker darling, David Prosser. No, the proximate causes of Nickolaus’ ouster didn’t include the broken seals, incorrect tracking batch numbers and torn ballot bags which were discovered during a contentious recount proceeding in the Kloppenberg race, but in the complete breakdown in the process of certifying the results of the recent Republican presidential primary. Who’d have thought? Public outrage does count for something, but only when it’s the outrage of Mitt Romney.
3. Perhaps not incidentally, the self same Justice Prosser is currently the subject of disciplinary proceedings related to his alleged physical assault of another Supreme Court justice in chambers during deliberations.
4. A Federal court has overturned the redistricting bills pushed through by Walker this last legislative session. The court was unambiguous in decrying the GOP-drawn map as an effort to disenfranchise Milwaukee-area ethnic minorities. n another case bearing upon voting rights, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has delayed implementation of Walker’s controversial voter ID law until after the recall election, saying it will not be able to complete an adequate review before then.
5. A Federal court has also overturned as unconstitutional many of the provisions of Walker’s stealth, union-busting bill that gave birth to this nest of monsters to begin with. Critical union certification and funding provisions of that bill have been defeated, which is a big plus, but, pending possible repeal through the Wisconsin Legislature, severe limits regarding the scope of union negotiations remain.
This last point is a big (but note sole) cause of my discomfort. Because, in my mind, it is a harbinger of doom for the Walker recall effort—though NOT for the reason most commenters think.
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*Latin = continues at . . .
