Posts tagged Scott Walker

Republican Convention: Day 2

321
8 months ago
by Michael Weiss in

Today marks the sec­ond offi­cial day of the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion, but the first where any­thing of sig­nif­i­cance hap­pens. Mitt Rom­ney poll­ster Neil New­house said, “if it doesn’t hap­pen in prime time, it doesn’t hap­pen.” That being the case, it’s a good thing yesterday’s activ­i­ties were can­celed; the net­works said they weren’t going to carry the prime time speeches any­way, which would have left First Lady hope­ful Ann Rom­ney effec­tively on the cut­ting room floor. Now she gets a prime time slot tonight.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Port Jack­son, TX) will not be speak­ing at this con­ven­tion, despite hav­ing a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of del­e­gates (who may not be seated). He refused to endorse pre­sump­tive nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney, though, and wouldn’t allow his speech to be vet­ted by Romney’s crew, so he was denied a speak­ing slot. Instead, a speech has essen­tially been grafted onto him, in the form of a video “trib­ute” to Ron Paul, to be shown tomor­row. (more…)

Primary Recall

101
11 months ago
by Michael Weiss in , ,

Today we have two elec­tions of sig­nif­i­cance. Cal­i­for­nia is hold­ing its pri­maries, and Wis­con­sin is hold­ing recall elec­tions for the Gov­er­nor and four state Senators.

In Cal­i­for­nia, the selec­tions for Pres­i­dent are fore­gone con­clu­sions, and decid­edly unin­ter­est­ing, but there are two other state bal­lot items, and one local, wor­thy of examination.

First up is the Class 1 Sen­ate seat, cur­rently occu­pied by Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor Dianne Fein­stein. There’s no seri­ous like­li­hood that she will lose today, but this is the first elec­tion in Cal­i­for­nia in which the two Sen­ate can­di­dates with the most votes, regard­less of party, will face each other in Novem­ber. (more…)

Dreams and Fates

145
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

Some men see things as they are and say ‘why’. I dream things that never were and say ‘why not’.

— Robert Kennedy, after George Bernard Shaw

We’re about nine months from the next elec­tion. An aus­pi­cious num­ber, that — nine months, the human ges­ta­tion period. To what sort of gov­ern­ment will our nation give birth at the end of this year?

A look back is worth­while. William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” For as long as I can recall (and it’s a stun­ningly long time), we’ve been told every elec­tion cycle that this is the “most impor­tant elec­tion we are likely to see in our life­times.” There is some truth to that. The world is get­ting increas­ingly com­plex, both its promises and its dan­gers always grow­ing. Change comes at an accel­er­at­ing break­neck pace. Per­haps each mod­ern elec­tion really does sur­pass all pre­vi­ous ones in its fate­ful con­se­quences. (more…)

As Wisconsin, So the Nation

50
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

Insane Clown Posse

For those keep­ing track at home, the score so far, in the six fake Wis­con­sin pri­maries (in which Repub­li­cans ran faux Democ­rats) and the one ac­tual re­call elec­tion: De­moc­rats 7, Repub­li­cans 0. All seven of those Demo­c­ra­tic wins were blowouts.

I’d think any sane an­a­lyst would have ex­pected them to be blowouts. But it would have been a bad sign for the Democ­rats’ chances in 2012 if they had not been.

These recall elec­tions are a test vote on how Repub­li­cans are doing since tak­ing over the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, sev­eral state leg­is­la­tures, and a num­ber of Gov­er­nor­ships in 2010. The poli­cies of Repub­li­cans, both in the States and nation­ally, have been extremely con­ser­v­a­tive, and have been closely coör­di­nated at both the fed­eral and local lev­els. The pol­i­tics of this year and next are turn­ing into a ref­er­en­dum on how well Repub­li­cans are doing.

This reveals a fail­ure of mes­sag­ing on the part of Repub­li­cans, who wanted the 2012 elec­tions to be a ref­er­en­dum on Pres­i­dent Obama, and who were cer­tain they could spin the President’s record as some­thing dis­taste­ful to the vot­ing pub­lic. The com­bi­na­tion of extrem­ist poli­cies on the part of Repub­li­cans, and the even-​​handed calm response of the Pres­i­dent, seems, how­ever, to be defeat­ing this strat­egy. (more…)

Wisconsin Recall — Stranger Than Fiction

19
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

Wis­con­sin Gov. Scott Walker

One of the most amaz­ing polit­i­cal sagas in recent mem­ory is play­ing out in Wis­con­sin. Here are a few of the high­lights — the full story would fill a novel. And a great novel it would be. Now, I’m a sci­ence fic­tion and fan­tasy writer, but I wouldn’t touch some­thing like this. It’s too unbe­liev­able for the my own pre­ferred genres.

Newly-​​elected Wis­con­sin Gov­er­nor Scott Walker pushed a seri­ous union-​​busting mea­sure through the state leg­is­la­ture ear­lier this year, result­ing in mas­sive protests at the state cap­i­tal, protests which were echoed in other places around the country.

Gov­er­nor Walker used a pro­jected deficit in the state bud­get as an excuse for these mea­sures. We know the state bud­get was really just an excuse, and the real goal was to bust the unions, because the unions agreed to the cost sav­ing mea­sures. Walker still insisted on the mea­sures that would nearly dis­man­tle the unions, and remove nearly all col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights for most state work­ers. (more…)

Political Drama WIth Cheese

32
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

A com­plex polit­i­cal dance is tak­ing place in the state of Wis­con­sin, involv­ing all three branches of the state gov­ern­ment, with active par­tic­i­pa­tion from the peo­ple of the state. The dance has impor­tant impli­ca­tions for the nation, deal­ing as it does with the kind of peo­ple we are,  with the nature of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing, with the ways the peo­ple inter­act with each other and with the insti­tu­tions of government.

On May 26, Dane County Cir­cuit Judge Maryann Sumi struck down Wisconsin’s union-​​busting bill that had been pushed by Repub­li­cans through the state leg­is­la­ture, and signed into law by first-​​term Gov­er­nor Scott Walker. (more…)

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