![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2012\/06\/Walker3.jpg\" "\\"Walker3\\"")
<\/a>But instead, the vote was a landslide for Governor Walker \u2013 and a humiliating loss for those who\u00a0had targeted him.<\/p>\nAnd now pundits are saying Wisconsin was\u00a0a preview of the election in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cGov. Scott Walker already had become a national hero to conservatives for his willingness to take on his state\u2019s powerful public employee unions,\u201d noted the Los Angeles Times.<\/em> \u201cHis victory \u2013 making him the only governor in U.S. history to survive a recall \u2013 will increase his stature even further.<\/p>\n \u201cWalker carried 60 of Wisconsin\u2019s 72 counties and expanded the vote he received when first elected in 2010. Already, speculation has started about a place for Walker on a future conservative presidential ticket.<\/p>\n \u201cLabor unions, by contrast,\u201d continued the Times <\/em>article by political analyst David Lauter, \u201csuffered a serious blow to their already-waning political clout. The recall made the third election in the space of a year in which labor failed to defeat Walker or a Walker proxy. The unions lost a fight to oust a conservative state Supreme Court justice and fell short of recalling enough GOP state senators last summer to put liberals in control of the chamber. And now this.\u201d<\/p>\n Another casualty of the Wisconsin vote, according to pundits, was the mainstream, traditional press for its support of Walker\u2019s accusers \u2013 and what some called a loss of credibility with Wisconsin voters.<\/p>\n But there is another casualty. \u201cPresident Obama took considerable heat from Wisconsin liberals,\u201d wrote Lauter, \u201cfor not venturing into the state to campaign against Walker as former President Clinton did. If Walker had won by only 1 or 2 percentage points, many fingers would be pointing in Obama\u2019s direction. But with Walker winning by 7 percentage points, the argument that Obama would have made a difference becomes a lot harder to make.\u201d<\/p>\n Thus, the question is raised whether Obama sensed the challenge was doomed \u2013 and distanced himself from it rather than get blamed for it.<\/p>\n But beyond that, does\u00a0the Wisconsin vote\u00a0mean that liberals are in trouble with the electorate?<\/p>\n \u201cThe bigger question for Obama is whether Walker\u2019s victory means that Wisconsin \u2013 a state liberals have been counting in their column \u2013 is seriously in doubt in the fall. Overall turnout in the state was roughly 2.5 million voters \u2013 a significant increase from 2010 when Walker was first elected.\u201d<\/p>\n Does that change things in November? Yes, said the Times. \u201cMitt Romney and his advisors have a decision to make: Is Wisconsin a state to seriously contest? Wisconsin conservatives will argue that the recall proved that their voter-turnout operation works splendidly and that a consistent, tough conservative can win.\u201d<\/p>\n Just across the Great Lakes, the governor\u2019s victory was eyed by America\u2019s northern neighbor. \u201cWisconsin voters took the momentous step of not firing their governor. It\u2019s very good news for the United States and probably Canada, too,\u201d wrote political observer John Robson of CNews.<\/p>\n \u201cSome Canadians envy American voters\u2019 ability to fire politicians for cause between elections. Canadians might also envy Americans their political engagement. The Walker recall petition needed half a million signatures and got a million, then 2.5 of 4.4 million Wisconsin adults voted in the special election.<\/p>\n \u201cThe main thing we should envy, and imitate, is the outcome. His enemies typically called Walker a callous, hateful Tea Party puppet of wealthy bigots. But in fact he understood, like many politicians, that excessive pay and perks for public employees are one of two fundamental problems with government spending. Unlike many, he did something about it.<\/p>\n \u201cTo force state and local government workers to contribute more to their typically lavish health care and pension plans, Walker severely restricted their collective bargaining on most non-wage issues. He also forbade them to seek pay hikes above inflation without a public referendum. And he denied unions the automatic right to represent government workers or collect dues from all their paychecks.\u201d<\/p>\n Thanks to Walker, any Wisconsin public employee who felt forced to be in a union could quit paying dues without repercussions. More than 30,000 did.<\/p>\n \u201cThe largest single Wisconsin public union promptly lost more than half its members,\u201d noted Robson, \u201cand the local American Federation of Teachers wing lost a third.\u201d<\/p>\n Unions in the U.S. today actually only represent 7 percent of private sector employees. Their enormous strength is government employees. In the U.S., 37 percent of government workers are unionized. What Walker demonstrated was that if those employees aren\u2019t required to join the union to keep their jobs, they would quit.<\/p>\n That terrifies the unions \u2013 and the liberal politicians who have been elected with union support. Canadian unions are just as worried, noted Robson. \u201cOf those unionized in Canada in 2010, 71.4 percent were in the public sector and just 16 percent in the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n So Canada is watching. An American politician dared to take on organized labor in a heavily liberal state \u2013 and the unions fought back, attempting to throw him out of office.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead he was not merely re-elected, he increased his vote share from 52.25 percent in the 2010 general election to 53.2 percent in the recall,\u201d noted Robson, \u201cand his total vote from 1,128,941 to 1,331,076.\u201d<\/p>\n So now, U.S. liberal politicians have a problem in November\u2019s elections, writes Robson. They \u201cneed the organizing muscle of public sector unions they now clearly cannot afford to be seen pampering.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems the public really doesn\u2019t like unions anymore. But key liberal politicians need them to stay in power, observes Robson.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key liberal setback here was on the issue, not the politics. Scott Walker tried to break the power of public sector unions to hold the public agenda hostage to their overly generous pay and perks. And despite a well-funded, well-organized challenge in a famously progressive state, the populace backed him.<\/p>\n \u201cLike citizens of San Diego and San Jose, who voted heavily the same day to cut municipal pensions, Wisconsin voters understood that these unions are not champions of the underdog but irresponsibly selfish, reactionary defenders of entrenched privilege with no credible plan for avoiding a projected California $3.6-billion deficit.<\/p>\n \u201cWalker could claim many advantages,\u201d observed Robson. \u201cBut his main advantage was backbone. His example can and should inspire other fiscal conservatives to grow spines of their own. Including in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere was really all but one story in Wisconsin politics last week. An exclamation point, really, to a bitter saga that took more than 15 months to write,\u201d noted the conservative Wisconsin Reporter. \u201cWisconsin made history in an unprecedented recall election. Now, as voters, parties and the media that followed their every move recover, the story of what\u2019s next is just beginning to be written.<\/p>\n \u201cGov. Scott Walker still is governor \u2014 and, presumably, will be for at least two more years.<\/p>\n \u201cWalker on bested his liberal challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, for the second time \u2014 becoming the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall election.<\/p>\n \u201cA record number of voters turned out to end the months-long recall campaign, with Walker scoring a 7 percentage point victory, 53 percent to 46 percent over Barrett.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTonight, we tell Wisconsin, we tell our country and we tell people all across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions,\u201d Walker said in his victory speech.<\/p>\n \u201cSome say the recall efforts began the day Walker was elected,\u201d noted the Reporter. Unions nationwide were determined to keep Walker from carrying through on his campaign promises to reduce the unions\u2019 enormous political power in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world, it seems, knows what happened next,\u201d noted the Reporter. \u201cTens of thousands of protesters came to Madison to challenge the reforms, 14 liberal senators fled to Illinois in order to delay a vote on the collective bargaining bill, the state Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold the law, and then came recalls of nine state senators that led to two GOP senators losing their seats in summer 2011.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd, all along, liberals and unions held out for the day when they could recall the governor himself. They launched that campaign in November, turning in more than 900,000 signatures on a recall petition in mid-January.<\/p>\n \u201cThe recall campaign bet \u2014 that Wisconsin voters would toss out Walker less than mid-term \u2014 ended in a bust.\u201d<\/p>\n So, what happens next?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to throw a party with a casket in the room,\u201d quipped Wisconsin political reporter M.D. Kittle. \u201cThat\u2019s the feeling,\u201d he noted, in Wisconsin in the days after liberals and government-employee unions \u201ctook a beating at the polls in the state\u2019s unprecedented recall election. While hindsight is 20\/20, a chorus of voices, from politicians to national organized labor, has been critical of Wisconsin\u2019s recall drive, arguing it would have been better to wait to take on Walker in 2014.<\/p>\n \u201cWith a tough presidential election coming up, perhaps the most telling liberal disinterest in the recall movement came in President Barack Obama\u2019s, who did not make a single campaign appearance in the Badger State during the recall campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cMaria Cardona, a national liberal strategist and principal at Dewey Square Group, a Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm, said she\u2019s not going to make any judgments. \u2018I don\u2019t like to say that it was a mistake because this was something that was an egregious act that the public employees of Wisconsin thought they needed to do something about,\u2019 Cardona said of Act 10, the law, pushed by Walker, which stripped collective bargaining for most public employees in the state.<\/p>\n \u201cNow,\u201d noted Kittle, \u201cWisconsin liberals have to regroup and, pundits assert, find a way to regain relevancy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cThe recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was a critical bellwether,\u201d writes political columnist James Simpson. \u201cA Walker loss would have guaranteed more ruinous, out-of-control government spending, where unions and their vested interests dictate terms through violence, thuggery and deceit. But the Wisconsin electorate rejected that path, handing Walker a resounding victory. This will embolden leaders in other states to tackle similar problems head on.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernor Walker deserves our heartfelt thanks for his steadfast determination to do the right thing. But you will never know just how difficult this was if you get your news from the \u2018mainstream\u2019 liberal media. While shamelessly championing the liberals\u2019 cause, they completely ignored the unprecedented, outrageous campaign of hate and lies promoted by those same liberals and their public employee union allies. This shameless, naked, self-serving attempted power grab is a story in-and-of itself.<\/p>\n \u201cNews reports of the union-orchestrated, Democratic National Committee-backed, month-long occupation of the Wisconsin state capital last year were ubiquitous,\u201d writes Simpson. \u201cThis was followed by a flurry of recall efforts last summer and this winter against 16 senators as well as Governor Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. This recall was unprecedented. There have been only three times in history when more than one legislator has been recalled over any single issue.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is less known is that the recall effort against Governor Walker \u2013 indeed, the entire attack \u2013 was far from spontaneous. Within days of his election the left began contemplating a recall, and it began in earnest in February of 2011, before his controversial budget bill was even passed. The left had him in its sights from day one.<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing the announcement of Governor Walker\u2019s \u2018Budget Repair Bill,\u2019 last February, unions went on a rampage. Beginning around February 15, 2011, protesters began massing around the state Capitol building in Madison. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka addressed the growing crowd the following day. By the 20th protesters were occupying the capitol building. They were enthusiastically supported by the national news media, which compared Wisconsin protests to Egypt.<\/p>\n \u201cABC\u2019s Christiane Amanpour said, \u2018Populist frustration is boiling over this week, as we\u2019ve said, not just in the Middle East, but in the middle of this country as well.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cOn NBC, Brian Williams exclaimed, \u2018From the Mideast to the American Midwest tonight, people are rising up. Citizens\u2019 uprisings are changing the world.\u2019 Ed Schultz broadcast live from the Capitol on February 17th.<\/p>\n \u201cAn editor of the leftwing Buffalo Beast contacted Walker by phone, impersonating billionaire Walker supporter David Koch, who Walker had never spoken with before. He recorded and broadcast the call. The Society of Professional Journalists called it \u2018underhanded and unethical… grossly inappropriate.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The occupation of the Capital building made national front page news for weeks running, but the liberal news media somehow missed several stories, giving little attention to such stories as schoolteacher and union activist Katherine Windels who pled guilty to making death threats to Governor Walker and conservative senators. E-mails made statements like: \u201cPlease put your things in order because you will be killed and your families will also be killed.\u201d<\/p>\n Also overlooked in the mainstream media was how in distant Maine, a man was arrested after sending similar letters to that state\u2019s conservative U.S. senators suggesting that Walker should be killed and that all conservative governors needed to resign. The liberal press averted its eyes. A relatively unknown \u201cblogger,\u201d Jim Hoft of the almost-unknown website \u201cGateway Pundit\u201d alerted the world to the Maine arrest as well as dozens of emails sent by liberals suggesting Walker or legislators should be shot or hanged. The emails warned them to \u201cwatch their backs, look over their shoulders or resign,\u201d reported Simpson. \u201cOne man tweeted that he prayed an anvil would fall from the sky onto Walker.\u201d<\/p>\n But the mainstream media didn\u2019t find such stories newsworthy. Police found 41 rounds of live ammunition near three separate entrances to the capitol building in early March, but only Fox News reported it.<\/p>\n A union agitator posted on his personal Facebook site a photo of Governor Walker\u2019s young son, asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s it like having the most hated dad in Wisconsin? This kid knows.\u201d The same man poured beer on Wisconsin State Representative Robin Voss at a local restaurant after screaming at him in public that he had \u201cfive days to respond\u201d to demands. In response \u201cat a leftwing \u2018Fighting Bob\u2019 La Follette festival,\u201d reports Simpson, \u201ccelebrating Wisconsin\u2019s famous \u2018progressive,\u2019 one of the speakers said \u2018If you\u2019re going to pour beer on a conservative, you have to drink it first.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In one of the most outrageous incidents, union members disrupted a Special Olympics award ceremony honoring mentally and physically disabled children and adults. Made up as zombies, the union members stood between the governor and award recipients, preventing the handicapped athletes from receiving their hard-won awards.<\/p>\n \u201cDo these people have no shame?\u201d asked Simpson. \u201cWisconsin\u2019s firefighter\u2019s union refused to participate in a 9-11 float depicting firefighters raising the flag on the World Trade Center grounds. The float\u2019s creator was a union supporter of Scott Walker.<\/p>\n \u201cPeshtigo High School chorus teacher Rob Schneider resigned after sending the following e-mail to conservative state Rep. John Nygren: \u2018(Expletive) you!!! I pray that a semi-truck will run you over you piece of (expletive) (expletive)! If there is a God that (expletive) Governor Walker will be riding with you when the truck hits your sorry (expletive)!!!!!!!!!! Stop (expletive) sending me your (expletive)!!! You are a waste of human space!!!!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, in the media, it was the conservatives who were portrayed as ill-mannered and extremist.<\/p>\n \u201cIn its abdication of honest journalism,\u201d writes Simpson, \u201cthe media has completely overlooked another story as well, the election and recall of Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch.\u201d She is a former news anchor who quit in 2004 to be a stay-at-home mom to her two children. Increasingly fed up with Wisconsin\u2019s dysfunctional government, she announced her candidacy for Lieutenant Governor by webcam from her kitchen table in January of 2010.<\/p>\n \u201cKleefisch was diagnosed with colon cancer in the middle of her campaign, underwent surgery, won her campaign, and went on to get chemotherapy just as the recall was beginning. Despite this amazing tale of courage and determination, or perhaps because of it, the left\u2019s attacks on Kleefisch were unprecedented in their vile viciousness,\u201d notes Simpson. \u201cOne leftist radio host said on air,<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Rebecca Kleefisch. I (obscenity) all the talk show hosts in Milwaukee. And they endorse me and that\u2019s how I became lieutenant governor.\u201d He then went on to mock her in the most sexually explicit terms.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere was the media on that one?\u201d asked Simpson. \u201cWhere was the National Organization of Women?\u201d<\/p>\n The largest union contributor to the Walker recall was Wisconsin\u2019s largest teacher\u2019s union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council. They have reported spending $4.4 million in the campaign. Their loss cannot but diminish their clout, noted Simpson. They were already being eyed skeptically by voters after fighting \u201cthe dismissal of two public school science teachers fired for viewing and emailing porn from their work computers.<\/p>\n \u201cLegal battles,\u201d noted Simpson, \u201ccost the district over $500,000 defending an open-and-shut administrative decision, a stark demonstration of the union\u2019s priorities and attitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n Why is the Wisconsin vote of note?<\/p>\n \u201cTuesday, June 5, 2012,\u201d writes conservative author Charles Krauthammer, \u201cwill be remembered as the beginning of the long decline of the public-sector union. It will follow, and parallel, the shrinking of private-sector unions.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>