Wisconsin: The lessons of Walker’s victory

last updated 8 January 2015

We have just witnessed “the Icarus moment” for public-sector unions in America, said Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post. “Wax wings melted, there is nowhere to go but down.” The labor movement thought it could make an example of Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker, after he pushed through a law last year stripping teachers and other unionized public employees of their “right” to bargain with bought-off legislators for lavish pensions, health-care benefits, and salaries. Enraged, the unions launched a recall effort to punish Walker. But last week, Walker won that recall election by a whopping seven percentage points. Clearly, Americans are fed up with the sweetheart contracts enjoyed by public unions, which have left state and local governments “as economically unsustainable as the collapsing entitlement states of southern Europe.” The Tea Party movement was created to fight against a similar American collapse, said Jonathan Tobin in CommentaryMagazine.com. And in Wisconsin, the movement proved it is “still going strong,” mobilizing more voters than the unions did.

Walker won for a simple reason, said David Horsey in the Los Angeles Times. He had the financial support of the “billionaires boys club.” Thanks to the Supreme Court’s notorious 2010 Citizens United ruling, union-hating conservatives like the Koch brothers were able to pump unlimited cash into Walker’s campaign. As a result, Walker outspent his Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, by eight-to-one. Still, progressives better not dismiss this election as an anomaly, said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post. In the “post–Citizens United world,” Democrats will be “vastly outspent” in any race the superwealthy deem important to their agenda. That is our new political reality—unless progressives make a priority of passing new campaign-finance laws.

“Enough with the excuses,” said Clive Crook in TheAtlantic.com. Yes, Walker may have outspent Barrett in Wisconsin, but he didn’t win through the “endless repetition of stupid, annoying TV spots.” He won because the voters of a “progressive-leaning state” have realized they can’t afford to give public employees pensions and benefits that are better than anything available in the private sector. Conservatives also ought not delude themselves, said Ramesh Ponnuru in Bloomberg.com. Walker just spent a year enmeshed in a bruising and bitter recall campaign in which his opponents routinely likened him to Hitler. Anyone expecting other governors to follow Walker’s lead, and take on their own public unions, “may be overestimating that breed’s tolerance for criticism and controversy.