LESS THAN A WEEK TIL THE WICONSIN RECALL….

As I type this, we are about five days away from the WI recall election. Polls seem to reveal this to be a close election between Republican Gov. Scott Walker (whose efforts to dismantle collective bargaining rights for public workers have created a firestorm that led to recalls last year in the legislature as well as the coming election on Tuesday) and his challenger, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett. While polls vary from Walker being ahead to a dead heat, a heated climate on both class (the effort to destroy unions) and social issues (Walker quietly overturning WI’s equal pay law) has created a political climate where there are next to no people undecided on the election. What surprises me on this is that Walker is still holding on. I know this is mainly because of money from a few select business interests and some billionaires allowing him to spin things, but one would think that his attack on workers would basically sign his death warrant (people seem to forget that Republicans are members of unions, for example). While Walker has claimed his actions were needed to balance the budget and that he wasn’t doing this for political reasons, a clip from a documentary film (As Goes Janesville) finds Walker telling a billionaire would be donor a different story (the scene in this preview appears at about 7:30 into it.) Why this didn’t bury Walker is something that’s hard to understand. However, in an age when unlimited money gives one an advantage in the political sphere, waters can be easily muddied when the usual campaign ads and smears go into hyperdrive. Thus, at this point, things are in a dead heat in the third gubernatorial recall election is U.S. history. Add to this the RNC going into Wisconsin to help Walker in his recall race and the line should become slightly more clear. At this point it appears that whoever wins on Tuesday will be the candidate who gets more people to the polls. Thus in an inexplicable way this could go either way when people vote in a few days. What we do know is this: however this turns out will have an effect far beyond Wisconsin.