Reactions to the Wisconsin Recall Election

Tuesday, Scott Walker handily won the Recall Election in Wisconsin, as did Walker's Lieutenant Governor, Rebecca Kleefisch. The final result was Walker winning 53% to 45% and Kleefisch winning 53% to 46%. While it was hardly a landslide, it was most certainly a comfortable victory for both. Furthermore, of the GOP State Senators who were subject to a recall, three of four won by comfortable margins and the fourth is so close it hasn't been called yet.

Liberals, of course, are throwing fits. They're claiming the Koch brothers did it, this was a victory of "Citizens United over citizens of Wisconsin," claiming that Wisconsin just "refused change." Actually, Wisconsin did vote for change...it was conservative change to fiscal responsibility. According to liberals, this isn't change...because the only real change that counts is becoming more liberal (just ask them!) so when a state votes to be more fiscally responsible it doesn't count.  More importantly, the citizens of Wisconsin...the very employers of these public sector unions, did speak.  They just spoke in favor of conservative government.
The result was in stark contrast to the exit polls that were released at 9 pm. CNN's exit polling, for example, claimed that the recall was tied.  I guess there was a little 8% whoops in their exit polling, huh?  When the polls closed, all news outlets I could find said the race was "too close to call." That's interesting, considering the margin of victory, and how close that margin was to the Real Clear Politics Poll average pre-election.

And yet the Drive-By Media is claiming that, according to the same exit polls that claimed the recall race was tied and too close to call, that President Obama has a commanding lead over Governor Mitt Romney in the 2012 general election.  If nothing else, this election should show, once again, that exit polls are essentially useless. 

What do we take from this big win for conservatism?

One, as I just said, this tells us that exit polls are pointless. We can all conject as to why this is true: Perhaps it's because the Drive-By Media is using it's usual, wonderfully bad polling samples, or perhaps it's simply that Democrats are more likely to participate in an exit poll than Republicans?  Either way, for the last eight years, these polls have shown to be very unreliable. (Remember in 2004, when Bob Shrum said "Let me be the first to call you Mr. President" to John Kerry?)

Two, this tells us that Wisconsin is committed to fiscal restraint!  People are getting it. Conservatism works, and when conservatism is genuinely put into practice, it wins. Heck, Governor Walker GAINED GROUND from his 2010 election in this recall. 

Three, irregardless of the Drive-By Media using the very same exit polls that were so patently wrong about the results for the recall, it shows that Barrack Obama is indeed vulnerable in Wisconsin. Why would the same people who upheld their election of Governor Walker and, presumably, validate his fiscal reforms, then turn around and sweep to victory the very President who has absolutely refused to consider reforms of this nature at all?  Answer: They likely won't. And that my friends, is the best news the Wisconsin recall could present.

It's Time for the Public Sector Unions to Stop Being Selfish

It’s happening in Wisconsin, where the Democratic Party and the Public Unions* are doing their darndest to recall Governor Scott Walker. It doesn’t matter, of course, that the state of Wisconsin; by asking the unions to pay a small portion of their own pensions (an amount similar to what most private citizen’s 401k plans are matched by their company), asking them to pay a $10 copay for doctor visits (the rest of us pay upwards of $20) and some other modest reforms; has closed a massive budget gap and put Wisconsin on the right track. 

Now those same unions want to recall Walker rather than (to borrow a favorite catch-phrase from the Left) “paying their fair share.” (By the way, I define “fair share” very differently.  I define it as paying YOUR OWN SHARE that is for yourself.)  Except those Unions aren’t even paying what the rest of us have to pay.  That’s not good enough though.  They’re just too selfish.

And now, friends, I’m going do something I swore I’d never do:  I’m going to defend a Cuomo. Governor Andrew the Cuomo is trying to do something similar in my own state, New York.  New York, like Wisconsin, is in an awful lot of trouble.  Andrew the Cuomo is, unlike his father before him, a pragmatic man. He understands, like so few of his fellow liberal Democrats, that money doesn’t grow on trees, even if one convinces themselves it is really super-duper important.  So he’s gone and passed a series of measures to cut $80 Billion from the New York state budget. 

For about a month, the same unions have run commercials talking about how unfair it is, how unions have to stand up for their “rights.” (Because free pensions and making more than your employers, the people of New York State, is one’s right, apparently. Since we’re making up rights, I declare my right to baseball.)  They’re telling tales about how 401k plans “failed” a few years ago.  Actually, the only people who 401k plans failed were those who were foolish enough to be both close to retirement and yet still keep their money in high growth funds.  For the rest of us, like those of us in our late twenties and early thirties, are buying into our 401k plans for pennies on the dollar and we’re going to see a phenomenal return in the future for our investments.

Both Governor Walker and Governor the Cuomo realize the truth.  They’re different men.  Governor Walker is a Tea Party Republican, Governor the Cuomo is a fairly reasonable liberal Democrat (in fairness, the Cuomo’s liberalism stands mostly on social issues). But both of them understand the reality and necessity of asking the REAL people who aren’t “paying their fair share,” the Unions.  Both of these men realize that their states are going to continue to lose jobs to outsourcing if they don’t stop trying to take more and more money that still isn’t theirs from businesses.  Not the kind of outsourcing you’re thinking about, friends, not to China and India and Mexico, but rather outsourcing to South Carolina, and Tennessee and Florida and other states that don’t think the purpose of those who have succeeded and started businesses is to buy votes for liberals.

It’s time for Public Sector Unions to stop being so selfish and demanding that their employers, the people of their states and of the nation, pay them exorbitant salaries beyond the employers ability to pay and beyond what similar private sector employees earn for similar work.  I get it, Union members, it means you have to give up some of your current benefits.  I understand.  I went four years without a raise, by the way, thanks to this economy, meanwhile you’ve gotten four plus better benefits than I could dream of receiving.  It’s time for Public Sector Unions to pay their legitimate fair share. It’s time for public sector unions to stop being selfish.

*Private Sector Unions, for now at least, you get a pass.  In this blog my beef is with your public sector counterparts.