Some thoughts on the results of yesterday\'s historic primary election:<br /><br /> <ul> <li><strong>Barrett\'s numbers were surprisingly high</strong>. Polling had shown that he had a healthy lead over Kathleen Falk, Doug La Follette and Kathleen Vinehout, but his huge majority yesterday, far exceeding the expectations generated by polling, signals his strength going forward.</li> </ul> <blockquote>That\'s why the state Republican Party\'s trumpeting “Democrats still divided” (before the polls closed, of course) is so laughable. Barrett\'s strong win shows that <strong>Democrats are absolutely not divided.</strong> It wasn\'t even close.<br /><br />I was shocked by <strong>Barrett\'s lead in Dane County</strong>, which elected Falk repeatedly and is dominated by public workers. Barrett won with 62% of the vote to Falk\'s 31%.<br /><br />Voters, apparently, want a do-over. So it will be Barrett-Walker once again.<br /></blockquote> <ul> <li><strong>Barrett\'s weak spot? Milwaukee County</strong>, ironically enough. The county gave him a healthy win in 2010 (62% to Walker\'s 38%) and came out for him again yesterday with 72%.<br /></li> </ul> <blockquote>But Barrett is going to have to pull out more votes in his home county on June 5. He wasn\'t able to turn out as many Milwaukee voters in 2010 to match Walker\'s routs in the conservative, high-turnout counties in southeastern Wisconsin, his base. <strong>Dems: Get your boots on the ground in the city now</strong> if you want to boot Walker from office.<br /></blockquote> <ul> <li>If there\'s anything to be said about <strong>turnout</strong> it\'s that it\'s just one more unknown going forward. The <em>Journal Sentinel</em>, not surprisingly, has framed yesterday\'s turnout as Walker\'s vote equals the votes of Barrett and Falk. A “massive GOP turnout for Walker,” as the headline stated, with Walker getting an “astonishing” number of votes, more than Barrett and Falk combined, and almost as many as all Democratic candidates.</li> </ul> <blockquote>True, Walker got a ton of people who didn\'t need to vote to turn out yesterday. He certainly had the resources to do so.<br /></blockquote> <blockquote>But if you check out other news sources you\'ll find that the four legitimate <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://elections.wispolitics.com/2012/05/some-more-numbers.html\">Democrats earned more votes</a> (646,076) than Walker and his protest challenger, Arthur Kohl-Riggs (633,188). So it\'s a wash. And Democrats spend far less money than Walker did to reach those voters.<br /></blockquote> <ul> <li>Does any of this foreshadow <strong>what will happen on June 5</strong>?</li> </ul> <blockquote>Both sides are going to have to mobilize their base. For Republicans, that means getting the high-turnout southeastern suburbs to vote (not difficult) and to pull out as many rural votes as they can. <br /></blockquote> <blockquote>And the Democrats? Today\'s Kumbaya efforts will help. <strong>The unions\' willingness to target their efforts on defeating Walker, instead of grumbling about their favored candidate\'s loss, is a good sign. </strong>Barrett needed strong union support in 2010 and didn\'t get it. He needs their support even more in June.<br /></blockquote> <blockquote>Another wild card is the <strong>student vote</strong>. They\'ve been a huge part of the conversation on the Democrats\' side and Walker has made historic cuts to public education while not increasing state support for student loans. Students\' enthusiasm and participation is essential. (Why do you think the Republicans tried so hard to not allow student IDs to be used for voter IDs? Because they don\'t want students to vote, period.) <br /></blockquote> <blockquote>The rub, of course, is that the recall election isn\'t going to be held during the regular academic year. Students are going to have to go the extra step of requesting an absentee ballot if they want to cast a ballot in June. (I\'ll have more on this in the coming weeks.)<br /></blockquote> <blockquote>The Democrats also have the advantage of having <strong>a database of roughly a million people</strong> who want to oust Walker from office. Barrett is going to need all of their support and then some. It\'s a great organizing tool. It also shows the breadth of opposition to Walker. <br /></blockquote> <ul> <li><strong>Republicans, of course, have their own machine. And tons of money.</strong> Tons. And there will be more.</li> </ul> <ul> <li><strong>Where are the margins?</strong> </li> </ul> <blockquote><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.politicsdaily.com/tag/Tom%20Barrett\">Back in 2010</a>, Walker won with 52% of the vote, or 1.1 million. Barrett won 47%, or 1 million.<br /></blockquote> <blockquote>But way back in 2008, Republican John McCain won 1.2 million votes, or 42% of the vote.<br /></blockquote> <blockquote><strong>Barack Obama won a whopping 1.6 million votes</strong>, or 56%. <br /></blockquote> <blockquote>So Republicans can count on up to 1.2 million statewide. Democrats have shown that they can get 1.6 million to vote for their candidate. <strong>Barrett simply has more voters to appeal to. </strong><br /></blockquote> <blockquote>Can he do it?<br /></blockquote> <ul> <li>Then there\'s <strong>the do-over factor</strong>. Last spring, polls showed that voters regretted voting for Walker over Barrett.</li> </ul> <blockquote>Do you know any folks who voted for Walker in 2010 and will vote for Barrett in June 2012? I sure do.</blockquote> <blockquote>But do you know of any Barrett 2010 voters who will now vote for Walker? I don\'t think that\'s quite as likely. Sure, there are folks who don\'t like the idea of a recall. But I think they\'re way, way in the minority. There are far more people who are sick of what Walker has done to this state. I mean, <strong>it\'s not even recognizable as Wisconsin anymore, and that\'s Walker\'s doing (and undoing).</strong><br /></blockquote> <ul> <li><strong>Barrett needs to crank up his GOTV machine, now. </strong>He\'s got to find the 600,000 who voted for Obama who didn\'t vote for him in 2010. </li> </ul> <blockquote>He\'s also got to reach the undecideds. His pitch to be the <strong>“independent” candidate </strong>is a start, as was his speech last night. He showed that he\'s more passionate about running this time around, perhaps the biggest criticism of him in 2010. <br /></blockquote> <blockquote>Barrett\'s also got another advantage: <strong>he doesn\'t have to talk about hypotheticals, </strong>all of the horrible things Walker could do or would do if he were elected governor. It\'s 2012: We already know. It\'s our reality. <strong>Walker\'s job-creation record is the worst in the country. Walker has gutted public education and BadgerCare and public employees\' rights so that we can save a few dollars on our property taxes and give big tax breaks to corporations. And he\'s got nothing to show for it.</strong><br /></blockquote> <blockquote>Barrett\'s got to make the case that Walker\'s record is so reckless and out of whack with Wisconsin\'s ideals that his term needs to end, now.<br /></blockquote><br /><br /><br /><br />
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