Q: Who is winning the hearts and minds of Wisconsin voters?
A: Not Governor Scott Walker.
Public Policy Polling (PPP) has released a new opinion poll today, taken from 24-27 of February on 768 Wisconsin voters. From PPP’s write-up:
…if voters in the state could do it over today they’d support defeated Democratic nominee Tom Barrett over Scott Walker by a a 52-45 margin.
The difference between how folks would vote now and how they voted in November can almost all be attributed to shifts within union households. Voters who are not part of union households have barely shifted at all- they report having voted for Walker by 7 points last fall and they still say they would vote for Walker by a 4 point margin. But in households where there is a union member voters now say they’d go for Barrett by a 31 point margin, up quite a bit from the 14 point advantage they report having given him in November.
It’s actually Republicans, more so than Democrats or independents, whose shifting away from Walker would allow Barrett to win a rematch if there was one today.
The poll details are here.
Keep this in mind when Gov. Walker starts “ratcheting it up” with claims of irreversible damage Democratic senators are doing to the state by preventing a quorum, or about how the people of Wisconsin are tired of the Senators’ “stunt.” More likely than not…he’s bullshitting.
The major damage the Democrats are causing is to Walker’s future in elective office.
If You Dislike The Message, Shoot The Messenger!
Moody’s economist Mark Zandi said today the GOP’s spending cuts will cost 700,000 jobs through 2012, the Washington Post says.
True to form, instead of debating Zandi on the merits, GOP House majority leader Eric Cantor launched a personal attack against Zandi.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.....00000-jobs
Zandi, by the way, is highly respected and frequently quoted in the conservative-leaning, business-oriented, financial media.
Un-fucking-believable.
How could anyone in their right mind, if they or a family member are in a union, or even does any kind of work that might be unionized, vote for any Republican, much less one so transparently ideologic and partisan and hostile as Walker.
Having union households vote 57-43 Dem-Rep is a massive disaster in education and GOTV.
Well, a quick Google search reveals there’s no shortage of plans in the works to mount a recall campaign, so we may get to find out next January what his actual poll numbers are!
http://scottwalkerwatch.com/?page_id=91
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/117089393.html
http://www.wausaudailyherald.c.....-Democrats
Republicans are targeting some of the Democratic state senators for recall, too, but they have the same problem as Walker foes: They have to wait until next year. And that means if neither Walker nor the Democratic senators give up, and the standoff continues, absolutely no budget legislation will pass in Wisconsin until 2012.
That means Wisconsin government and schools would shut down when the current budget ends, and I think there would be riots in the streets long before any of these politicians could be dragged to a recall election. While the Democrats might catch some of the flak, I have a feeling the GOPers will catch far more.
Mark Zandi was also GWB’s economic advisor and senior economic adviser on McSame’s 08 campaign.
The current R electeds (Canter, Boehner, etc.)who aren’t insane are insanely evil. Destruction as strategy is the only explanation that makes any sense given their behavior / statements — and that basically amounts to treason.
According to another polling firm, Strategic Telemetry, 34% of Wisconsin voters would sign a petition to recall Walker, well over the 25% needed to put recall on the ballot.
ST’s poll also found there’s enough support to put recalls of 8 Republican state senators on the ballot.
http://www.wausaudailyherald.c.....-Democrats
Oops, wrong link, here’s the link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol.....all/71846/
@3 Don’t forget, Republicans coddle unions that vote for them.
It’s now clear why the Republican Noise Machine began attacking public employees about a year ago. That systematic and coordinated propaganda campaign laid the groundwork for what we’re seeing now: A nationwide offensive against public worker unions aimed at depriving Democratic candidates of campaign funding and manpower, following on the heels of the destruction of private sector unions. And they’re after the Democrats’ other big funding source, too — the trial lawyers — which strongly suggests the GOP wants to convert America from a democracy with competitive elections into a one-party country: See, e.g., USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, etc.
@6 Any intelligent person should realize that when they resort to ad hominem attacks it means they would lose any rational debate — and they know it.
Zandi is a Keynesian, and there’s room to legitimately debate whether Keynesian economics works, although the empirical evidence of history to date certainly supports Keynesian theory more than, say, the Austrian school. But economists do disagree over theory and it’s possible to have this discussion without resorting to personal attacks. But today’s Republicans are so far removed from rational discussion that I just don’t even listen to them anymore. They’ve pretty much resigned from civilized discourse so I treat them as a band of screeching monkeys.
Walker should get a job in the private world sucking Koch.
@13 He’s already filling that position.
Oh my goodness. Look at the walking dead writing above in this thread. Even the leftist Eugene Robinson employer WA Post finally got down to telling the truth.
Yeah suck on that zitz Roger Dumb Rabbit!
@14, Roger:
Actually, Walker is the fillee vice the filler in that particular menage ah 2, right?
You could say that at least some of the tea people are Koch suckers — literally — because they’re the marks in the con.
But not Walker. He’s the other kind of sucker.
Just remember what party put us in this economic mess.
It was the Republican Party.
George Vreeland Hill
@15 So next you’re gonna tell us how all public employees are living in Lake Washington waterfront mansions and driving Lexuses? Fuck you, you ungrateful wretch, you get a far better deal from the handful of tax dollars you pay than you deserve.
@15
Shame isn’t it? you’d think that someone as smart as Robinson would remember that Government Employees ARE taxpayers.
When the California voters voted for Prop 8 by 52% that was the “clear will of the people” blah blah blah. So if a tiny bare simple majority is good enough to strip someone’s right to get married, it’s good enough to raise taxes or deny this Gov his idiotic plan. If 52% of the people are against it, how DARE this Governor force his “minority” opinion on the will of the majority. ROTFLMAO
By the way, you want the magic Republican dream? No Democrats having a say in legislation? No public employee unions being able to bargain for compensation? No evil liberals forcing taxes on you? Sound great!? I give you Texas, which just submitted their 2 year budget…$27 BILLION over. No unions to blame. No Democrats to blame. They have EVERYTHING the Republicans claim lead to a magical fiscal paradise. So what’s up? All Texas has to do is just spend less. Just cut $27 billion from your schools, roads and police. Learn to live within your means. Learn to balance a budget. Stop big spending. blah blah blah.
So:
A corporate CEO, a Teabagger and a union member were sitting at a table. On the table was a plate of 12 cookies.
The corporate CEO reached out and took 11 cookies, then nudged the teabagger and pointed at the union member and said; “Watch out, they are going to take your cookie.”
Gregoire sat at a table with a Union hack and a taxpayer. On the table was a plate of 12 cookies. She took 16 and the Union Hack took 8. It was a deficit they could easily mask by auditing the private taxpaying cookie maker out of his shop and robbing all of his cookies.
@15 and 19. That was a sweet bit of misdirection. Eugene Robinson did not write that article or that headline. Two other writers from the paper did.
That’s like saying Goldie is an arch conservative because one of the other posters wrote something that was conservative.
Wishing doesn’t make it so.
@23,
What misdirection? Where did Puddy say Robinson wrote the article?
Also Roger Dumb Rabbit, who brought up Lake Washington? – You did Roger Dumb Rabbit!
Operative word VOTED. Where is this Wisconsin “vote“?
So Roger Dumb Rabbit, are you proposing allowing DUMBOCRAT politicians erected year after year with heavy union funding being in charge of fixing the union pension benefit shortfalls in Wisconsin and other American locations? Isn’t that having the union on both sides of the bargaining table?
Just checking Roger Dumb Rabbit.
RR @ 10: After the Citizens United decision, there was widespread criticism about giving corporations the right to make campaing contributions. Any spending limits could be avoided simply by opening up thousands of corporations through which to funnel the cash (the cost of incorporation in some states is now less than a couple hundred dollars).
Of course, the right wing argued that unions could also make contributions, so both sides benefited from the decision. (Sure – just like an ordinance prohibiting sleeping under bridges affects paupers and the rich alike).
But if the attack on unions is successful, the corporations would meet little opposition in flooding the airwaves during election campaigns.
@25
Still trying bad associations?
So…if a media outlet employs a single liberal it is liberal? That how it works. Or a single conservative is allowed print or airtime so everyone else is wrong? O.K.
MSNBC employs Scarborough. MSNBC is a Republican shill. The View has ‘Liz, it is a conservative program. NYT employs free-market Friedman. They turning conservative.
Does it hurt to make so many unintelligent Points.’
Wait! I just got it.
Puddy is so used to conservative media, where debate goes to die or expressing the slightest hint of thought outside the hoard will get your comments banned, the mere presence of allowing the other side a forum is too much for his tiny intellect.
Fair and balanced.
Herman Cain for Preznit…fukkkyeah.
The puddybitch for vice prez!
There is NO Republican talking poiint that the puddybitch will not pass steaming from his ASS on to the comment threads.
Scott Walker is toast. He’ll be radioactive by the time this is over…and what he is succeeding in doing, and doing a damn fine job btw, is ilustrating in stark relief how the “tea baggers” and idiots like our very own puddybitch are doing the work of the Oligarchs. For FREE!!!!
What a dupe.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.....hp?ref=fpa
That’s that Republican Party the puddybitch loves so much.
http://crooksandliars.com/susi.....nsin-voter
Maine’s going the same way…get a load of this:
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/.....-tax-cuts/
But there’s no playbook, right? Us lefties just made that up.
The Republican majority in the Tennessee legislature also has a bill in the works with respec to state the bargaining rights of government employees, but the details aren’t easy to get since it hasn’t yet made it to the floor. But the Republican majority leader has confidently predicted it will pass “with some revisions”.
Also in the news today, Karl Rove says he plans to raise and spend 120 million dollars in campaigns next year to ensure that Obama is a “one-term-president”.
I’m just wondering….
A boycot of all Wisconsin products until this bill is dropped probably would not be very effective. I’m not sure what Washington State residents buy from Wisconsin, other than cheese, and a boycot would hurt the innocent more than the guilty.
But most state legislative offices are part-time gigs. Many of those holding those offices have their own businesses, which allow them to take off work months at a time when the legislature is in session. What if we figure out which businesses the Republican leadership in Wisconsin own, and try to start a nation-wide boycot of those selected businesses? Nothing gets a Republicans attention like the prospect of losing his own money (as opposed to other people losing theirs).
Interesting read on the language being used by both sides on Walker’s plan to increase the state worker’s pension plan from 1 to over 5%. The author states that reporters are misinforming the public:
Oops, forgot the link!
Really Bad Reporting in Wisconsin: Who ‘Contributes’ to Public Workers’ Pensions?