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Jun 16, 2011
When a Republican legislator in Alabama switches parties to protest the GOP’s attacks on teachers, you know there’s a progressive backlash a-coming.
As legislatures across the country adjourn, it’s clear that voters are not pleased with the right-wing genie they let out of the bottle last fall. Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s approval rating dipped to 29 percent after only four months in office. A recent Ohio poll showed that Tea Party Gov. John Kasich would lose by 25 points if he faced his November 2010 opponent today.
This pattern is repeated in polls taken in state after state. A May 25 poll asking voters whom they would support in a recall election between Gov. Scott Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett showed Barrett winning by seven points.
Polls also show that Walker is the most polarizing governor in the nation. He has a margin of support that nears 90 percent among Republicans but is only in the single digits among Democrats.
But instead of trying to bring the state together and win over Democrats and Independents, Wisconsin Republicans are desperately trying to rig future elections in their favor. They passed a bill extending the length of residency required to vote from 10 to 28 days, eliminating party-line voting, pushing back the deadline to get an absentee ballot and, most importantly, requiring every voter to present a photo ID or a naturalization certificate in order to vote. The law would allow some student IDs to qualify, but notably not the ones issued by the University of Wisconsin.
All of these moves, of course, have been carefully calibrated based on voting statistics to reduce turnout among Democratic voters, especially seniors, students and lower-income voters.
GOP officials have also admitted they plan to run phony candidates against Democrats in next month’s recall elections of six Republican state senators. Putting phony Democrats on the ballot will turn the July 12 race into a primary, stalling the actual election until Aug. 8.
As we saw during the budget standoff last winter, dirty tricks come easily to Walker, who was thrown out of Marquette University for cheating. But they won’t play in Wisconsin. Political treachery ultimately derailed Richard Nixon and Rod Blagojevich, and it will bring down Walker even faster.
