Time for soul-searching over Wisconsin’s election losses

2019

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Dec 16, 2010

The recent concession of Minnesota gubernatorial challenger Tom Emmer was gratifying. After all, Target Corp.’s donation to a group supporting the anti-gay Emmer led to a national boycott.

Although pro-equality Democrat Mark Dayton’s margin of victory over Emmer was so razor thin that it took more than a month to decide the race, it’s a significant win nonetheless.

Pro-equality Wisconsinites might feel envy as well as satisfaction in this development and others in our neighboring states. In recent weeks, the Illinois Legislature approved a civil unions bill that the state’s newly re-elected Democratic governor has promised to sign into law. The Democratic majority leader of the Iowa Senate vowed to block an anti-gay marriage amendment from going to the state’s voters.

Once Wisconsin was at the vanguard of progressive politics in the region. But that position shifted into reverse on Nov. 2, when ours became the only state in the nation to flip all three branches of state government from blue to red. This is in addition to already having a conservative state supreme court.

What happened?

In the weeks following the debacle, we’ve heard several explanations, including the flow of right-wing corporate dollars into the state, the faltering economy and the improbability of bucking a conservative national trend.

Certainly these were significant factors, but are they enough to explain the disparity between the election outcomes here and in neighboring states?

One major question is how far removed are Democratic leaders in Madison from their constituents? Why were they so taken off guard by the results? Why did they fail to make a strong case for their policies during their time in leadership, forcing them to play defense during the election?

By spring all the numbers should be in. We’ll know who voted and who didn’t – and how well get-out-the-vote efforts worked. Specific reasons for the failure will come to light, along with remedies for change.

We hope progressive leaders will examine and correct the mistakes they made. The stunning political losses we experienced demand nothing less.