It’s a safe bet that many American progressives are swooning with envy at the French left, which just secured a no-nonsense parliamentary majority in Sunday’s elections, giving President Francois Hollande the leverage he needs (314 of 577 seats, +27 votes from smaller parties he can count on much of the time) to enact sweeping economic reforms. Time Magazine’s Paris Bureau Chief Bruce Crumley does a good job of putting the election in perspective:

The leftist romp in France’s June 17 legislative elections gave the Socialist Party of French President François Hollande a commanding parliamentary majority — and with it a free hand with which to usher in policy reversal. The Élysée now can push for more domestic spending to stimulate a sluggish French economy that, Hollande says, has been hurt by the austerity measures of France’s previous conservative leaders. It also provides Hollande a sturdy French base from which he’ll rally like-minded European partners to adopt similar Keynesian policies across the recessionary euro zone. That’s an ambitious — and risky — program that can now begin in earnest.
Compare that with France’s new conservative minority, which suddenly finds itself in a drastically altered and emphatically defensive posture. Not only are the allies of former President Nicolas Sarkozy powerless to block leftist spending plans — they now also have to reckon with their loss of influence on pan-European policy and the end of an active partnership with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in defending austerity measures. Instead, Sarkozy’s camp turn inward to deal with the deep existential questions confronting the French right.

Crumley calls Hollande’s program “risky.” But austerity has flunked all over Europe. What else is a progressive party supposed to do, emulate their failed opposition? The U.S.experience with Keynesian policies light has produced limited success. Yet, the only thing that hasn’t been tried by a major industrial nation to recover from the Bush meltdown is robust Keynesian reforms. France will likely provide the object lesson.
No doubt American conservatives who follow European politics are as dismayed as American progressives are encouraged by Hollande’s working majority. Republicans will snarl at the mention of Hollande’s Socialist Party, which is now running the show. But ‘Socialist Party’ is a bit of a misnomer in that the party’s leaders have historically nurtured a vigorous private sector, which may end up even stronger when Hollande’s program kicks in and strengthens demand. France ranks 4th among Fortune Global 500 nations, ahead of Germany and the UK. Don’t bet that will change much as a result of France’s new parliamentary majority.
At the heart of France’s social contract is a health care system that is ranked #1 of 191 nations by the World Health Organization (and is nicely spotlighted in this clip from Michael Moore’s “Sicko”). French health care has been weakened from time to time with modest out-of-pocket hikes, but will likely be restored to full strength under Hollande.
In France, unlike the U.S., all citizens know that they will not lose their home or retirement nest egg because of medical expenses. They know also that this security was achieved as a direct result of their support of leadership provided by the Socialist party and many years of campaigning and protest. It’s a foundational principle of the solidarity of the French left.
No matter what the U.S. Supreme Court does regarding the Affordable Care Act in the days ahead, American progressives should affirm their resolve that health care reform with universal coverage is a must-do. It’s not only a central element of a decent society, but must also be a core principle to promote long-haul solidarity among all Democrats.

President Obama’s immigration reform initiative has energized Latino voter enthusiasm for his re-election in key ‘battleground’ states, reports Paul West in Today’s L.A. Times: According to a new survey by Latino Decisions, “Forty-nine percent of the Latino voters surveyed said Obama’s move made them more enthusiastic about the president, compared with 14% who were less enthusiastic…That “enthusiasm advantage” of 35 percentage points compares with a 19-point deficit in a survey earlier this year, when Latino voters were asked about the high level of deportations of immigrants under the Obama administration.”
At Time Swampland Massimo Calabresi reports on Romney’s dithering response to the President’s immigration reform initiative. “Romney could hardly embrace Obama’s new policy without cost. If did he would alienate the nativist base of the GOP already sensitive to the idea that with the nomination secure he will abandon the right and run for the center…Given the carefully choreographed roll-out, there was no way Romney could just ignore the issue. That was part of the cleverness of the Obama move. Not only was it a sharp and targeted wedge aimed at splitting two voting blocs Romney needs in November.”
Surf far and wide, but you won’t find a more apt capsule description of the GOP response to the President’s initiative than the title of a PoliticusUSA article by Jason Easely and Sarah Jones: “Obama’s Immigration Surprise Triggers an Epic Blubbering Right Wing Meltdown.”
Kenneth T. Walsh reports at U.S. News on a clever Democratic tactic — pre-shadowing Romney’s campaign stops with a “middle-class under the bus” tour — “with news conferences and media interviews that are severely critical of Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts and as a businessman. The Democrats are planning to shadow Romney in Michigan today with stops in Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Detroit.”
Thomas B. Edsall’s “Canaries in the Coal Mine” in the NYT takes a look at “highly volatile…shifting loyalties” of white working-class voters revealed in exit poll data provided by political scientists Alan Abramowitz and Sam Best, and notes: “The correlation between support from working class whites and Democratic victory suggests that the party takes a great risk when it downplays the importance of this segment of the electorate, as some strategists are wont to do.” However, noted Edsaall, “the white working class is declining steadily as a share of the electorate; and second, Democrats have made huge gains in a previously Republican constituency, well-educated white professionals, many with advanced degrees.”
For the definitive critique of Gallup’s survey methods, look no further than Mark Blumenthal’s post, “Race Matters: Why Gallup Poll Finds Less Support For President Obama ” at HuffPo Pollster. A teaser: “…A dramatic fall in response rates has led to what pollsters call “non-response bias” in their raw data. Partly because survey response rates are typically lowest in urban areas, unweighted samples routinely under-represent black and Hispanic Americans.”
Paul Waldman sums it up nicely in his post on ‘Economic hearts and Minds” at The American Prospect: “It would be electoral malpractice of the highest order for the Obama campaign not to stir up at least some populist resentment at a figure like Romney, particularly when his policy proposals, like those of all Republicans, are such a pure expression of trickle-down economics.”
Gary Hart argues in his New York Times article, “The Democratic Road Not Taken” that “The Democratic response of triangulation and centrism, essentially splitting the difference between reactionary liberalism and increasingly virulent conservatism, cost the party its identity…As Todd S. Purdum described this phenomenon recently in Vanity Fair, “the Democrats came across more and more as the crouched consolidators and defenders of past gains.” Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein echoed this conclusion in their new book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.” The Democrats, they write, “have become the more status-quo oriented, centrist protectors of government.”
FiveThirtyEight’s new series on “Presidential Geography” looks like a must-read for political junkies. Micah Cohen launches the series with an insightful demographic and political profile of New Mexico.

Ed Kilgore sets the stage at The Washington Monthly for President Obama’s “reboot” speech today in bellwether Ohio: “A “reboot” isn’t needed because of the “private sector is fine” gaffe or the alleged rebellion of the Clintonites or the sudden bullishness on Romney on Wall Street or any of the other snail’s-eye-view crap we’ve been hearing the last week or so. It’s needed to reflect a full commitment by the Obama campaign to a comparative message…”
Has Obama’s message been too complex? Michael Finnegan argues that it is in the L.A. Times: “But when it comes to the core message that each candidate is trying to get across in TV ads and campaign appearances, Romney has boiled it down to a simple argument. Obama has not…Blaming Obama is indeed the premise of Romney’s argument, along with a promise to create jobs by shrinking government…Obama’s counter-argument is layered with nuance and complexity.”
In their Common Dreams post, “Wisconsin Blues” (via Reader Supported News), George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling have some framing advice for progressives in the wake of the WI Recall: “What progressives need to do is clear. To people who have mixed values – partly progressive, partly conservative – talk progressive values in progressive language, thus strengthening progressive moral views in their brains. Never move to the right thinking you’ll get more cooperation that way…Start telling deep truths out loud all day every day: Democracy is about citizens caring about each other. The Public is necessary for The Private. Pensions are delayed earnings for work already done; eliminating them is theft. Unions protect workers from corporate exploitation – low salaries, no job security, managerial threats, and inhumane working conditions. Public schools are essential to opportunity, and not just financially: they provide the opportunity to make the most of students’ skills and interests. They are also essential to democracy, since democracy requires an educated citizenry at large…”
Aaron Blake’s post, “House GOP previews fall ad strategy ” at The Fix is more about how much the NRCC is spending on campaign ads and where than on message content.
In similar vein, Dave Nyczepir reports on “5 media markets already flooded with ads” at Campaigns & Elections.
Also at WaPo, Paul Farhi asks “Presidential campaign ads are ubiquitous, but do they work?” Farhi notes, “John Kerry and his Democratic allies ran almost 200,000 more commercials than George W. Bush did in 2004 and lost in a close election. On the other hand, Obama had a narrower advertising advantage over Sen. John McCain in 2008 and won relatively easily.”
In his L.A. Times article, “Arizona shows Democrats’ strength, weakness on retirement programs,” Dan Turner has a different take on Rob Barber’s win in AZ: “If there’s a less obvious takeaway from the Arizona election, it might have something to do with Social Security and Medicare. Republicans grumble that their candidate, Jesse Kelly, who lost to Giffords in a narrow contest in 2010, failed this time around only because Barber was the emotional favorite…but the fact remains that the district in question has a comfortable GOP majority and Barber was heavily outspent. Meanwhile, the major area of difference between the two candidates concerned Medicare and Social Security, and it would be tough to deny that Kelly’s hard-line stance on privatizing these federal entitlement programs scared off many of the district’s elderly voters of both parties.”
At National Journal’s ‘Hotline on Call,’ Sean Sullivan adds: “The early vote accounted for about 75 percent of the total vote in Arizona on Tuesday, a disparity the Barber campaign anticipated, given recent voter patterns. In 2010, Gabrielle Giffords won the early vote but lost the Election Day tally. The same thing happened to Kelly in the special election primary this year.”
Fun stat of the day: Romney tanking in his three home states.

In my June 8 post on “The Recall in Broader Perspective,” I briefly referenced the GOP meme “that public workers have extravagant pensions, propagated by Republicans who amplify a few horror stories as emblematic of public worker retirement benefits.” It’s part and parcel of a broader Republican scam vilifying public workers as overcompensated in general.
For a revealing example, see Josh Barro’s Bloomberg.com post, “Does Obama Know Why the Public Sector Isn’t ‘Doing Fine’?” in which he spotlights city employees of San Jose, CA, where

…Costs for a full-time equivalent employee are astronomical and skyrocketing. San Jose spends $142,000 per FTE [full-time employee] on wages and benefits, up 85 percent from 10 years ago. As a result, the city shed 28 percent of its workforce over that period, even as its population was rising.

The unspoken, but unmistakable gist of Barro’s post is “See, those greedy public workers are responsible for causing their own layoffs.” Without even taking a look at nation-wide data, Barro is clearly suggesting in his post’s title that San Jose’s experience is somehow typical of public workers in cities across the nation. Worse, he takes it a step further and blames public worker unions in his concluding sentence, “If the president wants to know why state and local governments can’t afford to hire, he could start by asking his own supporters in public employee unions.”
That’s why Romney can say stuff about President Obama like “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message in Wisconsin?” and get away with it, while media dimwits point their fingers at Obama for his one gaffe in three years.
Had Barro clearly presented his horror story as an exceptional case, that would be defensible. Or had he backed it up with some credible national data, you could grudgingly credit him with a solid argument. But he didn’t do that because he couldn’t.
As David Cooper, Mary Gable, and Algernon Austin of the Economic Policy Institute note in their report, “The public-sector jobs crisis“:

Despite these significantly higher levels of education–and contrary to assertions by some governors in recent state-level debates–the most rigorous studies have consistently shown that state and local government employees earn less both in wages and total compensation than comparable private-sector workers (Keefe 2010). Using data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey and standard regression models for wage analyses, we compared the wage income of private-sector employees with that of state and local government workers. After controlling for education, experience, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, full-time/part-time status, number of hours worked, citizenship status, Census region, metropolitan status (whether residing within or outside the boundaries of a major metropolitan area), and employer size, we find that state and local government employees make, on average, 11.7 percent less in wages than similar private-sector employees.

if those greedy public workers can be faulted for their extravagant compensation packages, what should be done about their better-paid private sector cohorts?
Look, none of this is to deny that there are public worker pension/salary horror stories. But it takes a pretty shameless media to imply that extravagantly compensated public workers are the norm. Is it too much to ask that some honest journalists call Romney out on it?

Devin Dwyer reports at ABC News that Romney’s gaffe, “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message in Wisconsin?,” in response to Obama’s gaffe about the private sector doing fine, is getting some attention.
At The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza addresses a rather important topic the horse-race obsessed media seems to be ignoring: “The Second Term: What would Obama do if reëlected?”
You’ve probably seen several different analyses of how the electoral vote is shaping up, particularly in the “swing states.” Micah Cohen pulls them together, crunches the numbers and measures the consensus against FiveThirty Eight.com’s model:, Which “distinguishes between states that are true tossups and states that are merely competitive. While the term tossup is usually applied to about 12 states, the model sees a true coin-flip in only Ohio and Colorado, and a near coin-flip in Iowa, Virginia and Nevada. States like New Hampshire, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, meanwhile, are certainly in play, but one candidate has a clearer advantage.”
President Obama had a rough week, but at least his address to Netroots Nation 2012 provides a good reality check.
Turns out Romney’s “blind trust” isn’t so blind, after all, reports Brian Montopoli at CBS News. “There has to be some reason for the preferential tax treatment that he is receiving,” Obama for America General Counsel Robert Bauer said on a conference call with reporters. Bauer said the fact that Romney is paying a 15 percent tax rate on the income, the tax rate for carried interest, suggests Romney is performing services for the company despite claims that he is no longer tied to it…University of Colorado law professor Victor Fleischer told CBS News that continued payments from the company to the candidate create a potential conflict of interest.”
Hotline staff reports that there is a bummer in the Wisconsin recall silver lining for Dems — taking control of the state Senate: “…It turns out that victory is meaningless: the legislature is not due to convene again before the fall election and Republican lawmakers gerrymandered the state Senate districts well enough to their advantage during redistricting that they should recapture it afterward.”
The AP’s Charles Babington reports that 7 out of 10 “battleground states” have better-than-the-national-average unemployment rates.
Democratic women outnumber Republican women by better than 2-1 in both the house and senate, according the the Center for American Women in Politics. But Dems are still not doing enough to recruit, train and elect women candidates.
Next time some ignoramus starts popping off about how unions are no longer needed, send them this post from Daily Kos, “Thank a Union: 36 Ways Unions Have Improved Your Life.”
Excellent speech delivery is President Obama’s strongest card. But as Leslie Savan argues in The Nation, a more combative style, a la Chris Matthews, would serve him well. Savon quotes Matthews in a recent talk show appearance: “He’s got to be aggressive. He’s got to be big time,” Matthews said. “Stop this nickel and dime, ‘a couple bucks for the teachers, a couple bucks for the firefighters. I’m going to reduce the payroll tax.’ This is piss-ant. You can’t get re-elected with tactics. He needs a strategy. Which is, ‘we’re different from the Republicans.’ ” And when former George W. Bush deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said, “This Republican obstruction story is fantasy,” Savan reports that “Matthews drove a bulldozer over him: “You’re the roadblock party, the other party is the highway party.” (A possible slogan?)

No matter how much lipstick we put on the pig, there’s no evading the fact that Republicans beat Democrats in five of six elections in Wisconsin on Tuesday, one of the worst days Dems have experienced in recent years.
The Monitor’s Peter Grier piles on, quoting former PA Governor Ed Rendell, who said “It was a dumb political fight – I would have waited until Walker’s reelection…If we’re [peeved off] at what a person does in office, the answer is to beat them when they’re up for reelection” and former Rep. Barney Frank, who added “My side picked a fight they shouldn’t have picked.” Grier adds,

Plus, the recall election was a rerun of the state’s 2010 gubernatorial race, with Walker facing the same opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. The “Groundhog Day” aspect of the vote only added to voter perceptions that it was somehow a distortion of the normal political process, according to Rendell.

Yet Rendell and Frank, as well as triumphalist Republicans are missing the big picture. Broaden the time frame, and it becomes clear that the recall coalition helped to check Republican union-bashing.
Republicans made crushing of the labor movement a cornerstone of their grand strategy to clobber Democrats in November. By destroying public workers’ unions, especially in swing states, they hope to eliminate a major source of Democratic funding and campaign manpower. They won the Wisconsin battle, at least temporarily. But even there, they will be checked by Democratic control of the state senate, barring a corrupt recount. Their war is stalled.
Their union-bashing initiative was turned back, make that humiliated in Ohio, where Republican Governor Kasich ate a big plate of progressive Democratic crow. As E. J. Dionne, Jr. recounts,

It’s worth comparing what happened in Wisconsin with what happened last year in Ohio, where unions forced a referendum on the anti-labor legislation pushed through by Gov. John Kasich (R) and the Republican-controlled legislature. The unions and the Democrats won 61 percent in that vote, repealing the law. But this remedy was not available in Wisconsin…

After that heady experience, it’s understandable how WI Dems would think they could unhorse Walker. But it should now be clear that statewide recall elections are rarely good strategy. More importantly, Wisconsin progressives did not have the option of a referendum or initiative like Ohio. They needed to give Walker a big headache, and the recall looked doable in the early part of the mobilization. With benefit of hindsight, the recall effort should have been confined to members of the legislature and mobilizing to defeat Walker in the next cycle.
Last August Wisconsin Dems picked up two state senate seats as a result of the protests, and Tuesday they nailed a senate majority. “Voters used state Senate races to signal their dissatisfaction with Walker’s overreach and thus put the retained governor on notice,” notes Dionne. That’s an impressive victory for a statewide progressive coalition.
The Wisconsin protests may also have deterred union-bashing in neighboring Minnesota, where Republican state legislators decided not to push a right-to-work bill in the 2012 session. In Indiana, however, Governor Mitch Daniels signed a “right-to-work” bill into law on February 1.
Looking ahead, Republicans will be crowing about Walker’s big win and how they are going to replicate it all over the country. But Walker’s agenda will be hobbled by Democratic control of the state Senate. He will reign as a GOP golden boy for a bit, but the possibility of a criminal investigation looms over his near future. Walker knows that his little war on unions has had a price and there is more to come if he wants it. The lesson is not likely to be lost on more sober Republican governors.
In terms of national strategy, Dionne writes,

For the left, conservative hubris would be the best outcome from Wisconsin. Nothing would do more to push swing voters the progressives’ way. But liberals and labor are operating in a difficult environment. They need to pick their fights carefully and match their energy with a new discipline and a cool realism about the power arrayed against them.

As for organized labor, they clearly have work to do in promoting solidarity between public and private sector workers in their own ranks, as well as with unorganized workers across America. They also have to more effectively challenge the meme that public workers have extravagant pensions, propagated by Republicans who amplify a few horror stories as emblematic of public worker retirement benefits. To grow, they have to begin experimenting more creatively with new forms of union membership, benefits and recruitment.
Meanwhile, exit polls indicate Obama is still running strong in Wisconsin. There is also reason to hope that the coalition progressives put together will benefit Democrats in November and beyond. The Wisconsin progressive coalition and the Occupy campaigns have done a lot to energize and mobilize a movement for economic justice, which may yet prevail. In that context, Walker’s win shrinks considerably.

Ron Brownstein has a couple of recent posts tracking white working class political attitudes that should be of interest to presidential campaign strategists. In “Working Class Whites Still Wary of Obamacare,” he explains:

The problem, as on almost all issues relating to government’s role, is centered on whites, particularly those in the working class. According to figures provided by Kaiser, in their latest survey, 35 percent of non-white respondents believe that the law will benefit their family. That compares to just 14 percent who believe they will be worse off (the remaining 39 percent don’t think it will make much difference). Whites offer nearly a mirror image: just 18 percent believe the law will leave their family better off, compared to 38 percent who believe they will be worse off as a result.
The skepticism among whites is most concentrated among whites without a college degree. Just one-in-seven of them believe health care reform will personally benefit them or their family. Among college whites about one-in-four expect to personally benefit from the reform.
Gallup Polling in March 2010 found that while few whites expected to personally benefit from the law, a majority of them believed it would benefit low-income families and those without health insurance. That suggested they viewed health care reform primarily as a welfare program that would help the needy but not their own families. Kaiser didn’t replicate that question in their latest survey, but it may have detected an echo of that sentiment in the finding that twice as many whites believed the law would benefit children than thought it would help their own family.

Ironically, adds Brownstein, “…non-college whites are uninsured at much higher rates than those with degrees; for that reason, the law would personally benefit far more of them than the college-educated whites who are somewhat more open to it.” Yet, “the targets of that effort remain entirely unconvinced that the law will benefit them. Rather than ameliorating their skepticism that government will defend their interests, it appears to have only intensified it.”
Brownstein warns that the skepticism about the ACA is “another brick on the load Obama is carrying with white working class voters, who appear poised in polls to reject him at levels no Democratic presidential nominee has experienced since 1984.”
In another post, “How Diversity Divides White America,” Brownstein addresses white working class attitudes towards immigrants revealed in the just released Pew Research 2012 Values Survey:

Among college-educated whites who identify as Democrats-an increasingly central pillar of the party’s coalition-over four-in-five say that the immigrants do not threaten American values. But nearly two-thirds of Republicans without a college degree-an increasingly central pillar of the GOP coalition-do consider immigrants a threat to American traditions…That overwhelming unease among the blue-collar (and older) white voters central to GOP electoral prospects today represents a huge hurdle for the Republican strategists who want the party to expand its Hispanic outreach.

One conclusion to be drawn from both of Brownstein’s articles is that the Obama campaign should upgrade it’s outreach to white workers as a large constituency which benefits from Obama’s reforms, yet remains unpersuaded — doubt which the Republicans are eagerly prepared to reinforce in their ad campaigns.

John Sides has some revealing graphics up at The Washington Monthly which demolish the myth of “Independent” voters as a large, politically moderate third force.
From John Nichols’ wrap-up “Recall Campaign Against Scott Walker Fails” at The Nation: “The failure of the campaign against Walker, while heartbreaking for Wisconsin union families and the great activist movement that developed to counter the governor and his policies, offers profound lessons not just for Wisconsin but for a nation that is wrestling with fundamental questions of how to counter corporate and conservative power in a Citizens United moment…The “money power” populists and progressives of another era identified as the greatest threat to democracy has now organized itself as a force that cannot be easily thwarted even by determined “people power…The right has developed a far more sophisticated money-in-politics template than it has ever before employed. That template worked in Wisconsin, on behalf of a deeply divisive and scandal-plagued governor…There was, as well, a huge problem with messaging as regards the recall itself. Walker’s theme for the better part of year–reinforced in paid advertising and constant appearances on his favored news network, Fox–was that the recall election was a costly partisan temper tantrum. The criticism was never really countered.”
The Progressive editor Matthew Rothschild has harsh words for the white house and DNC for avoiding Wisconsin, but gives Walker some credit: “As much as I can’t stand the man, Walker proved to be a formidable candidate. He stayed on message. He was a pesky debater. He was unflappable. He cultivated a down-to-earth image with his jacket off and his shirtsleeves rolled up and his aw-shucks demeanor. And he said two plus two equals five with a straight face and basset eyes. Even as he had the worst jobs record of any governor in the country, he talked about how great he was creating jobs, and when the numbers weren’t in his favor, he wheeled out different numbers. Brazen, yes, but it worked…He flipped these numbers around by running ads on the airwaves all winter long, from Thanksgiving through the Super Bowl and right up to the Democratic primaries. Even on the night of those primaries, he was on the air bashing Tom Barrett.”
But Walker’s rising star may yet flame out in a swamp of criminal accusations, reports Matthew DeLuca at the Daily Beast.
Former Bush speechwriter/WaPo columnist Michael Gerson argues that the Wisconsin vote also reflects a legitimate concern about excessive pension commitments to public workers. He offers no Wisconsin data to support his point, but it would be interesting to find out if the pro-Walker ad campaign leveraged the meme.
Looking for an antidote to progressive demoralization in the wake if Wisconsin? Check out this program for the 7th Annual Netroots Nation, beginning today in Providence, RI.
Looking toward the next possible blow to Democratic prospects, Greg Stohr’s “Voting-Rights Surprise at High Court May Foreshadow Health Care” at Bloomberg Businessweek offers this chilling note: “The secret to successful advocacy is simply to get the court to ask your opponent more questions,” Roberts wrote in a law review article adapted from a speech he gave on Supreme Court arguments. More comprehensive studies have reached similar conclusions…The chief justice himself was one-sided in the health-care case, interjecting 23 times during [U.S. Solicitor General} Verrilli’s hour on the insurance requirement and only seven times as opponents of the law made their arguments. Kennedy interrupted Verrilli six times, compared with four times during the other side’s time.”
Mike Hall reports at AFL-CIO Now that “ALEC Resignations Grow, Pressure on Others Mounts“: “For those of us keeping score, 19 major corporations and 54 state legislators have cut their ties with the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Now pressure is mounting for other major corporations to join the exodus from ALEC and its agenda of voter suppression, union-busting and immigrant bashing.”
L.A. Times reporters Jean Merl and Richard Simon say “California’s new setup a hurdle for Democrats’ bid to retake House.”

There are two items of good news in the Wisconsin Recall Bummer. First, Democrats won back control of the state senate, with former Sen. John Lehman (D-Racine) defeating incumbent Van Wanggaard in a squeaker. As Lee Bergquist, reports in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

Results posted early Wednesday showed Lehman with 36,255 votes to 35,476 for Wanggaard with 100% of precincts reporting. The margin of 779 could bring a recount.
…If Lehman’s win holds, Democrats assume a 17-16 majority, at least until next November’s elections. It’s unknown whether the Senate will convene in a special session before then…In November, 16 of the 33 Senate seats are up for election.
Wanggaard’s district – closely matched between Republicans and Democrats – covers much of Racine County. It’s been one of the most volatile in recent Wisconsin history, flipping back and forth five times between the two parties in the last 22 years.

Even if Lehman’s win sticks, Dems won’t be able to move any legislation past the state senate. But they should be able to check Walker and the Republicans to some extent.
The other piece of good news is that exit polls indicate that President Obama had a 9-point lead over Gov. Romney in the Wisconsin exit polls. However, as Chris Cillizza noted at The Fix;

…Exit polls show Walker winning 17 percent of Obama supporters — much higher than Democrat Tom Barrett’s 6 percent of Mitt Romney supporters. Overall, the electorate that turned out today is backing Obama by a significant margin: 52 percent to 43 percent.
Now, all of this comes with a giant caveat; the exit polls initially were pretty far off, showing a close race between Walker and Barrett. Thus, Republicans are casting doubt that they mean much of anything at all.

As for the painful lessons for Dems, you will find plenty of opinions across the blogosphere and MSM. Boiled down, one lesson is that recall elections are generally a tough sell. As Scott Clement, Peyton M. Craighill and Jon Cohen report in in another post at The Fix,

…About three in 10 said recall elections are appropriate for any reason, according to preliminary exit poll results. But the answer depends heavily on whether your party’s candidate is being dragged to the ballot box before their term is up. Republicans said by a near unanimous margin that recall elections are never appropriate or only appropriate in the case of official misconduct. But slight majority of Democratic voters said recall elections are appropriate “for any reason.”

Another lesson is that organized labor needs to do a better job of educating the public about their contributions and role in protecting the middle class. Too many voters seem to have bought into negative stereotypes about “big labor,” as a result of labor-bashing propaganda, which now seems to be an even bigger element of the GOP agenda. Unions need more assertive mass media/public education outreach.
A third painful lesson is that even great GOTV doesn’t necessarily trump money. Barrett was outspent 7-1, which can’t be unrelated to his defeat. An interesting question here is whether Walker also had energetic street-level GOTV or just an ad war edge.
If lessons are learned and strategy is tweaked accordingly, Democrats should be able to hone their edge for future campaigns.

The blogosphere is laden with interesting articles about today’s recall election in Wisconsin. At the Madison-based Progressive magazine, Editor Mathew Rothschild and Political Editor Ruth Conniff explain “What’s at Stake in Wisconsin,” to help set the stage:

After a year and a half of historic protests and unprecedented citizen activism, the recall is a referendum on whether grassroots, democratic action can overcome the power of money in the Citizens United era…In February and March of 2011, Wisconsinites organized the largest sustained mass rallies for public sector workers in the history of the United States and the biggest outpouring of labor activism since the 1930s…The whole country is waiting to see whether or not citizens can overcome the corporate takeover of government in Madison.

The Recall coalition has a compelling case for getting rid of Walker, as Conniff and Rothschild explain:

Walker has made the largest cuts to public education in the history of the state, eviscerating our top-tier public schools as well as a model university and technical college system. In the birthplace of the public employees’ union, AFSCME, he overturned public employees’ right to bargain collectively. He has moved to disempower the state legislature, do away with open meetings, and shred the robust regulatory apparatus that has made Wisconsin a model of good government, environmental protection, and progressive ideals.
…Even as Republican attacks on women were making headlines around the country, Walker was quietly signing legislation to make it illegal for women to sue for compensatory or punitive damages when they’ve been discriminated against in the workplace. He rolled back accurate, age-appropriate sex education. He cut funding for preventive health care at Planned Parenthood clinics. He banned private health insurers from covering abortion in state health insurance exchanges starting in 2014 in almost all instances. And he required a woman who is seeking an abortion to have a one-on-one consultation with a doctor prior to the procedure. The doctor must ascertain whether she is being pressured to have an abortion, and any doctor who doesn’t do that can be prosecuted for a felony.
…Walker and the Republicans pushed through legislation endangering Wisconsin wetlands…[pushed for] massive cuts to public education and an across-the-board attack on everything from labor rights to tenant rights, from health care for the poor to nursing home care for the elderly…As for Walker’s “jobs” agenda, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Wisconsin had the single worst record in the nation for job losses from January 2011 to January 2012.
All of this in a legislative session that, the governor said, would be all about “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

It’s hard to name a major demographic group Walker hasn’t screwed in some way, other than wealthy Republican contributors. Also at The Progressive, Political Editor Ruth Conniff reports on Walker’s increasing legal problems and allegations that he is a target of a federal investigation into possibie criminal activity during his tenure as county executive and governor. Conniff says “Recent campaign finance filings show that Walker has transferred a total of $160,000 into a criminal defense fund–the only criminal defense fund maintained by a governor of any state in the nation.”
Since there is no indictment yet, Walker’s developing legal problems probably won’t be much of a factor in today’s vote. Regardless of the vote, however, Wisconsin voters could become increasingly sour on Walker and his party by November, especially if Walker’s legal problems multiply.
The most recent polls indicate a close election. John Nichols has a “A Wisconsin Recall FAQ” at The Nation, which sheds light on Barrett’s geographic strategy:

While the Democrat has to renew his party’s appeal statewide — after the disastrous 2010 election — his primary focus is on the Democratic heartlands of Dane County (Madison) and Milwaukee County, as well as industrial cities such as Sheboygan and Racine. Statewide, turnout fell from 69 percent in the very strong Democratic year of 2008 to 49 percent in the very Republican year of 2010.
Much of the falloff came within the city of Milwaukee, where 90,000 people who did vote in 2008 did not vote in 2010. Countywide, 134,000 people who voted in 2008 did not vote in 2010…Scott Walker’s winning margin in 2010 was 124,000 votes. A presidential-level turnout in Milwaukee County could reverse it with 10,000 votes to spare.
Will that happen? Probably not. Milwaukee turnout will need to be accentuated by a spike in turnout in Racine, a historical manufacturing city south of Milwaukee where voting in 2010 was way off from 2008.

Nichols notes that, not surprisingly, Mayor Barrett, former president Clinton and Jesse Jackson all three focused their campaigning in Milwaukee and Racine. Nichols adds “Both sides have put top recount lawyers on notice that their services might be needed. The Democrats have retained Mark Elias, who guided U.S. Senator Al Franken through his 2008-2009 recount fight in Minnesota,” adds Nichols. “Wisconsin law allows for a full recount — at no cost — if the margin in a contested election is less than 0.5 percent. The governor’s race could be that close, as could several of the state Senate contests.”
The New Republic explores possible counter-intuitive boomerang effects of today’s vote on the presidential outcome in November. Noam Scheiber worries that a Mayor Barrett victory over Governor Walker would encourage the Romney campaign to invest billions more in GOTV, but adds “…I do think a Barrett win would be better for Obama in Wisconsin, since it’s likely to deter Romney from going all-out in the state, while a Walker win would give Romney hope and probably demoralize Democrats there.”
Alec MacGillis’s TNR take is that a Walker win today could actually bode well for President Obama’s re-election:

…There are also going to be some swing voters who are going to be voting less on those big ideological questions than on the more general question of whether things are going okay. If these swing voters believe that things are gradually coming back in Wisconsin — no sure thing, given that the jobs expansion there has been less clear than in Ohio — they may decide to vote for Walker less out of ideological solidarity than because they figure it’s foolish to rock the boat with the rare act of a recall. And here’s the thing — to the extent that Wisconsin swing voters draw that conclusion about Walker, they may also be led to support Obama’s reelection, to stick with the guy in charge. Hard as it may be to believe, there is no question these Walker/Obama voters exist — after all, the same polls that have Walker ahead of Barrett in the polls tend to also have Obama ahead of Romney, albeit by a narrowing margin.

Walker may benefit from a belief that Recall elections should be used sparingly. As Citizen Dave Cieslewicz puts it in his post at The Progressive:

The most problematic issue for Barrett may wind up being voters who don’t like Walker’s policies but just don’t believe in recalls. Those voters probably believe that recalls should be reserved for criminal wrong-doing, and the John Doe probe of Walker’s county executive office aides might not be enough for them.

If Cieslewicz is right, much depends on how persuadable swing voters feel about recall elections in general, a good topic to probe in future polls.
The latest polls point to narrowing lead for Scott Walker, indications are it will be a close election. And regardless of the outcome, just making it a cliff-hanger would be a great victory for Wisconsin progressives. Perhaps even more importantly, it sets a solid organizational foundation for victory in the next progressive campaign.
In a way, the Wisconsin Recall has already won something important: showing how an energized, progressive coalition can inspire and educate millions of voters. As Katrina vanden Heuval puts the election in historical perspective in her WaPo op-ed:

…When the results come in, reflect on the vast organizing effort that brought Wisconsin to this moment — and imagine where it still has the potential to go. Elections are over in a matter of hours, but movements are made of weeks, months and years. The Declaration of Sentiments was issued at Seneca Falls in 1848, yet women did not gain the right to vote until seven decades later. The Civil War ended with a Union victory in 1865, yet the Voting Rights Act was not passed until a century later. Auto workers held the historic Flint sit-down strike in 1936-37, yet the fight for a fair, unionized workforce persists 75 years later.

Win or lose today, coming even close sustains hope and gives Dems leverage in the next election. That’s a victory worth celebrating.