Notes on Wisconsin: 1) Tomorrow’s recall may not be the “second most important election this year,” as some observers have claimed. It may be the first; 2) The ramifications for American government, which are profound, vastly outweigh ramifications for the Obama/Romney presidential campaign, which are secondary at best, even though national reporters like to go on about them, perhaps because doing so avoids … 3) The union issue: It’s a “referendum on the future of public sector unions” and maybe unions generally. Pretending it’s about other things is a bit like saying the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. Sure, there were other issues. Still …. 4) Previously unthinkable: The important lesson, if Walker wins, is that it’s possible to cut back on what the Left terms “collective bargaining rights” and get away with it. In other words, they aren’t rights in the Constitutional sense-no matter what Bob Beckel might say on The Five. They are creations of statutes, and statutes can be modified or repealed. When Reagan busted PATCO, he was acting within the relevant statute (which wasn’t the regular Wagner Act.) This goes beyond that. … If Walker loses, that will make two cases in a row where pols have attempted to structurally cripple public unionism and gotten their heads handed to them. (The other case is Kasich in Ohio.) … 5) I’m for Walker. Even if you support private sector unionism, I don’t think public sector unionism makes sense–if the unions win too much, we can’t let the government go broke the way we cqn let GM go broke [bad example-ed you get the point–the market’s restraints aren’t there]. Democrats who believe in affirmative government should want it to be as efficient and affordable as possible–so we can afford more of it, if necessary. The combination of official bureaucracy plus labor adversarialism plus dues-fueled political contributions has not been a happy one.. …
P.S.: As far as I can tell–and I watched it twice–the CBS Evening News did not bury its story on tomorrow’s crucial election. They didn’t run it at all. Nothing. Zip. And they say the liberal MSM is downplaying the recall in anticipation of a likely Walker victory. It’s as if Dan Rather were still alive. … Scott Pelley did find time to report that there were no people killed by tornadoes–which I guess couldn’t have been held for a day. You never know when someone will be killed by a tornado, and then CBS would lose the story. … Pelley also featured a longish piece on the emergence of a “core of young cool royals” in the U.K. . But not uncool elected geeks in the Heartland. …
P.P.S.: Obama has now decisively intervened in the race, with a tweet. … He didn’t even use all 140 characters. … It’s an effort so self-protective and wussy it may come to stand for the President’s ineffectuality. Next he’ll tweet his opposition to Assad. …