Yep, the alarms are sounding in the gated communities of Have-More-istan. Rick Ungar posted this afternoon on the Forbes magazine website:
Scott Walker’s Election Nightmare in Wisconsin
While some $1.4 million of special interest money was spent in support of the unknown challenger by the unions and other left -leaning groups, the lion’s share of the cash dedicated to the election came from Koch Brothers financed organizations and the right-wing Club For Growth on behalf of of Justice Prosser.
It’s not every day that the right-wing uber-rich can outspend the Democrats by nearly 2-1 and find themselves in a close election. That had to get some GOP stomachs churning.
When Election Day arrived, those GOP churning tummies blossomed into full blown heartburn as voters turned out record numbers for what is typically a very low priority election. Big turn out is never a good thing for the GOP.
SNIP
But from the perspective of what this election means to Walker and friends going forward, it no longer really matters who wins the race as Governor Walker and the GOP controlled state legislature have clearly lost-and lost big.
There's a lot of interesting details. For example, I did not previously know that in the general election run-off, which was held a few months before Walker decided to try the life of a despot, Republican and incumbent Prosser won 55% of the vote, and Kloppenburg received only 25%.
Or, look at this:
. . . consider that Judge Prosser won his last election to the bench by garnering 99.54% of the 550,000 votes cast. That is no typo – Prosser actually won almost every single vote that was cast.
Ungar ends with this warning to the rich and powerful who thought they had it in their grasp to crush America's labor unions and shred what's left of our social safety net:
The inescapable bottom line is that the many political miscalculations of Scott Walker are now coming home to roost and even Koch Brothers money is unlikely to be enough to bail the governor and the state GOP out of the huge hole they have dug for themselves.
It wouldn’t be a terrible idea if GOP governors and congressional members from around the nation take heed of the lessons of Scott Walker’s April election nightmare. If they continue to force the right-wing revolution down the throats of an unappreciative public, there will be a large price to pay.
I wonder if the White House is paying, attention, also. I've been waiting to see the bully pulpit used against the tea-hadist bullies.