Losing an election sucks, no question about it, but it happens. I was prepared for it and I am comforted by the fact that Scott Walker will soon be indicted and most likely convicted on a boatload of corruption charges. Yeah, it would have been nice to take him down before that, but it didn't happen.
I'm amused that some pundits are suggesting that this elevates Walker into a possible Presidential contender in the future. He will never make it to 2016, much less 2020. He might be out on parole by then, but he won't be anybody's nominee. I can honestly say I will lose no sleep over this election. It's one day. The movement rolls on. Tomorrow we decide the next step in how to creatively and effectively slow down the Walker agenda.
What bothers me is talking to a parent of one of my daughter's friends who was downtown tonight. She is a state employee and told me she's having a hard time deciding how to tell her daughter that she will have to cut out dance lessons. She also told me that their house update and maintenance plans are now scrapped. Maintenance is always one of the first things to be cut when budgets are tight.
What bothers me is coming home and not being able to comfort my wife, a public school teacher who has no idea what her salary will be when her union contract runs out next year. She could have her salary cut by as much as 30%, on top of the cuts in take-home pay she has already absorbed. What can I say when she says we should sell our house and not wait until we find out next year that we can no longer afford the mortgage payment? She's probably right.
It's a nice house that we had built the way we wanted it. We worked twenty years to be able to afford it. Frankly I have no emotional attachment to houses, probably because I grew up as a military brat. It's tough on my wife, though, who grew up in a big-city apartment where there was never any room to do anything. Our house represents achievement to her. It's the uncertainty that gets to her, though. What will they take next?
Actually, we know the answer to that: her pension. It's a defined benefit plan that is one of the best managed state retirement systems in the country. Walker wants to allow the 401K thieves to get their hands on it.
These are stressful decisions for a family, but they are not the worst problems to have by any means. It's the constant meanness, the bullying, the scapegoating that is wearing down the public employees. I see it every day. There is also a feeling of betrayal. After years of foregoing salary increases to maintain safe pensions and decent health benefits, public workers have been stabbed in the back, and what really hurts is knowing 54% of their neighbors relish their pain and want to twist the knife even more.
I'm disappointed at the election results, but I'm more concerned that at my son's high school graduation last Saturday, the administrators thanked everyone except the teachers. Everybody else got a round of applause, but the teachers, many of them attending the ceremony, were ignored.
Ultimately it is about the people who allow themselves to be fooled, who want to be given simple answers. Walker is a symptom.
Sleep well. Back to work in the morning.
6:59 AM PT: What a great way to wake up. It turns out we took the state Senate last night when John Lehman beat Van Waangard in Senate District 21.
That's a big deal. That means at least another 6 months with Walker handcuffed by having no ability to get legislation passed. No right-to-work, no stealing of public pensions, no punitive laws aimed at his political enemies. We have everything we had yesterday at this time, plus control of the state Senate.
7:23 AM PT: After looking at the numbers a little closer, I have to agree with kos in his front page article. A lot of voters treated this not as an election, but as a referendum on whether Walker's behavior rose to the level of recallability. They decided no, which boggles my mind, but last night was not a Walker lovefest as some will portray it (Wisconsin State Journal.)