WAUKESHA, Wis. — The brawl over whether to recall Gov. Scott Walker is a taut preview of what’s coming to campaigns across America this year.
Wisconsin voters will decide Tuesday whether to remove the Republican from office and replace him with Democrat Thomas Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee. Under fire for cutting budgets at the expense of public employees, Walker would be only the third governor in U.S. history yanked from office in a recall election. Walker has an edge, but the race is close.
The campaign will mean more than who governs Wisconsin. It’s a test case of the larger clashes in American politics driving elections for the presidency and control of Congress, highlighting divisions over the costs of government. Backed by money pouring in from out of state, the race is raising questions that will echo across the country.
Can a tough-minded conservative Republican force cutbacks in government at the risk of angering public employees unions and still win a swing state such as Wisconsin? Will voters think he’s doing the best he can in a tough time? Or will they rise in a grassroots backlash against a well-financed Republican effort?
The answers could be telling, given Wisconsin’s political history. The state has been a bellwether in recent years. It elected a Democratic governor and U.S. senator by wide margins in 2006 — part of a nationwide turn to the Democrats at the end of the George W. Bush years. It went easily for President Barack Obama in 2008, a key part of his win. And in 2010, voters elected a conservative Republican governor and U.S. senator, part of the Republican tide.
The key to winning here — as in other close races — will depend largely on undecided voters and turnout. While economic worry is commonplace, so is uncertainty that changing leaders will help.
Carey Peck, who just graduated with a master’s degree and is unable to find a job, offered a typical lament.
“I don’t agree with the recall. It should be reserved for someone who’s committed big offenses,” he said at a coffee shop in this Milwaukee suburb. “I don’t agree with what Walker has done, but I don’t think he’s done anything to warrant a recall.”
The boyish-looking Walker is fighting hard to keep his job, all over television calmly saying jobs have been created on his watch. His supporters work the phones, reminding voters that despite all the anger over Walker’s policies, Wisconsin hasn’t plunged into an economic ditch.
Walker shot to national attention last year during a standoff over his bid to impose significant limits on collective bargaining for most public employees. Fourteen Democratic state senators fled to Illinois, in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to block the legislation. Anti-Walker protests filled the Capitol and its grounds.
Since then, Walker has told interviewers that he probably could have explained more thoroughly that drastic steps were needed to balance the state’s budget. Now he maintains he stabilized state finances, which most analysts say is accurate.
Walker’s approach resonates in Milwaukee’s suburbs. Cutting government spending, people say, motivates people to seek jobs and prods employers to hire. Walker’s latest ad charges Barrett would “take Wisconsin back to the failed days of billion-dollar budget deficits, double-digit tax increases, and record job loss.”
Go into the city of Milwaukee and it’s easy to find discouraged voters who want Walker out. He doesn’t understand, they say, that they only want help, not handouts.
Greg Renden, a public defender, took a pay cut. He blames Walker for making an already dismal economy worse. “He’s abdicated the role of trying to help people in need,” Renden said.
