Permit me this little amusement. All bolding mine.
- The Daily Beast, August 25, 2014 (“The Tea Party Governor Backlash of 2014”): “Wisconsin’s Scott Waker is frequently talked up by RNC types as a leading 2016 contender, but he’s fighting for his political life at home, beset by a tsunami of scandals and running neck and neck with Mary Burke. Walker’s most-favored Midwestern governor status in D.C. is in trouble despite a misguided arrogance born of his surviving a recall attempt. His efforts to rein in the public sector unions have been successful, but his style and tone—and did I mention scandals—could make him an unexpected loser on Election Night.”
- NPR, October 28, 2014 (“In Wisconsin Election, Gov. Scott Walker Fights To Hold On”): “[Craig] GILBERT: Well, you know, one thing that we’ve seen in all the public polling is that, as divided as the state was in the middle of that kind of raucous recall fight, it’s even more divided now. It has not got – there hasn’t been a lot of healing in Wisconsin. And Governor Walker hasn’t really added to his coalition, politically, since those elections. And if you think about 2010 being a really conservative wave election, and you think about 2012 – winning a recall where some voters, you know, had reservations about Governor Walker but didn’t like the recall process – you can sort of see how this election really ought to be closer than those two elections and is.”
- Politico, October 29, 2014 (“Scott Walker limps toward 2016”): “The politician who confidently lectured Mitt Romney in 2012 (“He has to say that I’m a reformer like Scott Walker,” Walker told The Weekly Standard) has tumbled into yet another fight for his political life. Far from a conservative Clark Kent, Walker is visibly straining in the closing days of his race against Mary Burke, a wealthy former Trek Bicycle executive and member of the Madison School Board.”
- The New Republic, October 28, 2014 (“Scott Walker Is Scared He Might Lose—and He’s Already Blaming His Fellow Republicans”): “The polls are generally not trending well for Democrats in the final days before the 2014 midterms, but it’s increasingly looking not inconceivable that the party’s loss of the Senate could be accompanied by a loss for one of the party’s biggest bête noires: Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. If polls showing him effectively tied with former Trek Bicycle executive Mary Burke weren’t enough, Walker has been giving off the distinct vibe of a man in a bit of a panic.”
- Salon, October 30, 2014: (“5 Tea Partyers who could lose reelection next week”) “Walker was never going to glide to reelection in a state that in 2012 elected progressive Democrat [mc_name name=’Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’B001230′ ], the nation’s first openly gay U.S. senator.”
- Slate, November 3, 2014 (“The Most Important Race in America”): “On a portable stage in the parking lot of a strip mall in front of the Eau Claire GOP field office, sandwiched between a Curves and an Office Products Co. store, Gov. Scott Walker is keeping his chin up. After the beating he’s taken, that’s no small feat. Walker, Wisconsin’s incumbent Republican governor, is in a tough statewide contest for the third time in four years, and this one is much closer than it was supposed to be.”
- ThinkProgress, November 4, 2014 (“A Pro-Environment Candidate Could Kick Scott Walker Out Of Office Tonight”): “With the final polls showing an extremely close race between incumbent Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) and challenger Mary Burke (D), an influx of last-minute donations and high-profile supporters indicate the importance of the race on a national scale.”
- Wonkette, October 25, 2014* (“Scott Walker Gets Some Chris Christie All Over Him, On Purpose”): “With a little over a week to go before Election Day, Scott Walker is increasingly a man in need of a helping hand.”
Well, that was certainly a consensus: Scott Walker was in trouble. But hark! What was the final result, again?
52.3 to 46.6, or Walker +5.7. And, in case you were wondering: in the 2012 recall election the final score was 53.1 to 46.3, or Walker +6.8; and in the general 2010 election the final score was… 52.3 to 46.6, or Walker +5.7. Which basically means that every stupid thing that Democrats and progressives went through for four years – the marching, the protesting, the abuse of property rights, the extended temper tantrum, the expensive and pointless recall election, the licking of wounds, the picking of a new candidate, the concerted efforts to manufacture scandals, the half-open conspiracy to target conservative groups, the abandonment of whatever dubious progressive principles energized this original dispute in the first place, and the decision to simply focus down into a monomaniacal desire to just get rid of this one, solitary, insufferably Republican son of a [redacted] – all of that?
ALL OF THAT DID NOTHING. Nothing at all. It was like the Left wasn’t even there. And this was the one election that the Activist Left absolutely, totally needed. For their own pride’s sake, if nothing else; sure, they could not get back the House, lose the Senate, even maybe lose a few governor’s races – but this one. This one, the progressives needed. Just to show that they were worthy of victory.
:pause:
…I don’t even need to write it, do I? Not at this point.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*I don’t give them traffic. Call it a weakness on my part.