The day before yesterday my home state of Wisconsin held
its gubernatorial primary in which the Democrats chose a
candidate, and the Republicans did the same. The Democrats
selected, from a field of four hopefuls, Milwaukee Mayor
Tom Barrett to be their nominee for the governor's office;
Wisconsin Republicans chose incumbent Governor Scott
Walker over a surprise challenger for the GOP laurels, an
anti-Walker protester who joined the demented throng that
gathered in Madison two winters ago to protest Gov. Walker
having the unmitigated gall to follow through on his main
campaign promise to rein in your beloved Peasant's state's
spending without raising taxes, and without laying off state
employees. Walker accomplished this by creating and
passing legislation that curbs collective bargaining by most
unionized state employees, making it impossible for them
to automatically grant themselves very generous pay raises
along with Santa Claus-like benefits provisions. These very
items have been major factors in the ever-escalating taxes
being dumped upon the beleaguered taxpayers of the Badger
State. And for this the unionized state workers, along with
their comrades, have been howling for Gov. Walker's
head on a platter ever since.
But there are some flies in the Democrat's ointment.
The public employee union's favorite, former Dane County
Executive (Madison, a/k/a appropriately nicknamed
"Mad City" is in Dane County, by the way) Kathleen
Falk finished a distant second in the Democrat Primary
to Mayor Barrett. Although Falk had the support of the
public employee unions such as AFSCME (American
Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees)
as well as many private sector employee unions, many
people in their party had doubts concerning her electability;
among them were many elected officials, along with many
rank-and-file Democrat voters, so most of the former
endorsed Barrett and many of the latter voted for him,
giving Milwaukee's mayor, whom Walker defeated in
the 2010 election for the governorship in the first place,
the Democrat's nod. In the months leading up to the May 8
primary, Barrett had actually used some of the benefits
made possible by Walker's and the Republican's legislation,
titled Act 10, to cut costs in Milwaukee's budget (!), all
the while slamming Walker on his historic legislation.
This has caused great consternation among union bigwigs,
sending many of them to the Falk camp. But they, and Falk,
were denied their shot at Walker in the recall election
which will be held on June 5. Your inquisitive Peasant
has noticed that hard feelings abound toward Barrett from
the union crowd and some other hard-left die-hards. This
may manifest in a very long election night for the Beer town
mayor.
On the Republican side of the primary, Gov. Walker won a
ridiculously lopsided victory over his protester opponent,
receiving 97% of the GOP vote. But the most astonishing
thing about Walker's breeze to the Republican nomination
was the sheer number of voters who turned out to support
the courageous, principled governor. Certainly, it didn't
take much effort to crush an opponent who is no more of
a genuine Republican than your beloved Peasant is a genuine
Communist; but the votes cast for Walker --- he garnered
627,000 votes, more votes than had been cast by Democrats
in their primary for Barrett and Falk, the top two vote-gainers
combined! And Walker's vote total was only 38,000 fewer
than all of the votes cast for all four of the Democrat guber-
natorial candidates lumped together! For more amazing con-
trast, Walker's Republican primary vote tally was almost
13,000 more than his 2010 general election total which
secured the governor's office for him! Again, this is just the
recall primary we're talking about!
Late Tuesday afternoon I saw a plethora of cars parked out-
side a polling place, with many people coming in and going out
from the building. I didn't have to ask why all those people
were there; they came out to vote for Scott Walker to give him
the Republican gubernatorial nomination, not wanting to leave it
to chance even though Walker's opponent for the GOP tapping
was a joke. They made damn sure that the joke would misfire!
Normally a primary election does not attract much interest and
therefore not many voters. The general election is where the action
is. But with what is at stake in this most unique election season,
Wisconsinites are making a stand for their economic health and
their democratic rights; they want to live in a state where they
won't be taxed at atrocious levels primarily to give endless lavish
compensation packages to unionized state workers just because
the latter are able to vote themselves automatic pay and benefit
raises whenever they feel like it, and want their voices
to be heard and their concerns addressed rather than ignored
dismissively by politicians catering to the unions, including NOT
having their electoral preferences chucked out in order to give
the unionistas a "mulligan" --- that's a golfers' term for a do-over
--- which fits this non-golf situation to a tee (Your mirthful Peasant
couldn't resist adding that pun!). Although these raucous lefties
desperately want you to believe otherwise, this is not what
democracy looks like; rather, it is what totalitarianism, in its
nascent stage is. And this is why so many people turned out to
vote in the primary, and why these people will again turn out in
full force for the general recall election on June 5. We Wisconsin
folk are tired of being ignored, ridiculed, scorned, dictated to,
and taxed to the max by liberal politicians who choose to serve a
few special interest groups rather than the hard-working, live-by-
the-rules, taxpaying people who make this state function, who
breathe vibrancy into its lungs, who are its heartbeat, who are
its economic life force. We Wisconsinites like our democratically
-elected representative form of government just fine, thank you;
we neither need nor want a socialistic oligarchy.
In November 2010 we Badger Staters voted for a government
which would serve us for a change. Next month we shall reinforce
our choice and send a message to those who want to return us
to subservience to them: we shall have a government that serves us,
and a state workforce that serves us as well. We shall not be denied!
If anyone has a problem with this arrangement, let them move to a
place where things are done more to their way of liking. May your
helpful Peasant suggest Cuba?
MEM
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