Obama: Too busy to help Wisconsin Democrats in recall election

[IamK]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-too-busy-help-wisconsin-democrats-223240389.html

President Barack Obama explained in a radio interview Monday why he didn't do more to help Wisconsin Democrats in their battle to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker: He was too busy.

"The truth of the matter is that, as president of the United States, I've got a lot of responsibilities," he told WBAY of Green Bay, Wisconsin. WBAY was one of eight TV stations given an exclusive interview with the president — six from battleground states Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Virginia and Wisconsin and two from California and South Carolina.

Obama said he was "supportive" of Walker's Democratic challenger, Tom Barrett, whom Walker thumped in last week's vote. "Obviously, I would have loved to see a different result," Obama told WBAY.

And the president said he would be working to ensure a different result in November.

[Laurian]

1. I'm a strong Obama supporter, but that's a pretty lame excuse.

I wish Democrats would be bolder and less timid in the face of opposition.

[russspeakeasy]

21. It's not that lame. He knew you can't beat anybody with nobody.

[robinlynne]

2. yeah, right. Didn't Bush say somewhat the same thing?

Busy busy busy at fundraisers.

[bluestateguy]

3. "Come on in, take the bait" (giggle) "The water's fine, really" (giggle)

Maybe it's not Obama's job to bail out every crappy candidate who runs a Hindenberg of a campaign, so then when he loses the whole thing can be turned into Obama's loss, Obama's defeat, and Doom! Doom! Doom!

As in Martha Dukakis Coakley. Taking time out of his busy schedule to fly up to Massachusetts to bail out that dingbat only made things worse in the end.

I had been saying for months that recalls are a risky, usually failed venture, and sadly it appears that I was right.

A better route would have been for voter repeal of the collective bargaining law, as was done with success in Ohio.

[Bill USA]

9. good point on Ohio, but I have to wonder without the 7 to 1 spending advantage what the outcome

would have been. Influence Industry: In Wisconsin recall effort, the side with most money won big

[MannyGoldstein]

14. Coakley's campaign was no worse than Kerry's or

most other candidates for statewide office in MA.

The data show that Democratic voters were dispirited, and Republicans were psyched.

[politicasista]

37. Thank you Obama,

for showing nothing but mad respect to surrogates and allies who have your back, even if some Dems, liberals, progressives would rather throw them under the bus cause they "lost" or didn't run a near flawless campaign.

Thanks for being always classy Mr. President.

[patrice]

4. Maybe he was too busy to support Labor being pitted against Labor.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/11

I think I'd be kind of careful about reinforcing that sort of thing myself:

The energy of the Wisconsin uprising was never electoral. The movement’s mistake: letting itself be channeled solely into traditional politics, into the usual box of uninspired candidates and the usual line-up of debates, primaries, and general elections. The uprising was too broad and diverse to fit electoral politics comfortably. You can't play a symphony with a single instrument. Nor can you funnel the energy and outrage of a popular movement into a single race, behind a single well-worn candidate, at a time when all the money in the world from corporate “individuals” and right-wing billionaires is pouring into races like the Walker recall.

Colin Millard, an organizer at the International Brotherhood of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, and Reinforcing Iron Workers, admitted as much on the eve of the recall. We were standing inside his storefront office in the small town of Horicon, Wisconsin. It was night outside. "The moment you start a recall," he told me, "you're playing their game by their rules."

snip

The Walker recall effort would, in fact, splinter the masses of anti-Walker protesters. Many progressives and most of the state's labor unions rallied behind former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk who, in January 2012, announced her intent to challenge Walker. Tom Barrett, who had lost the governor’s race to Walker in 2010, didn't announce his candidacy until late March, his entry pitting Democrat against Democrat, his handful of union endorsements pitting labor against labor. Unions pumped $4 million into helping Falk clinch the Democratic nomination. In the end, though, it wasn't close: Barrett stomped her in the May 8th primary by 24 percentage points.

[patrice]

7. You know, that kind of shit is just exactly what turns Democrats off on being a Democrats.

No fracking guts!!!

And we're to take it that you think this behavior should be rewarded by our President?

[patrice]

12. Falk announces in January. Barret announces in March. WHAT WAS HE WAITING ON? nt

[yurbud]

31. why in God's name do recalls include replacement candidates?

That muddies the waters too much.

Just treat the lieutenant governor like a vice president, shift him in as a lame duck for the rest of the term, and at most, vote for a new lt. gov.

That way, the only question would be "should this guy be removed?"

[patrice]

32. Right on! BTW, have we heard from Feingold about this yet? It may be best for him to keep his cards

close to his chest still, though. Powder dry and all that sort of thing, you know.

I hope he's not completely out-gunned, but I have NO idea how ANYONE could tell one-way-or-the-other yet.

[yurbud]

35. about what? running for governor?

[postulater]

5. He was in Illinois and Minnesota on the weekend prior to the recall election.

I understand he is busy.

So was every one of the 100,000 people who flooded the Capitol Square last March.

So was everyone of the 35,000 volunteers who circulated the petitions.

So was every one of the 1 milllion people who signed the recall petition.

I can't forgive this answer. No benefit of the doubt, and I usually am prone to allow it.

This confirms his lack of interest.

[patrice]

8. So, you think he should have gone in there and supported a candidate that FRACTURED Labor????

Read this:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/11

[postulater]

17. Yes, I do. I think he should have supported the movement of people who pushed against Walker

and whoever they chose to challenge him.

And if he should not have supported our candidate because of his political reasons, why should I? since he was not perfect.

I'll still vote for him, as the lesser imperfect of the two. The day after the loss I went out and swapped my Recall Walker bumper sticker for the Obama 2012 one. I just think he is not making the most of opportunities and is too timid and calculating.

[patrice]

25. Would it matter to you that one candidate may have been backed by Citizens' United money

(and Wisconsonians will never know) and the other, Falk, looks like it may have been more Wisconsin money?

[postulater]

30. No. CU money can come from anywhere.

It can come from progressives or TPartiers. And we may never know where it comes from.

I minimize the influence on myself by not watching any of the ads, not answering any of the phone calls and trying to not be counting the size and number of yard signs in my neighborhood.

I agree with Russ that money should not be involved, but it looks like Obama is not taking his advice.

If I didn't vote for anyone who accepted CU money then I would not vote for Obama if he is accepting it.

So, No, the fact that someone accepted CU money would not prevent me from voting for the individual and I would make no judgement based on the relative amount spent on behalf of each candidate.

I see that you are an ex-teacher, I fear for the future of our schools because of what Walker is going to do.

And maybe I made a mistake by voting for Barrett, I rarely am on the winning side. But my daughter cancelled out my vote, she voted for Falk.

[patrice]

28. All of this pretty much reveals that the definition of "they" (in your first sentence) is not clear.

It also looks as though there are quite a few teachers, including some I know, for whom President Obama can do nothing right, because of his market approach to education reform. I imagine the President is pretty much damned if he does and damned if his doesn't with quite a few educators. As an ex-teacher myself, I am interested in this question and hope for there to be some kind of official systemically supported and equitable synergy between the two perspectives, so this public:private dialectic is one of the reasons we mustn't over-simplify what is going on in Wisconsin, whichever "side" people have divided themselves into at this point.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. This is counterproductive.

I can see the right wingers making a big issue about Obama and what he does or does not do, but it will do us no good. I don't think that it was his responsibility to make an appearance in Wisconsin---The Dems of Wisconsin had to do the work. And I know that they did work hard. But they started the recall process on their own, and they should not blame Obama for failure. I do wish that Obama had put a little effort into helping them, but that was not his responsibility. Let's stop finding things to criticize Obama for and work to get a second term---or we will be living under something that could be worse than Shrub.

[underpants]

10. The insiders knew that they got outspent 7 to 1

and they tried to get out of it but the rank and file made them do it (see we have a "tea party" too).

[earthside]

15. Wisconsin teachers, unionists, progressives OUR Tea Party???!!!

I've read it all now.

And Pres. Obama too busy.

It's an insult.

[patrice]

16. There was a split between the teachers, unionists, & progressives and the Barrett backers.

Read the Common Dreams article.

If Tea Party was in it, they would have had to have been pulling for Barrett because that SPLIT a broader Labor coalition that started the uprising and handed "ownership" of the uprising over to Democratic Party regulars, instead of NEW blood.

[postulater]

19. New blood? Falk? LaFollette?

Most of the teachers I know voted for Barrett.

[patrice]

26. Without campaign finance transparency we will never who got used more than whom else and by

how much.

[patrice]

11. By how much did Barrett out-raise Falk??? Was it Citizens' United money? or DLC-WI? nt

[patrice]

13. Hey, "Che", I think you're on the wrong side on this one. Why is that please?

[ladjf]

18. I have no idea what his real reason for not going to Wisconsin to help

in the Walker recall election but, "to busy" is a lame excuse and probably isn't the reason he ducked the election.

[EC]

20. Yahoo News

Really?

[IamK]

24. full transcript @ huffington...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/barack-obama-wisconsin-recall-election-responsibilities_n_1588224.html

WBAY: I'd like to ask you about Wisconsin's recall election. There are a lot of Democrats that are upset you didn't campaign for Tom Barrett.

OBAMA: The truth of the matter is that as president of the United States, I've got a lot of responsibilities. I was supportive of Tom and have been supportive of Tom. Obviously, I would have loved to see a different result. But the broader principle is that we want an economy that is not focused on a few at the top but is a broad-based economy that invests in our future, that makes sure we've got a strong education system that is thinking about workers and their ability to pay their bills, is something in everything I do. Shows those are values I care about deeply. And we're going to be fighting very hard in Wisconsin, just like we have in the past, to make sure that's the kind of government people get.

[patrice]

27. You mean HuffHo the magic pony-fairy for "the Left"-for-hire??? How many people do you know who

are a market for $28K handbags?

True story.

[The Stranger]

22. I'm glad he didn't waste his time. They ran the same candidate who was beaten previously

and, as others have pointed out, were outspent by orders of magnitude.

As far as I'm concerned, Wisconsin is lost. Fuck it.

[pnwmom]

23. I'm glad, too. What good would it have done for the 49 other states

if he'd campaigned hard there and lost -- and was tagged as a loser?

The election wasn't even close. Obama wouldn't have put the candidate over the top.

[Remember]

29. Disconnect

It is easy to blame the amount of money spent by Republicans versus what the Democrats have spent. This will be the norm until Citizen's United is overturned. The reality is that there are several problems, several. The candidate, Barnett, had certain beliefs that were more right than the normal leftist Democrat. Another point that truly was a major sticking point was most voters truly believed that to overturn the governor he would have to have done something almost illegal. Obama did not come and support the Democrats in Wisconsin, chose to not fight a battle that could go either way. Political advisers maybe?
My belief just opinion, maybe put in old Democrats like 1960's type,JFK. Candidates that are definitely different from Republicans. Make sure research how to fight not just put the best person out there. Don't go fight without your baseball bat if that is required. The prize is the Presidency but the goal is to control both houses. I want to see the old Democratic party not the one that has become so right of the center there is not a lot of differences between the two. Go left Democrats.

[patrice]

33. Labor must be respected for itself, not as a functionary of corporations or of Democrats. To get

that respect back, it has to SOLVE, official internal process-wise, it's own divisions and become one, because that's its OWN birthright and hence its power.

[citysyde]

34. Obama learned his lesson in the Martha Coakley/Scott Brown election

in Jan, 2010, after Kennedy's death.

Coakley was the expected victor in a largely Dem state where Kennedy had served for so many years.

Obama showed up about 10 days before the election to support Coakley against the Rethuglican, Brown.

Brown won.

This is how Obama learned NOT to become visible as part of a losing election. This is a political reality of being President, and seeking re-election. Sorry if this kind of reality of politics offends anyone, but it's part of what staying ahead in the minds of the potential voters in November really involves.

Polls indicated it was unlikely that Dems would capture back the governorship in Wisconsin, for several weeks before the election. Obama, always the pragmatist, decided to do what made him look like a non-loser in front of all the independent voters around the US.

Obama's decision not to show up in Wisconsin was part of a well thought-out political strategy to win again in November