Walker, Inc. re-framed the recall debate as anti-recall, not anti-Walker

[lutefisk]

And I think that's how they won. John Nichols makes a good argument for this, saying that the Walker forces used their money to shift the framework of the recall election away from Walker and make it about the recall process itself.

The Right is shameless about re-framing the debate- Swift Boat smear of John Kerry, Obama's birth certificate, the $7,00,000.00 damage to the Capitol in Madison (LOL), or that a recall is just "sour grapes" and costs too darn much. They got nothing, so they have to make elections about something else, something they can control. It worked once again, right here in Wisconsin.

Walker’s $35 million campaign began with a multimillion-dollar ad buy that described recalls as “sour grapes” and finished with the message: “Progress: Yes. Recall: No.” In addition to the ads, and a $5 million direct-mail push, the governor used dozens of appearances on television programs to drive home the anti-recall theme: “A minority of voters will get to force a new election in Wisconsin … costing millions of dollars to the taxpayers this spring,” Walker griped during a CNBC appearance last November. That appearance also saw him suggest he would win because “every day, every week, every month that goes by, our numbers get better because our story gets out.” ...

Scott Walker ran hard against Tom Barrett and the Democrats, but he ran harder against the recall. That moved numbers — as the governor suggested would be the case. But while Democrats and unions defended Barrett, they never mounted a parallel campaign to argue the merits of the recall as an accountability tool.

So it was that an electorate that favored Wisconsin’s recall rules by wide margins at the start of the campaign ended up opposing the process. Give Walker credit. He was smart enough to run against not just his declared opponent but the process itself. But don’t miss the point that his early and effective advertising campaign went unanswered, and that this failure played a huge role in preserving the governor’s position.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/john_nichols/article_7381f804-b403-11e1-b094-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1xbEooanc

[HereSince1628]

1. That's gotta be at least partially true.

Although imo, how big a fraction remains rather uncertain.

I think you are very correct to raise the question of what the $35m dollar campaign actually did with the money in its service.

What messages were propagated, through what media/social channels, and how that money was targeted at which voters is very important to understanding how the big money made possible by Citizen's United (CU) influenced the outcome.

IMO CU isn't the end of American democracy, but it does create a much more capitalized reality, a reality that must be investigated and understood if populist movements are to have a chance at prevailing against the American Oligarchs.

[Iggy]

2. Bottom Line

Barrett and the dems needed 65-68% turnout to win. they got 57%.

Barrett failed to unite the various anti Walker factions; he was the wrong
candidate.

[HereSince1628]

3. That may be true, but there were only a few others willing.

I haven't reviewed the voting results by county for the primary, but that might reveal if Barrett was pushed to a win by a narrow geographic region.

I don't think the dems had a clear idea how to proceed until they had a named candidate. I think that very much restricted the time they had to message.