Voters in six Wisconsin state senate districts voted in recall elections last night. The recall movement was triggered when newly-elected Governor Scott Walker and the state legislature pushed through a law that stripped members of Wisconsin’s public-sector unions of many of their collective-bargaining rights. All six seats were held by Republicans. If Democrats could win three of the six, they would take control of the Wisconsin state senate until next year.
They won two.
This is the sort of almost-but-not-quite victory that progressives have won before. I remember when Ned Lamont challenged Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary in 2006. Lamont won the primary, but Lieberman won re-election as an independent and proceeded to make many Democratic activists crazy by campaigning for John McCain in 2008 and managing to retain his committee chairmanship in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Actually, I don’t want to seem like I’m minimizing what Wisconsin Democrats accomplished. They defeated two Republicans who managed to win their seats in 2008, one of the high points of Democratic turnout. They came close in other races. That’s a win, as Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall argues in this post.
The thing is, it’s a win that needs follow-up. There needs to be a successful recall against Walker and the Republicans who are eligible next year. Progressives need to take back control of the legislature. Winning the state in the presidential race would be good. Without that electoral feedback, there is no reason for elected officials to respond to progressive demands.
The truth is, progressives and unions have a hard time wielding that electoral stick. In New Jersey, some Democrats teamed up with Republican Governor Christie to cut some benefits and bargaining rights for public-sector workers. The state AFL-CIO won’t support those Democrats for re-election, but I haven’t seen any signs of primary challenges. That tells me that progressive activists don’t have the power to win a primary or even make it close.
Contrast that with what conservative activists are able to do. There are multiple longstanding Republican senators who got bounced through the nominating process. It doesn’t matter if public opinion polls say a majority of voters like something – public opinion polls don’t put elected officials out of office. Voters can. So if progressive activists can’t convince a majority of voters to vote for candidates who will enact the policies that the majority of voters allegedly support, nothing’s going to change.