mykeystrokes.com

All Six Democrats Advance In Wisconsin Recall Election

The first in a series of recall elections, spurred by a contentious labor  fight, got under way in Wisconsin Tuesday.

Six Democrats easily cruised to primary wins as expected, and will face  Republican state senators who supported Gov. Scott Walker’s push to strip most  public employees of collective bargaining rights in a general election match-up  on Aug. 9. At stake is control of the narrowly divided, GOP-controlled  chamber.

The unusual primaries Tuesday pitted Democratic candidates  supported by the party against what news reports came to describe as “fake  Democrats” — six candidates put forward by the GOP because recall races with  only one challenger each would have bypassed the primary stage. Republicans  therefore backed what they called “protest candidates,” allowing the incumbent  GOP senators more time to campaign for the general election.

While outside groups campaigned on behalf of some of the Republican-sponsored  challengers, those candidates themselves did not seriously campaign. The  party-supported Democrats all won with comfortable margins — one as large as 40  percentage points — and only one race ended in single-digit margins. The recall  contests set up by Tuesday’s results include Democratic state Rep. Jennifer  Shilling vs. Republican state Sen. Dan Kapanke; Democratic state Rep. Fred Clark  vs. state Republican Sen. Luther Olsen and Democratic state Rep. Sandy Pasch vs.  Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling.

Wisconsin voters will go the polls again next Tuesday, when Green Bay  Democratic state Sen. Dave Hansen will be the first legislator to face a recall  general election since the state exploded in political protest in February.  Republicans in two Democratic-held Senate districts will also face off that day  in primaries, the winners of which will take on incumbents on Aug. 16. Unlike  State Democrats are not running “fake Republicans” in an effort to push back  recall dates.

By Aug. 16, nine state senators — six Republicans and three Democrats — will  have faced recall elections.

Walker’s fight against public employees unions prompted Senate Democrats to  flee the state in an effort to block a vote; protestors on both sides flooded  the Capitol and a fiercely competitive state Supreme Court race shortly  afterward snared national headlines. Republicans eventually managed to pass the  law, and it was upheld by the state Supreme Court — but not before Wisconsin  spent weeks at the center of a national political firestorm.

By: Dan Hirschhorn, Politico, July 12, 2011

July 12, 2011 - Posted by raemd95 | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Governors, Ideologues, Middle East, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Public Employees, Wisconsin Legislature, Wisconsin Recall, Wisconsin Senate