Who Hijacked Our Country

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Oh Well, It Wasn’t a Complete Disaster

OK, so the Kochsuckers are still in control of Wisconsin’s legislature. Two of them got the heave ho — Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper. But Republicans still have a 17 to 16 majority in the state senate.

It’s better than nothing. It shows that even if you got elected just nine months ago, the voters MIGHT kick you out. If you get too complacent and keep giving voters the finger while bending over for the Koch Brothers, you CAN get recalled.

And in Ohio, voters will get a chance to overturn their state’s union-busting law, which is even more extreme than Wisconsin’s.

The teabagging governors of Michigan and Florida are even more hated by their constituents than Scott Walker. R-E-C-A-L-L. This fight isn’t over. It just started.

I don’t know whether this is a valid comparison or not, but San Francisco voters passed a slow growth initiative back in the ‘80s. It was mostly about height limits for skyscrapers. The same initiative kept getting defeated every election, but it finally passed.

It was the same sequence every time: The initiative would get enough signatures to be on the ballot. Polls showed that the public was hugely in favor of it. Then developers would flood the airwaves with scary commercials, warning everybody of the frightening disastrous consequences if Proposition ___ got passed. Voters would fall for it hook line and sinker, and the initiative would get defeated.

It finally got to the point where every election, developers would yawn and go “Sheesh, those pesky rabble-rousers are at it again. OK, how many millions do we have to throw at it this time?”

And then one year, the initiative passed.

Let that be an inspiration.


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7 Comments:

Blogger Lisa said...

That 14 million pumped in there was from the democrats not the Koch Brothers.
For 14 million you would hope the odds would have turned out better than that,no?

August 10, 2011 at 6:35 PM  
Anonymous Jolly Roger said...

Lisa, why do you even bother? Why not just send us a link to the latest Limbaugh broadcast? It's probably simpler than trying to post words is for a cretin like you.

August 10, 2011 at 11:37 PM  
Anonymous S.W. Anderson said...

Tom, you make an excellent point. Americans can be too impatient for their own good, preferring instant results and happy endings in 90 minutes or less both on TV and in real life.

That impatience can translate to unwillingness to keep coming back with something like S.F.'s slow-growth initiatives. It can also mean that good people like Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry get only one shot at the White House as the Democratic nominee, and then they're out for good. A big reason they don't get consideration again is that they ran uneven or otherwise less-than-stellar campaigns. That could be a mistake, because having gone through a presidential campaign before, they probably know better how to get it right, to avoid pitfalls, than a rookie who's going to have to learn on the job, starting from scratch.

August 11, 2011 at 12:19 AM  
Anonymous S.W. Anderson said...

Lisa, FYI, Republicans' sugar daddies pumped some $40 million into the recall elections, probably more if the truth could be known.

August 11, 2011 at 12:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Am assuming here that the rethugs are maxed out and the demos are still gathering steam.

All and all must be considered a win for Ds; they have now two seats they didn't have before,no?

OTOH Rethugs can also claim a win for not losing their numerical superiority?

Like it or not demos need to learn to kick them when they're down, repeatedly.

$.02

August 11, 2011 at 1:32 PM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Lisa: Both sides pumped in millions of dollars. And yes I was hoping for a better result.

JR: LOL.

SW: I certainly hope the public won't get impatient and say "oh, the hell with it, we tried. Next."

As far as presidential candidates go, there seems to be an unwritten law that once a politician has run for president and not been elected, that person will never get to the White House. There are probably a few exceptions (Nixon and GHW Bush come to mind), but for the most part every recent president I can think of got elected the first time they ran.

I lost track of how much money got pumped into Wisconsin. Club For Growth was one of the "contributors." I don't know much about them, but from everything I've seen about that group, they almost make the US Chamber of Commerce look moderate.

Anonymous: I hope you're right about the rethugs being maxed out and the Dems gathering steam. And I agree the Democrats need to learn to kick and do whatever else it takes, since that's been the Republican M.O. for decades.

August 11, 2011 at 9:39 PM  
Blogger Lisa said...

So I guess Rich Republicans- bad
Rich Democrats-good

August 12, 2011 at 11:26 AM  

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