Not Waiting on Wisconsin

I don't have the stamina to watch the to and fros of the vote in Wisconsin tonight for the six recall elections. As of now, one Republican has been called a winner, two Democrats are in the lead, one race is pretty much tied and two other Republicans look in decent shape. The early votes counted have come from Republican areas. Democrats need three seats to take back the Wisconsin Senate. Scott Walker had predicted all Republicans would win. Over $40 million of ads have flooded into the state from Koch-funded front groups and the such.

This is another election where the old adage of organization versus money is being tested. Wisconsin Democrats scored a symbolic victory by obtaining sufficient petitions to bring the recalls this far. The turnout is estimated to be at presidential election levels--which is huge for an August election.

Now the Republicans have two seats and look good for a third, Democrats are in the lead or very close in the other three. But they have no wiggle room for the rest of the night. This one will be as hair-raising as the Supreme Court race, which went into a recount.

An interesting fact is that 5 of the 6 Democrats challenging the sitting Republican Senators are women. The importance of this election is to gauge the organizing ability of the unions and whether this will give them momentum or stop it for Ohio and Michigan. It should be remembered that the recall movement didn't start until Scott Walker had passed his union-busting bill. Republicans nationally have tried to blame the recalls on unions refusing to give back on pensions but the spark that ignited the fire was Walker getting rid of the rights of collective bargaining. The unions had already given back $1 billion in pensions for the last budget agreement with the previous governor.

Tonight in New Hampshire, there was a special election which showed Robert Perry, a Democrat, win by 58-42 in a Republican district, which had voted the same way but for the GOP in 2010. Perry beat Honey Puterbruch for a seat as a representative in the New Hamsphire legislature. What's important here is that Puterbruch was part of the libertarian Free State Project, the Granite State's version of the tea party.

Andrew Sullivan in the Daily Dish had some interesting observations about the CNN poll, which showed the GOP at historic low levels. Sullivan points out that if the GOP is at 33% approval, then all the independents have abandoned it. He also points out that this would mean that the GOP has a lower approval rating than when Obama won the Presidency. He also points out that the entire approval rating would come from the tea party members alone. He concludes that this shows Obama's genius of getting his enemies to destroy themselves. I wouldn't go that far. But I did notice that Mitt Romney is a bit weird.

There has been more news today about "family values" Lt. Governor Peter Kinder of Missouri, who hopes to run for Governor. Kinder was said to pal around with a porn star and frequent a topless bar that had "pantless parties." Today, stripper Tammy Chapman shared her experiences with Kinder with the Riverfront Times. Tammy said that Kinder was one of her "best costumers" but became obsessed with her. Finally,he asked her to move to his condo and for $200 a pop she would perform private lap dances for him. She finally rebelled because he had the habit of forcing her head onto his groin. She didn't like this and broke up the relationship. But Kinder looks like a keeper for the gubernatorial seat. Maybe it was the "pantless parties" that gave Romney the idea that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri.

Remember Randy Hopper, the representative in Wisconsin, whose wife and maid signed the petition for his recall because he was living with a mistress in another district? Well, as of this writing he is trailing in his recall race. I see Democrats clearly winning 2 tonight with one going down the wire.

Mitt Romney said the comments about him today were "disgraceful and desparate". No one had yet to talk about him strapping the family dog to the roof of the car when they went on vacation. Stay tuned.