John Nichols

How Tuesday's Primaries Could End It for Romney

John Nichols on February 22, 2012 - 1:19 PM ET

On February 28, 1968, a Republican presidential prospect who just months earlier had led in the polls, announced that he was withdrawing from the competition.

George Romney—the governor of Michigan whom many Republicans had seen as the great hope for renewing the party in the aftermath of the sweeping rebuke the party had received after nominating right-winger Barry Goldwater for the presidency in 1964—had suffered a series of self-inflicted wounds to his candidacy and on that late February day he accepted that he was not going to be the Republican nominee or the president of the United States.

Forty-four years to the day after George Romney quit the national stage, his son, Willard Mitt Romney, could face a similar moment.

On February 28, 2012, when Michigan and Arizona vote in what have become critical GOP primaries, another Romney's fate will be at stake. Both Michigan and Arizona are battleground states where the former governor of Massachusetts was presumed to have the advantage just weeks ago. But, now, both are states where he is at the very least vulnerable to the surging conservative candidacy of former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.

Mitt Romney is not out of the running. Not by a long-shot. He still has more money than Santorum will ever collect, much of it socked away in the accounts of Super PACs that are more than ready to go for the political jugular with the crudest attack ads. There is no question that Santorum, despite his recent shows of strength, remains a gaff-prone contender. He's struggling to stand up to the scrutiny that he is getting, and he's not making things easier for himself by going deeper into the weeds with a steady stream of statements about "good-and-evil" that unsettle mainstream voters.

When all is said and done, there is a fair chance that Romney wins either Arizona or Michigan. And he could win both, thanks in no small part to the continuing candidacy of Newt Gingrich, who draws off as much as 15 percent of the vote—largely older social and economic conservatives—that would likely go to Santorum if the former House Speaker were out of the race.

But Santorum has an advantage that ought not be underestimated. He is not Mitt Romney. And if there is one constant in the 2012 GOP presidential race it is that the party faithful do not like Mitt Romney.

If voters in Michigan and Arizona reject Romney—and this really has to happen in both states for a knockout blow to be delivered—then February 28 will be another dark day for the Romney family.

The likelihood is that Mitt Romney would soldier on toward the "Super Tuesday" primaries of a week later, hoping that his prospects might be renewed.

But if he loses Michigan and Arizona on the 28th, it will be Santorum who has the momentum. And the end of Romney's candidacy, whenever it might come, will arguably be the darkest day politically for the Romneys in forty-four years.

So it is that we reach a make or break point for the Republican who Republicans do not like.

Mitt Romney has to win at least one state on the 28th, and arguably both, if he does not want to be the George Romney of the 2012 race.

David Koch Admits Big Spending to Help Scott Walker Bust 'Union Power'

John Nichols on February 20, 2012 - 1:09 AM ET

Billionaire campaign donor David Koch, heir to a fortune and a political legacy created by one of the driving forces behind the John Birch Society, makes no secret of his enthusiasm for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

“What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He’s an impressive guy and he’s very courageous,” Koch explained in a recent conversation reported by the Palm Beach Post. “If the unions win the recall, there will be no stopping union power.”

That’s no surprise. What is surprising is that Koch is now appears to be bragging about how he and his brother Charles are using their vast fortune to fund an independent campaign aimed at “helping” Walker. Even in an era when billionaires such as the Kochs are emerging as key financiers of Super PACS and other campaigning vehicles Koch’s admission will raise eyebrows—and questions about whether inappropriate coordination of by a candidate, his campaign and a supposedly independent group might be the stuff of “scandal.”

Like their father before them, David Koch and his brother Charles are longtime champions of extreme right-wing causes. And Walker’s militant anti-labor policies coupled with a willingness to cut funding for public education and public services have made him a hero of conservative hardliners like the Kochs. At the same time, Walker’s extremism has inspired a movement to recall him from office, which recently filed petitions with more than 1 million signatures calling for an election to remove the governor.

The governor has already spent a fortune trying to block the recall drive, with millions of dollars in television advertising, as well as expensive legal efforts to block a new vote. Both have been strikingly unsuccessful so far; at least in part because Wisconsin has steadily lost jobs since Walker’s budget was enacted—a dismal record that has caused a loss of confidence in the governor and his agenda.

Even as Walker struggles to explain why Wisconsin is shedding jobs while the rest of the country is gaining them, conservative groups funded by Charles and David Koch, such as Americans for Prosperity, are filling the state’s television airwaves with ads that claim Walker’s policies are “working.” According to Reuters, “a $700,000 advertising campaign sponsored by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a foundation funded by conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch of oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries, hit the Wisconsin airwaves, the latest phase of its ‘Stand with Walker’ campaign.”

These ads are supposedly independent expenditures by a not-for-profit organization that operates under tax rules established to benefit the work of “Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals Organizations.”

Coordination between candidates and their campaigns and “independent” groups operating under the Internal Revenue Service code as 501(c)3 operations.

The IRS is explicit in this regard: “Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.”

Similar, though slightly less strict rules, apply to campaigning by other co-called “501” groups that the Koch’s have funded.

So, while David Koch’s stated enthusiasm for Scott Walker was not surprising, his explanation of how that enthusiasm is being expressed politically was.

According to the Post, Koch said of Walker: “We’re helping him, as we should. We’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years. We’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We’re going to spend more.”

The Post added: “By ‘we’ he says he means Americans for Prosperity, which is spending about $700,000 on an ‘It’s working’ television ad buy in the state.”

Governor Walker’s defenders, a group that now officially includes the Koch Brothers (thanks to David Koch’s pronouncement), will surely suggest that the billionaire is merely expressing his right to fund independent activities that just happen to be “helping” Walker.

But it is notable that, during last summer’s Wisconsin state Senate recall campaigns, the Republican Party of Wisconsin issued statements pointing out that “coordination between…political campaigns and independent groups is specifically outlawed.”

Such coordination might be denied by the parties involved. But, argued the Republicans, reasonable people should recognize coordination as a “scandal.”

John Nichols’s new book on protests and politics, Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street, has just been publshed by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising.

A Politics That Says: The People Shall Rule

John Nichols on February 17, 2012 - 8:29 AM ET

After she organized Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 Democratic primary challenge to Lyndon Johnson, around the time she joined Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm in forming the National Women’s Political Caucus, Midge Miller got herself elected to the Wisconsin Assembly.

In that latter role, she taught Wisconsin progressives that they ought never be cogs in a political machine. Midge Miller, arguably the most activist member of the state Assembly during the years of her service from 1971 to 1985, never hesitated to call out Republican or Democratic governors. She never deferred to legislative leaders if she thought they were wrong. She believed in the great progressive tradition of the state that governing involved moral choices and that, while there was always a place for negotiation, and sometimes a place for compromise, there was never an excuse for going along to get along.

The point of progressive public service, argued Midge Miller, was not to be a cog in the machine run by corporate and political elites. It was to make the machine work for the people.

So when Midge Miller’s stepson, Wisconsin Senate minority leader Mark Miller, found himself leading a legislative caucus that was being asked to rubber-stamp Governor Scott Walker’s attacks on collective-bargaining rights, civil-service protections and local democracy, he thought of Midge. “She believed that it was the first responsibility of legislators to protect the rights of the people,” said Miller. “She would never have been a part of anything that rammed changes like these down the throats of the people.”

Of course, Midge Miller served in the days when the money power was far more constrained in politics. Mark Miller knew that Walker and his legislative minions would not cooperate or negotiate. He saw the schedule that allowed for almost no debate on the most radical assault of basic rights and protections in modern Wisconsin history. So he turned to the rules and found the one that referred to a fiscal quorum. He realized that if all fourteen Democratic senators left the state for Illinois, they could slow the process down long enough to let the people be heard.

On the morning of February 17, 2011, he asked his caucus if they wanted to be cogs in the machine or if they wanted to make the boldest move of their political lives. “There was no hesitation,” said Miller. “We left the Capitol. And the people took it from there.”

It was not easy for the fourteen Wisconsin senators to spend three weeks away from their families and homes. But Miller, a former military pilot whose discipline and determination have always inspired respect, never let legislators forget the mission they were on. “We had to create a space where the people could take back their destiny. And they did,” explained Miller. “We didn’t set out to create a movement. But that’s what’s happened.”

Had the process moved forward on Walker’s agenda, the legislation would have been passed within a week. Instead, it took almost a month. Over the course of the time that the Democratic walkout bought, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites marched, rallied and organized a movement that would eventually recall two Republican senators and that has now filed 1 million signatures to recall Walker and his legislative allies. In short order, it is likely that Mark Miller will be the Senate majority leader. He says he will be more respectful of the rules, more serious of bipartisanship. And no one doubts this is the case. But he will also respect the movement that is transforming Wisconsin.

“Midge would have loved this uprising,” says Miller. “We’re going back to our progressive roots, to that promise that the people shall rule.”

John Nichols’ new book on protests and politics, Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street, has just been publshed by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising.

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Obama in Wisconsin: The Soft Economics of Low Expectations

John Nichols on February 16, 2012 - 12:30 AM ET

The message that President Obama brought to Milwaukee, a city devastated by free-trade driven deindustrialization, was a sound one—up to a point.

But the point fell very short of where a president who wants to level the economic playing field should stand.

Obama’s Wisconsin speech eschewed any discussion of the brutal battle over the future of organized labor that has played out in the state since last February, when Governor Scott Walker (who skipped Wednesday’s factory visit) attacked collective bargaining rights. That was frustrating, but hardly surprising. Obama has kept the Wisconsin union fight at arms length from the start, avoiding visiting the state from the time Walker launched his initiative until a year and a day after the first major demonstrations.

At the same time, the president said things in Milwaukee that mattered. For instance, he embraced the premise—and the principle—that there is a vital role that government can and should play in promoting job growth in general and the renewal of manufacturing in particular.

Visiting the Master Lock Company factory, a United Auto Workers represented plant that has boomed since bringing production back from overseas, Obama said: “Right now we have an excellent opportunity to bring manufacturing back—but we have to seize it. My message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.”

Presidents have been asking business leaders to bring factories and jobs back to the United States for two decades—since then-President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich ushered in a new era of American industrial decline with their joint advocacy on behalf of free-trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and what would eventually become the permanent normalization of trade with China.

Since Clinton, Gingrich and their allies succeeded in shifting enacting and implementing the free-trade agenda about which they—and their generous donors of Wall Street—were so enthusiastic, US manufacturing has been badly battered. From 1999 to 2009, the period before the most recent recession, the Uniuted States shed 5.8 million manufacturing jobs. That was at a time when successive presidents provided generous tax breaks for businesses and cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans who are supposedly “job creators.”

The US trade deficit remains absolutely staggering. Indeed, it is growing, hitting a six-month high in December as it rose 3.7 percent to $48.8 billion—that’s “billion ” with a “b.” For all of 2011, the shortfall grew 12 percent to $558 billion, the worst since 2008.

But the real measure of the devastation caused by free-trade policies is seen in the once-vibrant industrial towns of America, from New England, to the Great Lakes and the upper Midwest. While Obama delivered a well-received speech at Master Lock, and enthusiastically recounted the firm’s encouraging story, he could not have told the same story just down the road in Kenosha or to the west in Janesville, Wisconsin manufacturing centers where major auto plants were closed by Chrysler (Kenosha) and GM (Janesville). Nor could he have painted quite so rosy a picture in many of the battered factory towns in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, western New York or Maine. The picture in those places is still unsettled and unsettling: vast factories remain shuttered. Unemployment remains high. In all of these communities, there is appropriate cynicism about whether the country is doing everything it can to help American workers succeed.

It’s not.

President Obama has been more rhetorically sympathetic to the plight of industrial towns and industrial workers. The decision to support bailouts for Chrysler and General Motors put some of that rhetoric into action, as have some of his tax policies. At his best, he has focused attention on the need to “do something” to renew manufacturing. But, aside from the controversial bailout, his administration has tended to tinker around the edges of the big issue. That issue involves something presidents do not like to talk about: American has a fundamentally flawed trade policy and it lacks the sort of industrial policy that has allowed high-wage countries such as Germany to survive and thrive in an era of globalization.

The response to trade debates of too many US leaders, and this includes both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, is to presume that the choice is between free trade, which lets Wall Street speculators and hedge fund managers demand that companies engage in a global race to the bottom, versus old-fashioned protectionism, which closes borders and stifles growth. Wiser leaders in other countries long ago figured out it is possible to maintain manufacturing in high-wage countries while encouraging responsible trade and growth.

The key is a smart combination of industrial policy, which develops the best strategies for maintaining existing industries while developing new ones, and fair-trade initiatives that encourage commerce while resisting the race to the bottom. This is the way Germany and other countries that have maintained basic industries—along with high wages and appropriate benefits—approach manufacturing matters. The United States ought not mimic everything that other countries do. But it can and should borrow pages from successful outlines.

There are members of Congress who have advocated for this view: Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Congresswomen Chellie Pingree of Maine and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Baldwin, like former Senator Russ Feingold, has always voted smart and right on economic and trade policy. She’ll be on the ticket this fall in Wisconsin. And she is a Democrat. But she’s a very different kind of Democrat from Obama. She has voted against free-trade pacts proposed by Republican and Democratic presidents (including Barack Obama).

Baldwin is blunt about why she does so.

“Trade agreements should be in the best interests of our nation and its people, but sadly this has not been the case with the past free trade agreements,” the congresswoman said when she announced his opposition to several deals the Obama administration was presenting to Congress in 2011. “Have some of our wealthiest corporations profited from them? Indeed. But the rest of America, especially the middle class, has struggled with job loss, closed factories, and economic and emotional anguish across the country.”

“When done right, trade agreements can help bolster our manufacturing and high-skilled technology industries and create jobs as they increase exports and help our economy recover,” says Baldwin. “Done wrong, trade agreements send these same jobs offshore, leaving Americans out of work.”

Baldwin begins her assessment of economic debates with an eye toward doing best by working people and working-class communities. That’s what put her on the floor of the state Capitol last winter, surrounded by students and union members when they raised a mighty cry for labor rights and democracy.

Obama did not show up for the Wisconsin protests of 2011. He arrived, finally, on Wednesday. The president gave a feel-good speech that was well received by Wisconsin workers who have for a year been battered and bruised by the rhetoric and the policies of Governor Scott Walker. Obama’s different from Walker, and better. Better on policy, better as a principles. But the president did not outline a new or vibrant economic policy in Milwaukee. He had some good lines; his heart certainly seemed to be in the right place. But this was not the moment where Barack Obama outlined an agenda that would transform America’s approach to manufacturing, free trade and industrial policy—let alone the politics of a state, or a nation, that gets far too little straight talk when it comes to economics.

John Nichols’s new book on protests and politics, Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street, has just been publshed by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising.

Twenty-Five Faces of an American Uprising

John Nichols on February 14, 2012 - 2:02 AM ET

When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced on February 11, 2011, that he would use a bureaucratic “budget repair bill” as a vehicle to attack collective-bargaining rights, civil-service protections and local democracy, he expected a reaction. The governor went so far as threaten to call out the National Guard to prevent protests from getting out of hand. But Walker and his aides were certain that they would be done with the fight in a week. Now, a year later, Walker faces ongoing demonstrations, increasing legislative opposition, multiple legal challenges and a recall election threat that arose when one million Wisconsinites signed petitions seeking his removal from office.

Walker should have known he was in trouble when the first protests began and a young woman who worked at the State Historical Society showed up with a white T-shirt pulled over her winter coat. With a place pen, she had written: “I Am Not Afraid of the National Guard!”

The governor’s attempt to intimidate Wisconsinites into accepting an austerity agenda that assaulted not just labor rights but the state’s open government and small-“d” democratic traditions was a failure from the start. Instead of scaring citizens into submission, Walker provoked an uprising that continues to this day.

The courage, optimism and steady determination of Wisconsinites, many of whom had never engaged in public protest or political action before, is what undid Walker’s best-laid plans. Even as he succeeded in enacting elements of his program, the push-back was so intense that two of his key legislative allies were defeated in the state Senate recall elections of last summer. And, now, he and his lieutenant governor face a similar fate.

This was a people-powered uprising, But even the most spontaneous of revolts requires information, messaging and calls to arms. The movement had some national allies. Union leaders such as Jerry McEntee of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (who declared Wisconsin to be “ground zero in the struggle for labor rights”) and Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers came early, as did the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Rocker Tom Morello played Woody Guthrie songs for the crowds, and wrote a great song of his own: “Union Town.” Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and MSNBC’s Ed Schultz broadcast live from Madison, as did GRITtv’s Laura Flanders.

But the mass movement that made “Wisconsin” not just the name of a state but a new name for resistance would not have been possible without visionary groups and individuals who stepped up at critical stages in the struggle. Here are a few that ought never be forgotten:

The University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants Association

The oldest graduate student union in the world (now an American Federation of Teachers affiliate) “got it” immediately. Within hours of the governor’s announcement, the TAA declared: “What we do in the next 5 days will determine whether we keep our union, and our professional lives as educators, researchers, and public servants.”

TAA members were front and center at the first rallies on campus. They organized the February 14 march that brought protesters into the state Capitol and to the door of the governor’s office. TAA members took the lead in maintaining the presence in the Capitol that would eventually see thousands of Wisconsinites sleeping in around the clock. State Rep. Mark Pocan, a Madison Democrat who helped organize round-the-clock hearings in the Capitol says: “While a lot of unions brought people in volume, I don’t know if anyone else brought them in as continually and consistently.”

State Senator Fred Risser

The longest serving state legislator in the United States, Risser was first elected when Dwight Eisenhower was president. Distinguished and well-regarded by members of both parties, the former state Senate President stepped up immediately to decry Walker’s actions. He brought historical perspective, and he did not mince words.

State employees have the right to negotiate in good faith with the state. Without a willingness to even discuss what concessions need to be made with state employees, the governor comes across more like a dictator and less like a leader,” said the dean of the Senate. When the state Senate minority leader Mark Miller led fourteen Democratic senators out of the Capitol in order to deny Walker’s Republican allies the quorum needed to pass the budget bill—and to provide the protest movement with time to build momentum—younger legislators such as Lena Taylor, Chris Larson and Jon Erpenbach emerged as prominent spokespeople. But none were any bolder than the chamber’s oldest member when it came to defending the best Wisconsin tradition of placing the will of the people above the demands of political and economic elites.

Dane County Supervisor Melissa Sargent

At a point when most local officials were shellshocked by the governor’s move, Sargent leapt into action, getting the local government of the state’s second-largest county (and the home of the state Capitol) to take an unequivocal stand on behalf of labor rights. The resolution Sargent (with the support of allies such as Supervisor Dianne Hesselbein got passed declared: “The Dane County Board of Supervisors supports the Wisconsin worker and supports the right to organize and collectively bargain. We stand opposed to Gov. Walker’s attack on the middle class and on the rights of Wisconsin workers.”

Sargent’s bold move inspired other local officials across the state to rise up against Walker’s agenda. And it marked her as a new-generation leader who, this fall, will compete for an open state legislative seat.

Voces de la Frontera

On the day Scott Walker announced his plan, the Milwaukee-based civil rights and immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera beat many state and national labor and political organizations to the frontlines. Voces executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz, decried the law, saying: “This is a vicious attack on the basic freedom of association, enshrined both in our US Constitution and federal labor law. Labor unions built our middle class. In addition, Walker’s statement today that he is prepared to utilize the National Guard against opponents is both a direct threat of violence and an admission of its unpopularity.… We join public unions across the state in calling on all Wisconsin workers to make their voices heard in opposition to this plan, and we will continue to fight its passage in any way possible.”

Voces never backed down. It’s members were at the forefront of marches and rallies. And Voces built an alliance with the labor movement so strong that, when the group’s annual immigrant rights march was held May 1, 2011, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was the keynote speaker at a “Wisconsin Solidarity March and Rally for Immigrant & Worker Rights” that drew a crowd of 100,000.

State Representative Mark Pocan

The former co-chair of the legislative Joint Finance Committee challenged Walker’s budget numbers from the start, noting that the governor had signed measures cutting corporate taxes before declaring a “budget crisis.” Pocan’s critique revealed the false premises underpinning Walker’s agenda. When the governor threatened to layoff protesting state employees, Pocan unfurled a banner from his office window in the Capitol that read: “Governor Walker Your Pink Slip is Coming.” When the governor’s legislative allies (brothers Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate majority leader, and Jeff Fitzgerald, the Assembly minority leader) violated open meetings laws and legislative rules to secure passage of measures, Pocan coined the term “Fitzwalkerstan.”

“Don’t recognize your state? That’s because it’s not your state anymore. The Republicans have spent the past two months quietly trying to form their own junta aimed at dismembering Wisconsin,” explained Pocan. “Welcome to FitzWalkerstan, where Wisconsin is open for special interest give-a-ways and closed to the middle-class.”

Now a candidate for an open Congressional seat (in a race with another fine legislator, Kelda Helen Roys), Pocan promises to be just as tough on national Republicans.

Madison Teachers Inc.

When MTI, the union that represents Madison-area teachers and school staff announced on February 16 that its members were leaving the classrooms and heading to the state Capitol, they were joined by students and parents and the crowds swelled. And MTI executive director John Matthews, a local labor leader with more than forty years experience, used all his connections to bring other unions into the fight. Matthews and the thousands of MTI members are among the stalwarts who have kept the protests going all year at the Wisconsin Capitol.

Madison Firefighters Local 311

Firefighters Local 311 president Joe Conway Jr. moved quickly to bring firefighters into the the movement, despite the fact that public safety personnel were exempt from the attacks on collective-bargaining rights. The sound of the firefighter’s bagpipes was heard at some of the first rallies at the Capitol, and delivered a solidarity message that encouraged other unions to step up.

State Firefighters union president Mahlon Mitchell became one of the most prominent faces of the movement, and is now much discussed as a potential candidate for governor, lieutenant governor of other offices.

John “Sly” Sylvester

Former rock DJ Sylvester had a popular commercial talk radio show on Madison station WTDY-AM. On the day the fight in Wisconsin launched, he switched over to all protest, all the time. He hasn’t stopped since. Sylvester’s show has for a year now provided four hours of pro-labor programming every day. And the message is so popular that his advertisers now cut commercials touting their support for the union cause.

Peg Lautenschlager

Former Wisconsin Attorney General Lautenschlager could have stood on the sidelines of the struggle in her state. Instead, she threw herself into it, as a lawyer representing key unions and as one of the most aggressive and articulate challengers of the governor's policies.

Lautenschlager does not live in Madison. She's from Fond du Lac in the northeast of the state. And, like many of the ables advocates, she poured her energies into working on her home turf. She even helped organize a winning recall campaign by her friend Jess King against one of Walker's closest allies in the state Senate.

Matt Wisniewski

A series of short videos made by Madison photographer Matt Wisniewski chronicled the emotional power of the protests so ably that they drew international attention and praise. Wisniewski’s work, which captured the energy and enthusiasm of the first rallies and the initial occupation of the state Capitol were so moving that they quickly went vital, attracting millions of Internet hits.

Eventually, scenes from one of of Wisniewski’s productions was featured in a video by rocker Tom Morello. And Chrysler grabbed a few seconds for the much-discussed Super Bowl ad featuring Clint Eastwood. Unfortunately, Chrysler obscured or covered up many of the union signs. See Wisniewski’s originals. They’re magical.

WORT-FM

Madison’s great community radio station, WORT, provided steady coverage from the start of the protests, employing not just traditional radio reporting but Twitter, Facebook, flip cams and everything else at its disposal. Norm Stockwell, Molly Stentz and the rest of the WORT crew also provided a base of operations for programs such as GRIT-TV, independent radio producers and filmmakers.

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca

If there was a "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" moment in Wisconsin, it came when the leader of the Democratic minority in the state Assembly confronted Republican allies of the governor who were gaming the rules of the legislature to pass the most anti-labor components of Walker's proposal. Barca, a former congressman, raced to a legislative conference committee with a list of objections and amendments -- as well as some reminders regarding the rules. When state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, a key Walker lieutenant, ignored Barca, the usually mild-mannered assemblyman bellowed: "This is a violation of the open meetings law... This is a violation of the law!"

The scene, captured on video, was replayed tens of thousands of times, and Barca became a hero to those who objected not just to the governor's agenda but to how it was being advanced. Working with young Democratic legislators such as Cory Mason and Tamara Grigsby, Barca emerged as a defender not just of labor rights but of the rule of law. Indeed, he got such high marks that, when he spoke at an anniversary rally organized by the Wisconsin Wave movement, there were chants of "Barca for Governor."

Wisconsin Wave

Veteran organizers in Wisconsin quickly recognized that what was happening in the state was remarkable. But it was, at core, a response to Governor Walker's policies. The organizers of the Wisconsin Wave movement drew together unions, farm groups and comunity organizations with an eye toward advancing a broad agenda of democratic and economic reforms. In particular, they sought to emphasize the importance of resisting corporate influence on politics and policy-making. Wisconsin Wave rallies became forums for some of the boldest messages of the Wisconsin struggle -- including Michael Moore's "America Is Not Broke" speech. And the group remains a dynamic force on the ground in Madison.

Joel Greeno and Tony Schultz

When famers Joel Greeno and Tony Schultz attended some of the first pro-labor rallies at the Capitol, they decided something was missing: tractors. With the Wisconsin Farmers Union and Family Farm Defenders, they organized a tractorcade that brought farmers from across the state to the mass rally on March 12. Their message: workers and farmers have to "Pull Together,"

Greeno noted that farmers use collective bargaining when they join cooperatives and seek to negotiate prices, and declared: "When Governor Walker attacks the rights of workers, he attacks the rights of farmers." Schultz celebrated the renewal of "an old populist tradition of workers and farmers standing together against corporate power." And their message resonated, as rural Wisconsinites became some of the most engaged backers of the drive to recall Governor Walker.

Washburn, Wisconsin

On the day of the largest protest in Madison, the crowd estimates were as high as 180,000. That’s almost as many people who live in the city.

But on that same day, in the city of Washburn on Lake Superior, Governor Walker was attended a fund-raising event for local Republicans. Outside the hall, more than 2,000 activists rallied. That’s a more people than live in Washburn.

The big numbers on the north that day provided a powerful reminder that the Wisconsin uprising was not just a Wisconsin thing. Some of the biggest protests took place in some of the smallest towns.

Secretary of State Doug La Follette

The veteran constitutional officer was the only Democrat to win a statewide race in 2010. Walker paid La Follette no attention until it came time to certify the governor’s anti-labor legislation.

The Secretary of State slowed things down, following proper procedures, consulting with local officials, cooperating with Dane County Circuit Court Judge Mary Ann Sumi as she reviewed whether an open meetings law violation had occurred, and providing the space that allowed many municipalities and school districts to settle contracts before the new law went into effect.

Walker was furious. But La Follette was steady in his resolve. He emerged as a lonely defender of the rule of law.

National Nurses United

The union had a small presence in the state but it stepped in at a critical moment with a message that the real culprits were not state and local workers, or teachers, but Wall Street banksters. Their “Blame Wall Street” signs are still on display all across Wisconsin. And their message was echoed in an epic speech by filmmaker Michael Moore. The NNU and Moore interventions gave a young protest movement an economically populist and militant message that anticipated Occupy Wall Street.

Ian’s Pizza

The pizzeria located barely a block from the Capitol started getting calls almost as soon as the building was occupied. Folks from outside Madison wanted to pay for pizzas to be delivered to the protesters. During the eighteen days of the occupation, Ian’s delivered thousands of pizzas to the demonstrators on behalf of callers from all fifty states, more than sixty countries and Antarctica. There was even a donation from union workers in Egypt.

And what did Ian’s do with the money?

“We have decided to give back,” the staff announced. With advice from the community, Ian’s made substantial donations to groups that were engaged in and supporting the protests.

Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney

When Mahoney, a veteran lawman, announced that his deputies would not serve as Walker’s “palace guard,” it was a signal that police forces were going to maintain not just public safety but the right to dissent. Off-duty deputies from around the state joined police officers from Madison and other cities joined protests, proudly clad in “Cops For Labor” T-shirts.

Leslie Peterson and Her Red Balloons

The first protests at the state Capitol took place on St. Valentine's Day, Students presented cut-out hearts at the governor's office, asking Walker not to break their hearts by cutting unversity funding and attacking union rights. Someone brought a red, heart-shaped balloon. It got loose and floated to the dome of the Capitol. It remained there for months and became something of a symbol of the ongoing protests.http://wislawjournal.com/tag/leslie-peterson/

Leslie Peterson, a local businesswoman, and other activists began bringing heart balloons to demonstrations at the Capitol. The governor's aides objected, and tried to prevent balloons from being brought into the Capitol. Peterson started showing up everywhere with balloons, making sure that they became a symbol of the protests. She was even attacked by a Walker backer, who popped a balloon -- earning statewide headlines.

Now, at least one candidate in the spring election for Dane County Board, is using an image of a heart-shaped red balloon on her campaign yardsigns.

The Center for Media and Democracy

The Madison-based center, which has long specialized in discrediting political and corporate spin recognized an incredible opportunity when Scott Walker and his allies brought the austerity lie to Wisconsin. CMD’s Lisa Graves and Mary Bottari steered the group’s staff out of research cubicles and into the thick of the struggle as reporters, photographers, bloggers and investigators. The CMD blog broke big stories and got so good that national media outlets were soon grabbing quotes and video from it.

CMD fostered and encouraged grassroots journalism, highlighting Twitter and Facebook communications that became essential drivers for the movement. And as the struggle continued, the group focused on the financial and ideological underpinnings of Walker’s agenda to reveal the role played by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council in shaping legislative enacted in Wisconsin and other states. The ensuing “Alec Exposed” project was produced in conjunction with The Nation.

The Solidarity Singers

These occupiers of the state Capitol began singing labor songs in the rotunda and never stopped. Despite efforts by the Walker administration to ban them, the Solidarity Singers return each day—sometimes hundreds strong—to deliver a cappella versions of civil rights and union tunes. Sometimes, you’ll even hear a state legislator joining the chorus.

They’re so popular now that they are recording a CD.

United Wisconsin

Scott Walker and his amen corner claim he’s being targeted by “big union bosses” and “the national Democratic Party.” But the recall challenge he faces was created in large part by the tens of thousands of volunteers who forged the “United Wisconsin” movement.

Started as a website that collected names of Wisconsinites who wanted to recall and remove the governor, the movement eventually turned its list of 200,000 Walker foes into a statewide movement, with trained coordinators in every one of the state’s 72 counties, local offices in most of them and a volunteer network that did not quit.

They gathered not just 1 million signatures to recall Scott Walker but 850,000 to recall his lieutenant governor and the better part of 100,000 more to recall the state Senate majority leader and three other senators allied with the governor.

Lori Compas

When the wedding photographer from Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, learned that her legislative representative, Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald, had violated state open meetings laws to push through Walker’s assault on collective bargaining, civil service protections, public education and public services, she knew he had to go. But Democratic strategists said Fitzgerald’s district was too Republican to sustain a recall drive.

So Compas launched one on her own. Using Twitter, Facebook and old-fashioned shoe leather, she drew together a cadre of volunteers that collected more than enough signatures. Now, the political newcomer is being talked up as a potential challenger to the most powerful legislator in the state.

Sean Michael Dargan and Ken Lonnquist

Folkies, rockers and rappers have produced such an incredible collection of songs about the Wisconsin struggle that it is tough to single anyone out. The brilliant Ken Lonnquist has produced a whole album of tunes, recounting details of the struggle with songs such as “14 Senators”—the story of the exit of Democratic legislators—which includes the line: “2,000 Monday, 10,000 Tuesday, 15,000 Wednesday, 25,000 Thursday…”

But Sean Michael Dargan, a veteran songwriter whose old band The Kissers was a rally favorite in Wisconsin, nailed it with the song he debuted at the rally to kick off the recall movement against the governor: “On the Day Scott Walker is Recalled.”

New Mexico Legislature to Congress: Amend Against 'Citizens United'

John Nichols on February 13, 2012 - 2:55 PM ET

The Constitution of the United States can be amended in two formal ways: from the top down and from the bottom up.

But New Mexico legislators have found a third way and, hopefully, other state legislators around the country will follow their lead.

The US Constitution is traditionally amended via a process that begins with the endorsement of an amendment by the US House and US Senate and then the ratification of that amendment by the requisite three-fourths of state legislatures. That’s the top-down route. The bottom-up route begins when two-thirds of the state legislatures ask Congress to call a national convention to propose amendments.

But what if a state legislature tells Congress to get moving?

That’s what happened over the weekend, when the New Mexico state Senate voted 20-9 to approve Senate Memorial 3, which calls on the Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. The Citizens United ruling was one of several that opened the floodgates for corporate special-interest money to overwhelm the political process.

The New Mexico Senate vote, which follows on a January 31 vote by the New Mexico House, aligns the state with Hawaii in calling for the amendment. And it gives a big boost to the campaigning by Free Speech for People, Move to Amend, Common Cause and other groups that are working on various strategies to get communities and states nationwide to demand an amendment.

“This marks a major victory for the constitutional amendment movement to reclaim our democracy,” says John Bonifaz, executive director of Free Speech for People, the national nonpartisan campaign launched on the day of the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision to press for a Twenty-eighth Amendment to the US Constitution to overturn the ruling. “The Citizens United ruling presents a direct and serious threat to the integrity of our elections, unleashing a torrent of corporate money into our political process. The ruling is also the most extreme extension yet of a corporate rights doctrine which has been eroding our First Amendment and our US Constitution for the past 30 years. As with prior egregious Supreme Court rulings which threatened our democracy, we the people must exercise our power under Article V of the Constitution to enact a constitutional amendment which will preserve the promise of American self-government: of, for, and by the people.”

Free Speech for People initiated the New Mexico push, and worked closely with New Mexico State Senators Steve Fischmann and Eric Griego and State Representative Mimi Stewart to advance it. Support came from the Center for Civic Policy, Common Cause New Mexico, the League of Women Voters of New Mexico, the New Mexico Green Chamber of Commerce, El Centro, the Southwest Organizing Project, All Families Matter, the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association, the Native American Voter Alliance, Progress Now and Move On.

The New Mexico move is important, as it comes at the start of a year when activist groups are seeking to ramp up support for an amendment.

“Through Amend 2012, the campaign we formally launched last month, Common Cause helped secure [victories in communities across the county],” says Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “As you know, Amend2012 aims to give voters in as many states as possible an opportunity to make their voices heard now, during the 2012 elections, on the need to overturn Citizens United. Common Cause is working to give voters the tools to put ‘voter instruction’ measures on the November ballot in as many states as possible, either by voter initiative or action by the state legislature. The measures would instruct Congress to adopt a constitutional amendment to make it clear that corporations are not people and authorize campaign spending limits.”

The idea is catching on in the states. And with people who may be in Congress soon.

New Mexico Senator Eric Griego, an amendment proponent in that state, is running for the US House this year.

So, too, is Wisconsin state Representative Mark Pocan, D-Madison, who is co-sponsoring pro-amendment legislation.

Because so many state legislatures end up as Congressional contenders—and members of Congress—the fight to get states to tell Congress to amend the Constitution pays double bonuses. It sends a message and, depending on the election results this year, it could send more champions of the amendment movement to Congress.

John Nichols’s new book on protests and politics, prising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street, will be published next week by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising.

Koch Brothers, ALEC, Governor Walker Renew the Reagan Delusion

John Nichols on February 11, 2012 - 4:16 PM ET

In February, 2011, Scott Walker was just another Republican governor. A favorite of Newt Gingrich, billionaire Tea Partisans Charles and David Koch and wealthy advocates for privatization of education, the Wisconsinite had his national fans on the conservative circuit. But he was not a player, and no one (except perhaps Walker) thought he was headed for the national spotlight. Among the Republican governors ushered into power by the Republican wave of 2010, he was ranked with the “assistant Walmart manager” group of drab mandarins, along with Iowa’s Terry Branstad, South Dakota’s Dennis Daugaard and Oklahoma’s Mary Fallin. He didn’t have the national stature of Ohio’s John Kasich or Kansan Sam Brownback, nor the wild-eyed “say anything” appeal of Arizona’s Jan Brewer or Maine’s Paul LePage.

Yet, when the nation’s most prominent right-wing operatives and reactionary Republicans gathered for the Friday night keynote speech that is always the centerpiece of a Conservative Political Action Conference, it was not a Republican presidential candidates, nor a Congressional leader who was standing at the podium. It was Scott Walker.

Over the past year, this career politician from suburban Milwaukee has been remade in the eyes of conservatives as precisely what he wanted to be: a new Reagan. In a conversation that Walker thought he was having with the primary funder of campaigns on his behalf, David Koch, the governor who fondly recalls a teenage handshake with the fortieth president, painted himself as the Reagan Republicans have been waiting for. Recalling a dinner with cabinet members where he was preparing to “drop the bomb”—a set of attacks on collective-bargaining rights, cvil service protections, open government and local democracy that would shock his state and, ultimately, the nation—Walker said: “I stood up and I pulled out a picture of Ronald Reagan, and I said, you know, this may seem a little melodramatic, but thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan, whose hundredth birthday we just celebrated the day before, had one of the most defining moments of his political career, not just his presidency, when he fired the air-traffic controllers. And, uh, I said, to me that moment was more important than just for labor relations or even the federal budget, that was the first crack in the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism, because from that point forward, the Soviets and the Communists knew that Ronald Reagan wasn’t a pushover. And, uh, I said this may not have as broad of world implications, but in Wisconsin’s history—little did I know how big it would be nationally—in Wisconsin’s history, I said this is our moment, this is our time to change the course of history.”

Even when Walker uttered those words, in the midst of the unprecedented uprising that his February 11, 2011, announcement provoked, his comments did seem melodramatic—perhaps even delusional.

But a year later, Walker is a Republican rock star. He is pitched as a presidential or vice presidential prospect by players as powerful as South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint. He jets around the country to headline events sponsored by the array of organizations developed by the Koch Brothers to advance a radical anti-labor, anti–public education, anti-democracy agenda as outlined by their American Legislative Exchange Council. He raises national money from right-wing donors at a rate that presidential candidates would envy. And he is able to elbow aside Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell for the prime speaking slot at the pre-eminent conservative gathering of the season.

At CPAC, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the announcement that sent Wisconsin into turmoil, Walker wasted no time in making the Reagan comparison, opening his address with announcement that he had been called to public service. “And the prime inspiration for that call was a man named Ronald Reagan,” declared the governor, who was not so troubled by modesty to avoid suggesting that his actions in Wisconsin mirrored Reagan’s “bold leadership.”

But Scott Walker is not the next Reagan. Not yet.

The test of whether he is the future of the Republican Party, or just a right-wing fantasy fueled by corporate cash and delusions of grandeur, will come this spring, when he will face an unprecedented recall election. The vote in Wisconsin, provoked by petitions carrying 1 million signatures—the largest portion of a state’s electorate ever to demand the removal of a sitting governor—will decide whether the governor and his agenda will continue to define the politics of one state.

But it will also decide whether Walker will lead a movement that redefines the Republican Party not just as a more militantly anti-labor force than it has ever been but as a new sort of political project that seeks to limit the ability of its critics to organize, undermine voting rights, end open-government protections and pre-empt the authority of local elected officials. Just as Reagan altered the economic debate so radically that politicians of both parties still echo his false premises, Walker would alter the political debate so radically that American democracy could be irreparably damaged—chained and constrained as it has not been since the progressive reforms of a century ago began to extend America’s promise to all its citizens.

Walker knows this.

“[This] recall election is about much more than who is the governor of Wisconsin. In fact, it is even bigger than what it means for the elections in November of 2012,” Walker told the CPAC crowd in Washington. “This election is ultimately about courage. When we prevail, it will send a powerful message—not only in Madison but in Springfield and St. Paul, Columbus and Austin, and in state houses all across America. Most of all, it will send a message in the halls of Congress.”

“Lord help us if we lose,” Walker continued. “If we lose, I believe that it will set acts of courage in politics back at least a decade if not a generation. This is why we must not lose.”

Like Reagan before him, Walker defines serving the interests of economic royalism, taking big money to deliver big favors, and following an agenda dictated not by the needs of the American people but by the demands of those who write the biggest campaign checks as “courage.”

That is not courage. In a democracy, that is heresy. And it is the fight to banish that heresy from the politics not just of Wisconsin but of America that makes the recall and removal of Scott Walker the great democratic struggle of 2012.

John Nichols' new book on protests and politics, Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street, will be published next week by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising

Paul Ryan's 'New Reagan' Speech Positions for Romney Implosion

John Nichols on February 10, 2012 - 12:19 PM ET

At a point when the Republican presidential race is veering off course once more, the party’s most prominent Congressional star, Paul Ryan, could have used his featured speaking slot at the Conservative Political Action Conference to talk up the remaining contenders.

Didn’t happen.

Instead, the House Budget Committee chairman gave a Thursday night speech that suggested Republicans are running the wrong race this year, and that none too subtly positioned him as the party’s man on a white horse. And if the message was not blunt enough, he compared his approach and his vision to that of conservative icon Ronald Reagan.

“We only have nine months to defeat Barack Obama—nine months to reject his agenda of debt, doubt, and decline. And while defeating this president is necessary to getting America back on track, it is hardly sufficient,” declared Ryan, who spoke at the Washington, DC, conference where a chastened Mitt Romney (the “front-runner” who has lost more states than he has won), Rick Santorum (the latest “Anyone-But-Romney”) and Newt Gingrich (Moon colonist) will try to get traction with conservatives.

But Ryan wasn’t helping anyone get moving toward the nomination. Except, perhaps, himself.

Though Ryan regularly says he is “probably not” a prospect for a place on the GOP’s 2012 national ticket—as a vice presidential candidate or even the choice of a brokered convention—he was not giving as assist to Romney or any of the other last men standing in the Republican field.

The man, whom more than a few conservative pundits continue to tout as a potential convention alternative to a field of failed contenders, was preening and positioning before a worried crowd of the nation’s most influential conservatives. And he got some notice. Indeed, the full text of the congressman’s CPAC speech was posted within minutes of its delivery on the website of the conservative National Review magazine. And video of the speech was everywhere on the web by Friday morning.

“Put simply,” said Ryan, “Americans deserve a choice—and it is our responsibility to offer them one. They deserve an opportunity, not just to divert from the president’s path to decline but to affirm a reform agenda that restores our bedrock of founding principles.”

At points in his well received speech, Ryan was explicit in expressing disappointment with his own party’s unfocused message.

We know that this election cannot be just a referendum on President Obama’s failed leadership.

“Americans deserve a choice—a choice between two dramatically different visions for our country’s future. As conservatives, we owe Americans that choice,” declared Ryan. “Look, I know there are people in this town who are terrified at the prospect of an election with real alternative visions at stake. ‘Make it a referendum. Win by default,’ they say. Just oppose—we can win that way. Don’t propose bold ideas—that’s too risky. I’ll admit, the easy way is always tempting. But my friends, if that’s all we stand for, then what are we doing at here CPAC—the place where so many giants of our movement came to advance their boldest ideas?”

As he has for months, Ryan argued that there’s “a moral case for going bold” on issues like replacing Medicare with a voucher scheme and beginning the process of privatizing Social Security.

“But,” he added, “there is also a strong political case for going bold.”

And this is where Ryan went for the gold.

“The times call for leaders who understand the depth of the problems we face, and who offer far-reaching reforms equal to the challenges. In 1980, Ronald Reagan offered supply-side economics at home and a rollback of Soviet Communism abroad,” said the budget committee chair, whom The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol and Stephen Hayes keep pushing as a potential “solution” candidate for Republicans who thought Romney was a loser even before he started losing.

“The challenges this time? They’re different. But the moment calls for the same kind of boldness,” continued Ryan. “Everybody knows this is politically risky territory. Republicans have their battle scars on entitlement reform. That’s why some argue that we should downplay bold agendas and simply wage a campaign focused solely on the President and his party. I firmly disagree. Boldness and clarity offer the greatest opportunity to create a winning coalition. We will not only win the next election—we have a unique opportunity to sweep and remake the political landscape.”

Is Paul Ryan really the candidate who can “remake the political landscape”?

Not by most logical measures. Polling suggests Americans associate him with threats to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

A lot of Americans have started to recognize that, as Esquire’s Charles Pierce so gently explains it: “Paul Ryan is…a remarkably accomplished bullshit artist.”

But that’s not a spoiler for the CPAC crowd.

In fact, Ryan recognized that he was talking to a crowd that has a taste for nonsense—especially when it is served up by political players who are better looking, more articulate and more unyielding in their beliefs than the alternatives.

Hence that reference to Reagan and the announcement that “the moment calls for the same kind of boldness.”

Make no mistake: Paul Ryan was not suggesting that Mitt Romney is going to deliver that “boldness.”

Everything about Paul Ryan’s speech suggested that he was trying to get the crowd hear the name “Reagan” and think “Ryan.”

'Anybody But Romney' Wins Everywhere, as GOP Turnout Tanks

John Nichols on February 8, 2012 - 10:26 AM ET

Campaign signs for Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are seen along a road in Dallas County, Iowa, December 24, 2011. REUTERS/Joshua Lott

The big winner Tuesday? Anybody But Romney.

After eight states have held Republican primaries and caucuses, the ordained front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has lost the majority of contests. Mitt Romney has won three races (New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada) but he has now lost five (Iowa, South Carolina, Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota).

Here’s the even more unsettling fact for those who would make Romney a nominee: Rick Santorum, who was supposed a footnote to the 2012 contest, has won more states than Mitt Romney. But let’s not succumb to Santorumania just yet.

Yes, yes, of course, the sweater vest had a good night. But the big deal is that Republicans rejected the empty suit.

Rick Santorum may have won beauty contests Tuesday in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, but he won’t even be on the ballot for delegate-rich contests in states such as Indiana and Virginia. He’s still running for vice president, or maybe a cabinet post.

Santorum is a story. But he is not the story.

The story is the fact that Mitt Romney lost so very miserably in three battleground states.

Romney finished second in Colorado and Missouri and, remarkably, barely mustered a third-place finish (behind Santorum and Ron Paul, barely ahead of Newt Gingrich) in Minnesota.

But the place on the list is less telling than than overwhelming levels of opposition to Romney.

In Colorado, 65 percent of Republican caucus-goers voted against the man who started the week as the all-but-declared nominee of their party.

In Missouri, 75 percent of Republican primary voters backed someone other than Romney.

In Minnesota, 83 percent of Republican caucus-goers rejected Romney. That’s particularly striking, as Romney won Minnesota in 2008 with 41 percent of the vote.

In many Minnesota counties, Romney finished fourth, behind Santorum, Paul and Gingrich. Some of the former Massachusetts governor’s worst losses were in collar counties around the Twin Cities, an essential base for Republican presidential contenders in the fall.

Several Minnesota counties recorded less than 5 percent support for Romney. In western Minnesota’s Norman County (Red River Valley), no one caucused for him. Mitt got 0 percent.

His finishes in the Republican heartlands of rural Missouri and Colorado were almost as bad.

Even more unsettling for the Republicans has to be the fact that, despite intensive campaigning in the three states, turnout collapsed.

In Missouri, a classic bellweather state, there was a stunning drop in primary participation. In 2008, GOP primary turnout was 589,289. In 2012 ,GOP primary turnout was 251,496. That’s way less than half the turnout just four years ago.

In Minnesota, caucus turnout four years ago was 62,828. This year, it will be under 50,000. That’s an almost 20 percent dropoff.

In Colorado, 70,229 Republicans caucused in 2008. This year, turnout was 64,000. That’s close to a 10 percent dropoff.

Of course, there were some differences between the 2008 contests and the 2012 contests in these states. The Romney people want you to know that this year’s races were “non-binding beauty contests.” But isn’t your likely nominee supposed to be attractive enough politically to win beauty contests? And isn’t this supposed to be the year when conservatives are all excited to pick a nominee and go after the dreaded Barack Obama?

Something isn’t adding up here for Mitt Romney.

But that other candidate, Anybody But Romney, is going from strength to strength.

So, too, it would seem, is the prospective Democratic nominee, if Barack Obama is lucky enough to get Mitt Romney as an opponent.

In Missouri’s Republican primary on Tuesday, where all the attention and campaigning was focused, Romney secured 63,826 votes.

Running essentially unopposed in the extraordinarily low-profile Missouri Democratic primary, Obama won 64,405.

John Nichols’ new book on protests and politics, Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street will be published next week by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising>

The Post Office Is Not Broke

John Nichols on February 7, 2012 - 9:46 AM ET

Republican leaders in Congress are talking about dismembering the US Postal Service by cutting the number of delivery days, shuttering processing centers so that it will take longer for letters to arrive, closing thousands of rural and inner-city post offices and taking additional steps that would dramatically downsize one of the few national programs ordained by the original draft of the US Constitution. At the same time, supposedly “centrist” US Senators Tom Carper (D-DE), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Scott Brown (R-MA) are trying to build a “bipartisan consensus” for a death by slower cuts.

Their “21st Century Postal Service Act,” a supposed compromise now being weighed by the Senate, would still force the postal service to close hundreds of mail processing centers, shut thousands of post offices, cause massive delays in mail delivery and push consumers toward most expensive private-sector services. It is, says National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando, “a classic case of ‘killing the Post-Office in order to save it.’ ”

Their rationale for making the bloodletting, much discussed in the media, holds that radical surgery is necessary because the postal service is in financial crisis.

The postal service, we are told, is broke.

There’s only one problem with this diagnosis.

It’s wrong.

The postal service is not broke.

At the behest of the Republican-controlled Congress of the Bush-Cheney era, the USPS has been forced since 2006 to pre-fund future retiree health benefits. As the American Postal Workers Union notes, “This mandate is the primary cause of the agency’s financial crisis. No other government agency or private company bears this burden, which costs the USPS approximately $5.5 billion annually.”

Now, however, we learn that the pre-funding requirements have taken so much money from the USPS that—according to the postal service’s own inspector general—it has “significantly exceeded” the level of reserved money that the federal government or private corporations divert to meet future pension and retiree healthcare demands. “Using ratepayer funds, it has built a war chest of over $326 billion to address its future liabilities,” acknowledges Postal Service Inspector General David C. Williams.

That, argues US Senator Bernie Sanders, puts “the rationale for postal cuts in doubt.”

Sanders, who has taken the lead in challenging cuts to the USPS and who requested the assessment by Williams, says that on the basis of information contained in the assessment, the Postal Service should be released from the “onerous and unprecedented burden” of being forced to put $5.5 billion every year into its future retiree health benefits fund. Sanders’s office explains that “even if there are no further contributions from the post office, and if the fund simply collects 3.5 to 4 percent interest every year, that account will be fully funded in twenty-one years.” At the same time, the senator suggests, the postal service should be allowed to recover more than $13 billion in overpayments it has made to a federal retirement systems.

That’s not the end of the debate about the future of the postal service. Along with Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Sanders is working with key Senate Democrats—and, the group hopes, some Republicans who represent rural states—to develop amendments, and potential alternatives, to the “21st Century Postal Service Act.” Not only would they get the accounting right, they would remove barriers to the USPS so that it can compete and grow.

“I believe the Postal Service will find more and more senators and representatives standing up here in Congress to prevent rash and irreversible decisions, until USPS can present a cogent strategy for growing in a new era of mail,” says Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “A scorched-earth strategy, focused only on the short-term horizon, is a strategy for failure. It is a race to the bottom. The Postal Service needs a plan not only to survive, but to thrive. To do that the Postal Service must listen to its customers, understand its market, and play to its strengths, not trade its strengths away.”