John Nichols | The Nation

Political analysts on the right and the left agree that the Wisconsin recall race between Republican Governor Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Tom Barrett is the most competitive gubernatorial race in the nation. Pundits on the left and the right agree that the Wisconsin fight—which targets a conservative governor who has brought an anti-labor, austerity agenda to an American state—is second only to the presidential race in importance.

But there is a dramatic difference in the intensity of commitment to the race by national Republicans and their conservative allies on one side and national Democrats and their allies on the other.

The Republicans aren’t holding anything back.

“We’re all in here,” says Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, a Wisconsinite whose name has turned up frequently in indictments of Walker aides targeted by a “John Doe” inquiry into felony violations of government ethics and campaign-finance laws. “We will be involved for as much as we need to be involved. We haven’t put a limit on the number.”

Priebus offers his “all in” commitment even though Walker’s campaign has a 25–1 financial advantage over Barrett. And that doesn’t even count the millions coming in from the Koch brothers and other national donors who are funding so-called “independent” expenditures on the governor’s behalf.

What is the Democratic National Committee offering in return? Not as much. While the Democratic Governors Association and some other groups with party ties have been supportive of the electoral fight in Wisconsin, the DNC has been slow on the draw. Even now, after much discussion of the DNC’s slow response, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz says only that she hopes to come to Wisconsin for a fundraising event. Translation: she will make an appearance in Wisconsin where Wisconsinites will be asked to give money to the DNC.

Needless to say, that’s not even a minimally equal level of commitment to the one made by Priebus and the RNC.

In fairness, Democrats do not have to equal the Republican level of engagement. They just have to be in the game.

That’s because Walker’s spending, while meaningful, can’t undo all the damage he has done to his own reputation.

Walker burned through $21 million between November and late April, yet his approval ratings—according to what’s generally seen as the most reliable Wisconsin poll, that of Marquette University’s Law School—have actually declined slightly since the start of the year.

Despite the spending of the better part of $30 million on pro-Walker and anti-Barrett messaging, the latest polls show a race where Walker still can’t get above 50 percent approval ratings or support levels.

While the latest polls give the governor a narrow lead, they also show that there is deep concern about job losses. Indeed, according to the latest Marquette University Law School survey, that concern has risen dramatically in recent months.

Walker is clearly frightened by that reality. Burned by Bureau of Labor Statistics data that show Wisconsin has suffered the worst job losses in the nation since the governor’s austerity agenda was implemented, Walker on Wednesday pitched a “revised” set of jobs figures—based on projections from data used by no other state and no previous Wisconsin governor. Walker and his campaign are now pouring millions of dollars into advertising that pushes an agenda that, by every traditional measure, is failing. Walker and his campaign are now pouring millions of dollars into advertising that says an agenda, which by every traditional measure is failing, has, by a calculus known only to the governor, succeeded.

That’s a tough sell.

But it gets easier when Walker and his “independent” backers dominate the airwaves.

This is where the money issue becomes significant.

Joel Rogers, a sociologist and political theorist, says that we often miss the reality of how money works in politics. The point at which to look at the role of money in politics is not the final tabulation that says one candidate or party had more money than the other. The point at which to compare is at the early- and mid-stages of a campaign. Does one side have such an overwhelming advantage that it can effectively silence the other? Does one candidate have the ability to so dominate the discourse that their messages come to define the debate?

That’s what Scott Walker and his supporters have tried to do. They did not succeed in the early stages of the recall campaign, at least in part because of the high level of attention to the campaign and the intensity of the opposition to Walker mustered by energetic grassroots groups such as United Wisconsin.

Now, however, as this fast-paced campaign reaches its midpoint, Walker’s financial dominance allows him to spin political fantasies that are precisely at odds with reality—as he’s doing with the spun job-loss numbers.

This is where the frustration with national Democrats becomes a factor. While unions have been delivering resources for grassroots mobilization, there has not been an equivalent level of engagement by national Democratic Party operatives. Callers to Ed Schultz’s national radio show, a broadcast center of the discussion about the state-based struggles by unions and defenders of public services and public education, were furious with the DNC.

They aren’t just griping, however.

Brookfield, Wisconsin, activist Mary Magnuson went to MoveOn.org’s member-driven petition site—www.SignOn.org—with a note that read: “As a Wisconsin progressive working day and night for the recall of Scott Walker, I’m shocked: The Democratic National Committee still isn’t giving financial support to the recall fight in Wisconsin. After more than a year of grassroots efforts, Wisconsin citizens have accomplished more than anyone thought possible. We now have a Democratic challenger to Scott Walker who is neck and neck in the polls, even though Tom Barrett is being outspent by Walker’s millions from out-of-state donations.”

Magnuson continued: “There is no more time for the Democratic National Committee to wait—if Walker wins, it would be a huge setback to Democrats in races across the country this year. We need the DNC’s support immediately!”

The petition language is simple, but blunt: “Democratic National Committee and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, invest now in the crucial fight to remove Scott Walker from office in Wisconsin—the people have worked hard and it’s time to help.”

By mid-day Wednesday, more than 100,000 people had signed on.

These are grassroots activists, most of them Democrats, who recognize that Magnuson is right.

If the Wisconsin recall is defeated, not because Walker or his austerity agenda was appealing but because he and the RNC and the Koch brothers were more committed, then the Democratic party will take a hard hit. Not just in Wisconsin but nationally.

It won’t just be that the Democratic National Committee will be identified as a dysfunctional political operation when compared to the Republican National Committee. A failure to leap into an essential fight about the future of working families and their unions, as well as public education and public services, will raise questions about whether DC Democrats “get” what America is debating about.

And there is a bottom line: if the DC Democrats don’t “get” it, Wisconsin will only be the first of their frustrations in 2012.

TAKE ACTION: Help Tom Barrett Defeat Scott Walker

When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker met with a billionaire campaign donor a month before he launched his attack on the collective-bargaining rights of public-sector workers and public-school teachers, he engaged in a detailed discussion about undermining unions as part of a broader strategy of strengthening the position of his Republican party.

After he initiated those attacks, Governor Walker testified under oath to a Congressional committee. He was asked during the April 2011 hearing to specifically address the question of whether he set out to weaken unions—which traditionally back Democrats and which are expected to play a major role in President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign—for political purposes. Walker replied: “It’s not about that for me.”

During the same hearing, Walker was asked whether he “ever had a conversation with respect to your actions in Wisconsin and using them to punish members of the opposition party and their [union] donor base?”

Walker replied, not once but twice, that the answer was “no.”

So, did the governor of Wisconsin lie, under oath, to Congress? The videotape of Walker talking with Diane Hendricks, the Beloit, Wisconsin, billionaire who would eventually give his campaign more than $500,000, surfaced late last week. Captured in January 2011 by a documentary filmmaker who was trailing Hendricks, the conversation provides rare insight into the governor’s long-term strategy for dividing Wisconsin. And the focus of the conversation and the strategy is by all evidence a political one.

In the video, Walker is shown meeting with Hendricks before an economic development session at the headquarters of a firm Hendricks owns, ABC Supply Inc., in Beloit. After Walker kisses Henricks, she asks: “Any chance we’ll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions?”

“Oh, yeah!” says Walker.

Henricks then asks: “And become a right-to-work [state]?”

Walker replies: “Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.”

After describing the strategy, Walker tells the woman who asked him about making Wisconsin a “completely red state”: “That opens the door once we do that.”

In a transcript of raw footage from the conversation, Hendricks asks Walker if he has a role model. Walker replies that he has high regard for Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who early in his term used an executive order to strip collective-bargaining rights away from public employees and who, more recently, signed right-to-work legislation. Walker described the use of the executive order to undermine union rights as a “beautiful thing” and bemoaned the fact that he would have to enact legislation to achieve the same end in Wisconsin.

Within weeks, the woman who asked Walker about his strategy to make Wisconsin “a completely red state” wrote a $10,000 check to support his campaign. (She would eventually up the donation to $510,000, making Hendricks the single largest donor in the history of Wisconsin politics.) Within a month, Walker had launched the anti-union initiative that the two had discussed as a part of that “red-state” strategy, provoking mass protests that would draw the attention of Congress.

Testifying under oath to the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Walker said in his formal statement and in response to questions from committee members that his efforts to restrict the collective-bargaining rights of unions— including moves to prevent them from collecting dues, maintaining ongoing representation of members and engaging effectively in political campaigns—had nothing to do with politics.

Walker was asked specifically about a Fox News interview with Wisconsin state Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald, in which Fitzgerald said of the anti-union push: “If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.”

Congressman Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, asked Walker about Fitzgerald’s statement. “I understand you can’t speak for [Fitzgerald] but you can opine as to whether you agree with your state Senate leader when he says this is ultimately about trying to defeat President Obama in Wisconsin. Do you agree?”

“I can tell you what it is for me,” Walker answered. “It’s not about that. It’s ultimately about balancing the budget now and in the future.”

Under questioning from other members of the committee (especially Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley), however, Walker admitted that many of the moves he initiated had no real impact on the state budget.

They did have the impact of weakening unions in the workplace and in the politics of the state, however.

It was in that context that Congressman Gerry Connolly, D-Virginia, pressed Walker on the matter of political intentions.

“Have you ever had a conversation with respect to your actions in Wisconsin and using them to punish members of the opposition party and their [union] donor base?

“No,” replied Walker.

“Never had such a conversation?” Connolly pressed.

“No,” said Walker.

The videotape from several months earlier, in which Walker speaks at length with his most generous campaign donor, suggests a very different answer to the questions from Murphy and Connolly. Indeed, the videotape shows Walker having just such a conversation.

In the case of Mitt Romney, when it comes to civil rights issues, he is not his father's son.

His dad was a good guy—as Michigan's governor, he marched for civil rights, embraced women's rights and helped labor unions to obtain fairer treatment at the bargaining table in Michigan—and it was always reasonable to hope that the kid would inherit at least some honorable qualities.

But Mitt Romney's response to President Obama's announcement of support for marriage equality has been so tone deaf and exploitive that I suspect even George Romney would be disappointed in the kid. The presumptive Republican nominee for president says: "I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name." And his campaign has indicated that it intends to make a big deal about the president's shift in stance. Romney's senior adviser, Ed Gillespie, says the Romney camp is prepared to campaign on the issue of enacting a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

So one of the wealthiest and most elite men ever to seek the presidency of the United States will campaign on a promise to use the constitution of the United States to bar equal protection under the law.

This is not the way Romneys used to respond to the march of social progress.

When President John Kennedy clearly and unequivocally embraced the civil rights cause—by very publicly inviting the organizers of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to the White House—George Romney was the rising star of the Republican Party and a potential rival to Kennedy. Yet, he hailed the president for doing the right thing. Indeed, he prodded Kennedy to do a bit more.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, seems to be in the "If Obama's fer it, I'm agin' it" camp. And there are no signs that he will try to guide his Republican Party toward a moderate stance on what remains a hot-button social issue. Which, of course, explains why President Obama is likely to win the 2012 election over the lesser Romney.

Obama's embrace of marriage equality, while typically tortured and over-cautious, was entirely appropriate morally.

It was also VERY smart politics.

National polling shows that most Americans favor marriage equality, but there remains a solid 45 percent that is opposed.

On the surface, that might seem like a serious concern for a politician who would prefer to be liked to everybody—or, at the least, most everybody.

But presidential politics is not a national affair. It is a series of state elections. And opposition to marriage equality is disproportionally concentrated in the south, border states and the interior west—where Obama is never going to win.

There are also pockets of significant opposition in some battleground states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. But, again, the most fervent foes of same-sex marriage have a lot of other problems with Obama. So his shift in stance is not pushing away many voters. Even among the older voters of Florida, who may not be all that comfortable with "the love that dare not speak its name" speaking its name, there are other priorities—like keeping Romney and Paul Ryan from bartering off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

So Obama's not risking much by endorsing same-sex marriage. But he is gaining a lot.

The greatest challenge for Obama's 2012 reelection strategy is—or, perhaps we should say, "was"—a lack of enthusiasm among the young voters who got so excited about his 2008 campaign. And young voters like marriage equality, a lot. It polls over 70 percent, according to Gallup. Indeed, polling suggests that, among all the Republican Party stances that most trouble young voters, it is the GOP's opposition to LGBT rights that most unsettled them.

Smart Republicans, and there really are quite a few of them, recognize this reality.

That's why the party's LGBT wing—and, yes, there are gay and lesbian Republicans—is objecting so loudly to Mitt Romney's morally and politically inappropriate response to Obama's statement.

Marriage equality has captured the nation’s attention, and the response to President Obama’s announcement is evidence of the tide turning in favor of equality for all. Log Cabin Republicans have long believed that supporting the freedom to marry is the right thing to do and the president’s joining this effort is in the nation’s best interest. That said, Americans can be certain that the president would not have made this decision at this time if it were not in his best political interests. In addition to energizing his base and distracting attention from a failed economic record, the trap is laid for any Republican who responds with intolerance,” said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans. “Already some in the GOP are taking the bait with former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie bringing up the twice-failed Federal Marriage Amendment and the unfortunate vote on Representative Heulskamp’s (R-KS) amendment re-affirming DOMA last night. Democrats are eager to fundraise off of this issue. It is in the best interests of Republican candidates to be measured and disciplined in response, recognizing that a generational shift has occurred.”

The Log Cabin Republicans are not always right.

But they are right on this issue. As Cooper says, “Governor Mitt Romney’s statement in opposition to not just marriage but civil unions jeopardizes his ability to win moderates, women and younger voters, especially as a large majority of Americans favor some form of relationship recognition for their LGBT friends and neighbors. Ultimately, the response of the Republican candidates this election cycle will determine not just endorsements by Log Cabin Republicans, but the votes of millions of Americans who are simply tired of the culture wars.”

Unlike George Romney, who embraced the future and urged his party to do the same, Mitt Romney is not just clinging to the past. He is presiding over a camaign and a party that appears to be intent on pretending that this is 1912, as opposed to 2012. That miscalculation is explains why the the Obama camp is so enthusiastically highlighting the president's new position—and why savvy Republicans are so fretful.

The Capital in Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday, March 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Barbara Rodriguez)

The Wisconsin uprising against Governor Scott Walker’s assaults on union rights, public education and public services spawned a recall movement that has forced Walker and his political allies to face new elections. And the first of these takes place today, with Democratic and Republican primaries for governor, lieutenant governor and four state Senate seats.

So what should we watch for today?

Turnout

Very sunny, mild day in Wisconsin—great for voting.

But Wisconsin has never held a primary in May.

The Wisconsin recall elections are unprecedented, not just for the Badger State but for the nation. Never before has a single state had citizen-initiated elections on the same day that could shift control of the executive branch and the dominant chamber in the state legislature.

The first question is turnout. Will the intensity of the Wisconsin fight bring crowds to the polls for the primaries on the Democratic and Republican sides of the ballot?

The record high turnout for a primary in the post-war era was 1952, when Joe McCarthy faced a GOP primary challenge and Dems were nominating a challenger. Intense moment, comparable in many ways to the current one.

We’ll see if turnout is comparable. That’s a measure of intensity.

Crossovers in the GOP Primary

Scott Walker will lose some Madison precincts to his “Real Republican” challenger, Arthur Kohl-Riggs, a Capitol protester who has run a smart, fun campaign challenging the governor’s policies and the premise that the Republican party must be reactionary. Kohl-Riggs’s message is an appealing one for determined foes of the governor: “Why Wait? Recall Scott Walker on Tuesday.”

It is, in fact, true that were Walker to lose the Republican primary, he would be out of office in May, not June. But there are other measures of success or failure for governors facing primary challenges.

If Kohl-Riggs runs up any kind of vote beyond Madison—and certainly if he gets into double digits—that’s a sign not of crossovers but of Republican distaste for Walker.

In the past, sitting governors who lose significant percentages of the vote in their primaries have been harmed—as the vote for a little known challenger is a sign of weakness.

Crossovers in the Democratic Primary

Wisconsinites can vote in either party primary in each race.

The Democratic gubernatorial primary could see some significant Republican crossover voting for either for the “fake Democrat” candidate—a Republican running on the Democratic side with the encouragement of the Republican Party of Wisconsin—or for one of the real Democrats who is thought to be weaker.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett leads in the pre-primary polls and leads Walker in at least some polling anticipating the June 5 vote. So he would not be the beneficiary of crossover voting.

If someone other than Barrett wins collar counties surrounding Milwaukee—probably former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk—that could be an indication that there has been a significant Republican crossover. (All the Democratic primary candidates are progressives. Barrett has a lot of endorsements from elected officials, the Teamsters and the union representing police officers. Falk’s got many of the other unions and environmental groups. Two other candidates, Secretary of State Doug La Follette and state Senator Kathleen Vinehout, have both drawn credible grassroots backing.)

Watch, as well, for Republican crossovers in the four state Senate primaries. There are “fake Democrats” running in all four primaries. If one of the “fake Democrats” runs high numbers, that will be a sign of weakness for the real Democrat.

How Quickly Will The June 5 Race Begin?

It has already begun.

The governor and his backers have dominated the airwaves since the recall fight began. He has spent $21 million and more than half of the television ads aired in Wisconsin have been produced by Walker, the Republican Party and their allies.

Only 2.4 percent of the television advertising was done by unions and groups explicitly opposed to Walker.

Now, the opposition to Walker will begin to be heard. The first ads raising concerns about his jobs record went up a few days ago, and now come the first ads raising concerns about the “John Doe” probe into corruption in his office and his 2010 campaign.

Even as he has dominated the discourse, Walker’s approval ratings have ticked downward. What happens when that dominance is challenged? That’s what we will find out as the campaign turns from the primary fights to the main event: a June 5 recall race that Democrats and Republicans agree will be the most closely watched and influential state election of 2012.