Stephen Henderson: Effort to recall Scott Walker in Wisconsin was a political moon shot

This is a big day for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and an awful one for labor unions. 

There are a more than a few lessons to draw from the failed attempt to unseat Walker because of his brutal attacks on collective bargaining early in 2011. 

The recall is a political moon shot, and the downside of a miss is probably more significant than the upside of a win. Labor in Wisconsin raised about $18 million, brought in Bill Clinton to stump for the Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and knocked on an estimated 950,000 doors just last weekend. 

But Barrett never polled better than a 3-point loser to Walker, and lost by a wider margin this week than he had in 2010. A lot of exit polling showed people were just skeptical of the idea of a recall for political disagreements, rather than malfeasance or criminal behavior. 

Today, all that effort, all that money, it went for virtually nothing. Now imagine what those resources might have accomplished if they’d been directed instead at fall legislative campaigns in Wisconsin? Democrats were able to capture a Senate seat (a decisive win that gives them a majority) that was up during the recall this week; but Wisconsin’s part-time legislature won’t meet again until after the November elections. So they’ll even have to re-defend that win, and try to hold onto other seats — with less money, undoubtedly, because of what was spent on the recall. Bad strategy, all around. 

Walker won big, but it also cost the GOP a fortune. He outspent Barret 7-1 to hold a seat that he just won in 2010, and set a record for statewide campaign spending, some $46 million. Just like on the other side, that’s money that won’t be available for other races, either legislative races for later this year or Romney’s presidential bid. Labor couldn’t beat Walker, but it still forced him to dig deep to hold onto his job. The lesson? Could be that it’s smarter (and cheaper) to pursue cooperative reforms, rather than trying to bludgeon your opponents. This might show whether the Tea Party has the capacity to learn. 

Barrett was an odd choice for a recall candidate in Wisconsin — not just because he’d taken a beating from Walker before, but also because he didn’t focus on Walker’s weak spot. He spent most of this campaign flogging Walker’s “ideological” divisiveness, but didn’t really seem to get that voters in the state still want public sector reform; that’s why they voted for Walker in the first place. In 2010, Barrett’s campaign promised to shrink government in Madison, and hinted strongly at the kinds of pay and benefit reforms that Walker has taken to an extreme. But none of that message was evident in Barrett’s recall campaign. 

If Labor and their Democratic partners want to oppose radical stripping of collective bargaining and right-to-work proposals, they need to be clear that they’re ready for change, too, and they need to outline what that change will look like. Barrett failed to do that in Wisconsin. 

It’s difficult to extrapolate too much from the Wisconsin recall to the general election, but wondering whether Romney could win Wisconsin as a result is the wrong way to look at it. 

If Romney wins Wisconsin, it won’t matter, because to capure a state that has been that blue for that long, he’d have already won other states that put him over the 270 electoral vote count. Before he’d capture Wisconsin, Romney would easily win in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio — all states that, at least according to electoral history, have more GOP “swing” than Wisconsin. 

The concern for President Obama, though, is whether Walker’s big win makes it seem like Wisconsin is in play, and force him to campaign more in a state where he should be cruising. (Obama won 56% of the vote in Wisconsin in 2008) Does it insprie the Romney SuperPac, which is not raising money in Wisconsin right now, to shift gears? Will it require more resources from the president’s campaign — resources that he might have otherwise spent in more critical swing states? 

Stephen Henderson is editorial page editor for the Free Press and the host of “American Black Journal,” which airs at 1 p.m. on Sundays on Detroit Public Television. Contact Henderson at