Wisconsin recall vote is telling, but of what?

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's decisive victory in Tuesday's recall election is a blow to the state's Democratic Party and its union allies and a spur to officials in other states who want to challenge the pension benefits of public-employee workers.However, even top officials of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign caution against over-reading its meaning for November's presidential elections, saying it demonstrates that the Badger State is competitive but not that Republicans can count on it.

On the other hand, neither can Democrats — thoughPresident Obama now leads in polling there.

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"I do think it's in play, and that's telling," Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign, said today at a breakfast with reporters hosted by Bloomberg News. But he said the outcome reflected state issues and candidates and wasn't "a proxy fight" for Obama and Romney.

"It would be foolish for any Democrat to take these states for granted," says Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. (He was a strategist for a state Senate candidate in Wisconsin whose victory Tuesday tips control of the state Senate to the Democrats.) "But there's not a lot of vulnerability here for President Obama. The same exit polls that had (Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tom) Barrett losing by six points show Obama ahead of Romney by similar margins."Surveys of voters as they left polling places show a tighter race in Wisconsin for Obama this year than his easy 56%-42% win over Republican John McCain in 2008, but he still leads Romney by 51%-44% and is preferred over him on handling the economy.

Still, Wisconsin is one of several once-solidly Democratic states — Pennsylvania and Michigan are others — that are viewed as battlegrounds this time. All three have voted Democratic in the last five presidential elections.

"Tonight's results will echo beyond the borders of Wisconsin," Romney said in written statement issued Tuesday night. The Obama campaign's comment was left to state director Tripp Wellde, who acknowledged in a statement, "Tonight's outcome was not what we had hoped for," though he argued there was "a very steep pathway for Mitt Romney" in the state.

Beyond the presidential race, the results show a willingness by voters even in Wisconsin, the first state to provide collective bargaining rights to public employees, to curb the cost of their benefits. Voters by 52%-47% approved of recent changes in state law that limited the ability of public workers to collectively bargain over pay and benefits.

And in California on Tuesday, voters in San Diego and San Jose overwhelmingly approved initiatives that would cut pension benefits for municipal employees as part of an effort to balance city budgets that are in the red.

Walker's victory "will have a huge impact on how a lot of states deal with their looming insolvency," predicts Republican strategist Steve Schmidt. If the governor had lost, it would have had "a huge freezing effect" on efforts to curb public employee benefits.

Veteran Democratic strategist Robert Shrum agrees that there is "obviously a real sentiment" to curb retirement benefits for public workers. "People have a sense the pension benefits are very generous and need to be scaled back or public employees need to contribute more," he says.

Shrum also says Obama's lead in Wisconsin exit polls and recent statewide surveys in Michigan and Pennsylvania demonstrate that Obama's attacks on Romney's record atBain Capital are working in the industrial heartland. "Out there in places like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, they obviously have an impact," Shrum says.

One more lesson from Tuesday: Voters are leery of recall elections. Six in 10 Wisconsin voters said recalls are only appropriate in cases of official misconduct. Those voters supported Walker by more than 2-1.