Wisconsin’s Blow is a Warning for Obama

The blow of Wisconsin’s vote will leave bruises for a while. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who — for the first time in American history — survived the “ousting” of his people, was able to beat his Democrat opponent Tom Barrett with seven points. This victory is not only deeply humiliating for the labor unions that organized the recall, but it is also a serious warning for Obama’s team and for the Democratic Party as a whole.

Walker, who was determined to restore the state’s budget, had already forced a decision to cut public employees’ benefits and to stop recognizing collective bargaining.

The workers’ representatives, who collected more than 900,000 signatures just ten months ago, managed to impose a “recall election,” a type of referendum on his tenure as the state’s governor. It was a sound victory for Walker, who won thanks to the support of significant financial backing from external conservative groups who joined forces, helping him become a “national model” that others could imitate.

Obama and Biden did not support Tom Barrett in order not to interfere in the local debate. But with a victory as decisive as the one in Wisconsin, which had been assigned to Democrats for the presidential elections, the balance could change, even though 51 percent of the voters coming out of the polling stations said they would vote for Obama, compared to only 44 percent who stated that they would support Romney. It is very clear that money counts most in this electoral campaign. The fact that Walker and his friends have spent eight times more on publicity than their opponent has had a major impact on the election’s outcome.

It is a lesson that Obama is learning quickly. For that reason, he has not hesitated to woo his very rich friends — although he continues to call for the end of tax cuts established by President Bush. As if this were not enough trouble, Bill Clinton fanned the flames yesterday after the big show they did on Broadway. While asserting his centrist inclinations, Clinton declared accidentally (some think it was said on purpose) that the tax cuts for the rich should be left as they are for at least another year. His clarification, which followed shortly after, made it worse by emphasizing, despite apparent appearances to the contrary, that the Clinton-Obama discrepancy and the hard feelings of 2008 have merely been swept under the rug.