Sunday, May 27, 2012

Wisconsin recall election: Scott Walker’s fate will have November implications - The Washington Post

Wisconsin recall election: Scott Walker’s fate will have November implications - The Washington Post
Bruce Colburn, a vice president of the Wisconsin chapter of the Service Employees International Union, said those from outside Wisconsin do not fully understand the dynamic at work in the state, which he said is unlike any he has seen over many years. He said the petition drive alone, which produced 900,000 signatures when only 600,000 were needed, should have proved to doubters the power at the grass roots.
“This is really beyond a party, beyond a national leader, beyond any union,” he said. “This really has been a movement to resist the direction that Walker and the rest of his regime were trying to take the state of Wisconsin. . . . We’re living in a Wisconsin that’s been made over the last 18 months.”
What he describes is a Wisconsin so divided over Walker that friends and family members find themselves on opposite sides of battle and no longer talking to one another. It is a Wisconsin where small call centers, such as the one where Bradtke spends part of his week, are populated with people on both sides who feel passionately about the outcome and its implications.