Why are these races important? Because it's the first -- and easiest -- way for residents of Wisconsin to weigh in on Walker's recent bill to restrict collective bargaining. Never mind gathering signatures (and fielding candidates) to recall state senators (and possibly Walker himself, next year) if union members -- cops, fire fighters and teachers -- and the rest of the middle class (and that means you, too, tea partiers) can't take twenty or thirty minutes out of their busy days to go to the polls and cast their ballots for the Democratic alternatives.
Turnout is usually light for elections like this. But if Wisconsinites can't even treat today seriously -- as a proxy for a referendum on Walker -- then it's hard to believe there's much left for the middle class that's worth fighting for. Forget the bill, forget the recalls, forget all the other anti-union laws in Ohio and elsewhere, and forget putting up much of a fight against Paul Ryan's new reactionary budget.
Today is important. It's more important for America than the NCAA men's basketball finals, more important than the events in the Middle East, and even more important than the nuclear accidents in Japan. Today will set the tone for the future.
While Representative Ryan warns that America is in danger of turning into a European-style social welfare state, I worry more that his policies would lead to some nightmarish version of a Latin American banana republic.
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