This past Tuesday, the eyes of the nation were on Wisconsin while they had their spring elections. The nation was watching because of the presidential primary and saw that Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz won their respective party primaries.
What the rest of the country might have missed was what happened with the down ticket races. Wisconsinites also voted for a state supreme court justice and numerous county, municipal and school board seats.
And that's where it gets a bit peculiar.
The supreme court contest was unfortunately won by the corrupt, unqualified and unpleasant Rebecca Bradley, Scott Walker's hand-picked appointee and the dark money candidate. In another bigger race, Milwaukee County Emperor Executive Chris Abele, the billionaire's son, spent enough of his daddy's money to buy that election. (To show just how unpopular he is, he had to spend more than $5 million on the race, which came out to be about $35.00 per vote. That is unheard of for a local position.)
But then, as one gets further down the ballot for the even smaller races, the progressives won a majority of them.
At first glance, it would appear that the problem was that people who came out for Bernie did not vote down the ballot. This was especially true in Milwaukee County (which, by the way, is the only of the 72 counties Bernie lost).
But when the bigger numbers are looked at, the number of people that didn't vote down ballot was about the same for each party.
What was noteworthy is that the turnout for Republicans was much higher than for Democrats, especially in the greater Milwaukee area and which probably explains why the results were as there were.
It can also be explained as a combination of two factors.
This focus on the WOW counties spilled over into the western suburbs in Milwaukee County, which could also again explain the high numbers in the area for Bradley and the conservative Abele.
Added to this ramped up GOTV effort by the GOP establishment was the fact that not as many progressives were allowed to vote due to the voter suppression laws now in place. That is why Congresscritter Glenn Grothman was bragging about it and a former GOP staffer went public with his calling out of this reprehensible law for what it is.
While the Republicans are trying to say that the high turnout showed that the voter suppression law had no effect, it actually shows that it had a very big effect. Presidential elections, including the primary, is about the only time that the Democrats do turn out in force for an election.
In fact, when compared to 2008, the Democratic turnout dropped by nearly ten percent. For the same time frame, the Republicans saw a jaw-dropping 168.5% increase in turnout. Now the change in the right wing voters can easily be explained when their candidates were John McCain and Sarah Palin. Add to it that McCain said that the economy was strong just as the Bush/Cheney recession blew up and, well, who would be excited to try to fight for that mess?
On the other hand, the Democratic Party as a whole seems to have forgotten what good messaging is. In Wisconsin, we're not even sure if they know what messaging - good or bad - is. The Wisconsin Democrats have excelled at one thing though - alienating anyone who is not part of the establishment.
Despite what explanation or explanations the gentle reader might prefer to subscribe to, the end result is the same. Like a power play in hockey, where a player on one team is sitting while the other team is in full force, the Republicans knocked out a large segment of Democratic voters while amping up their own efforts.
The result is these odd and lopsided results.
