Scott Walker, in Dead Heat, Faces Third Election in Four Years

http://pjmedia.com/blog/scott-walker-in-dead-heat-faces-third-election-in-fo
ur-years/

Scott Walker is facing re-election for the third time in four years.

Let that fact sink in, and you will begin to understand many things about
this pivotal race. Wisconsin is not merely a swing state, it is an odd,
unique one. The Republican Party was founded there, yet the last time the
state chose a Republican presidential candidate was in 1988. Its largest
city, Milwaukee, last had a Republican mayor in 1908. It had a socialist
mayor (not left-wing Democrat, but outright socialist) in 1960.

 Nonetheless, the relatively conservative Republican Governor Tommy
Thompson, who pioneered welfare reform in the 1990s, was elected to four
terms. When Thompson became George W. Bush's Health and Human Services
secretary, he was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Scott McCallum, who lost
his re-election bid to the Democratic Attorney General Jim Doyle.

In Doyle's second-term election in 2006, the Democrats took the state by
storm. They held majorities in both houses of the state legislature, held
every statewide office save (perhaps ironically) the attorney general, and
had five of the state's eight members of the House of Representatives.

But Doyle's second term was a disaster. Due to both the economic crash and
his policies (including a law requiring companies headquartered in Wisconsin
with operations in other states to pay taxes in Wisconsin on the
out-of-state operations), the state lost 130,000 jobs and faced an
unconstitutional $3.6B budget deficit (Wisconsin's constitution requires a
balanced budget).

In 2010, the tide surged right. Republicans took control of both houses of
the state legislature, took every statewide office save three (one senator,
the secretary of state, and the director of public instruction), and took
five of the eight seats of the House of Representatives delegation.

Ever since, the Democrats have been frothing at the mouth to bring down
Scott Walker. His feat of balancing the budget and eliminating the budget
deficit through his Act 10 legislation, which greatly limits the collective
bargaining rights of the public employee unions, earned him enemies in
labor, as well.

The enmity led to the recall election, held in 2012. Scott Walker handily
won the recall, and despite the loss of a handful of Republican legislators
who also came up for recall, the Republicans retained control of both houses
of the state legislature.

Walker won the recall by a wider margin than he did the general election,
which was a stinging rebuke to the Democrats and the public employee unions.

Two "John Doe" probes were launched by highly partisan District Attorney of
Milwaukee County John Chisholm during Walker's first term, despite
absolutely no evidence of any actual wrong-doing by Walker. Few politicians
have been as thoroughly vetted by their opposition. The prospect of an
honest politician being elected with a thoroughly conservative message in a
state as deeply "purple" as Wisconsin is obviously terrifying to the
Democrats. They remember just as well as conservatives do that Ronald Reagan
won 44 states in defeating Jimmy Carter, and 39 states for his second term
against Mondale. Walker has been widely discussed as a possible presidential
candidate in 2016.

Hence, this election assumes critical importance, as the unions thirst for
revenge and the national Democratic Party considers Walker to be enemy
number one. But who could run against him?