The Recall Rationalization

The recall of Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker didn’t fail; it was only outspent.

This is the considered verdict of the Left after a year and a half of trying to smite Governor Walker with its terrible swift sword. What began as a crusade to vindicate the rights of public-sector unions ended in a pathetic bleat of a complaint against spending in political campaigns.
“It hurts too much to laugh, and I’m too big to cry,” Abraham Lincoln said after he lost his Senate bid to Stephen Douglas. Too earnest to laugh and too proud to cry, the Left can only rationalize. If the anti-Walker forces hadn’t been so badly outspent — and especially if the Supreme Court hadn’t unleashed the forces of darkness in its Citizens United decision — Wisconsin voters assuredly would have rejected his reforms.
For the Left, Citizens United has practically supplanted Dred Scott as the worst Supreme Court decision of all time. It held that political spending is a form of speech, and therefore corporations and unions can spend freely in elections. The decision came down in January 2010. If its vicious logic made it impossible to recall Scott Walker, everyone determined to do so had fair warning.
In reality, Citizens United had nothing to do with the outcome in Wisconsin. Yes, Scott Walker outspent his opponent, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, by a margin of roughly 8 to 1. This wasn’t the handiwork of the highest court in the land. A provision in Wisconsin law going back to 1987 gives the target of a recall a window to raise unlimited funds. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the provision arose when Democratic state senators fighting recalls needed to raise more money for legal expenses, and it passed with bipartisan support.

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302178/recall-rationalization-rich-lowry#