Congratulations Where Also Due

Written by Daniel on April 2, 2008 – 7:57 pm -

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Today’s headline focused rightly on Tom Crean’s departure from Marquette, a topic I leave to my colleagues on the blog. The secondary headline, also quite appropriately, was Judge Gableman’s upset of Justice Butler, the first challenger to to a Supreme Court race since 1967.
Lost in the other news was Scott Walker’s victory over Lena Taylor. The fact of his vicotry is not surprising, I admit. His margin of victory, however, 59 to 41, is worthy of note and comment. Pundits did not expect Mr. Walker to do as well this year as he did four years ago, and for good reasons:

1. He had 4 more years of tough budget cuts and negative MJS coverage.
2. Voters were 4 years further removed from the pension scandal that swept him into office.
3. The opponent had higher name recognition and a political machine and campaign experience from her previous electoral successes.
4. The opponent was a member of the State Legislature and its budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, with much greater fundraising opportunity.
5. His opponent was an African-American in a season of heavy focus on minority turnout for Barack Obama and Louis Butler.

Given all of these forces, I and others expected Mr. Walker to win with about 55 percent of the vote. Yet he finished last night with 59 percent, beating the 58 number from four years ago. So congratulations to Scott, his county administrative team and his campaign team for a great win. They prove again that low taxes and safe neighborhoods is a message and record that wins in every community.

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Posted in Ministry of Strategery |

4 Comments to “Congratulations Where Also Due”

  1. alex Says:
    April 2nd, 2008 at 8:22 pm

    Well said, Dan. Don’t forget that Lena had the county employee-machine working in her favor. I was startled at the margin, I think most of us expected a much tighter race here.

  2. Ryan Says:
    April 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 pm

    Walker did have some negative MJS coverage, but they did end up endorsing him.

    Taylor was outspent and spring elections are only popular with the die hards. Top that off with her constant mistakes; it would have been tough for Walker to not win by 15 points.

    This election takes place in November the margin would have been much tighter. Walker had more going for him then against him.

    Hopefully he runs for governor. He’s the best shot the gop has.

  3. Tom K Says:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 am

    Two thoughts

    1) The fact that MJS actually endorsed Walker was mind blowing. Although the endorsement article itself spent most of its time criticizing him. Pretty odd.

    2) Doesn’t this pretty much show that Walker would’ve destroyed Doyle in an election? 60% of Milwaukee county would have been more than enough to put Walker over the top. How much of Milwaukee county’s vote did Doyle get against Green?

  4. Bill Says:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    Tom,

    More people vote in fall elections. Walker would not have gotten 60%. The 40% in Milwaukee County rule for conservatives to win statewide remains though (Gableman got 42%).

    The fun number to look at is that Taylor won the city of Milw by about 5000 votes…Walker won Wauwatosa by 6000. :)

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