Forum Post: Democrats deserved to lose in Wisconsin recall

"The truth is that the Wisconsin recall campaign was a farce from beginning to end. Its sole purpose was to sabotage the struggle against the Walker administration by blocking any independent mobilization of the working class and diverting the energy of workers and young people into the safe channels of the Democratic Party—a party just as committed to the defense of corporate interests as the Republicans."

Republican governor wins recall election in Wisconsin

By Patrick Martin 
6 June 2012

"…The entire recall campaign was a fraud, since the Democratic Party supported the cuts in wages and benefits for state and local government workers, objecting only to Walker’s exclusion of the unions from participation in the process of determining what would be cut. Barrett, who won the Democratic primary and became the party’s candidate in the June 5 vote, had actually made extensive use of Walker’s anti-worker law to impose $19 million in wage and benefit cuts on city employees in Milwaukee. The Democratic candidate largely downplayed the issue of collective bargaining rights and sought to distance himself from the unions, boasting in one debate that he had not been their choice for the nomination. In the last week before the vote it was widely reported in the press that the Democrats had decided to drop the issue of Walker’s anti-worker measures. Typical was the June 4 report in Politico.com under the headline “Wisconsin Dems Sidestep Labor Debate in Recall.” The article stated: “On the eve of the June 5 recall election, the issue of collective bargaining has become just a footnote in the hard-fought battle for Wisconsin. Democrats gloss over the issue in campaign speeches, political advertisements and debates…” The national Democratic Party opposed the recall effort, refusing either funds or active campaign support for Barrett until the last week, when there was a flurry of appearances by national Democrats like former president Clinton. This was largely an attempt to disguise the deliberate torpedoing of the campaign. President Obama never made an appearance in Wisconsin during the recall campaign and barely disguised his hostility to the anti-Walker effort. Last week he attended a fundraiser in Minneapolis and then flew across Wisconsin to another fundraiser in Chicago without bothering to set foot in the state. Liberal apologists for Obama and the Democrats, like the Nation magazine and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, complained that the Republicans and their billionaire backers raised vast sums for pro-Walker advertising and outspent the Democrats by a margin of 30 to one. Such comments are a deliberate cover-up of the reality that the Democrats had no desire to win and mounted only a token effort…"

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/wisc-j06.shtml