Results for tonight’s recall elections in WI are already starting to trickle in, updates will be posted below in comments.
One interesting side-note, in New Hampshire tonight, Democrat Bob Perry has beaten Republican Honey Puterbaugh for a Republican-vacated House seat. With this win, the Democrats now only need to pick up 23 seats in 2012 to re-take The House.
With polls confirming that the public sees Republicans and the Tea Party as the ones deserving the majority of blame for the recent Debt Ceiling crisis and deal, a Democratic House in 2013 would seem a good possibility.
UPDATE – 8-16-11 – Second Recall Election
The two Dem incumbents in recall elections today won in their recall elections today in WI.
Holperin (D) won 54-46 and Wirch (D) won 58-42.
Big wins and that makes it 2 recall wins for Dems, zero for Repubs.
The headline: Dems shutout Repubs, 2-0!
Cheers for the update AdLib. I forgot about this thread.
No worries, glad you covered it on TO/OT.
I tend to do that, too.
Oh thank god. I found it eerie no one paid attention to this Tuesday. I’m glad to see there was no stalking upset.
I think the MSM is having too many orgasms over Rick Perry to care about giving WI any attention.
This is unrelated but there weren’t expectations that the Repubs would win these seats, it was as bogus and as much a waste as the Repubs running fake Dems to force a primary.
Hopefully, this election will keep WI folk energized to take down Perry.
I hadn’t seen any such expectations and had thought it was a pretty desperate gimmick.
Doesn’t mean I still don’t get mildly nervous about such things. I call it Scott Brown Post-Traumatic Disorder.
Heh! Well, maybe Elizabeth Warren’s defeat of Brown next year will cure you?
Choice, right why should union busting concern a Democratic President??
Do telemarketers have a union?
If so, let’s sacrifice them to the republicans and be done with it. No one will miss them.
None of them lives in the US anymore. Except the nagging Omaha Steaks guy – he brasses me off but lives in Phoenix. I asked.
Otherwise they’re all in Sri Lanka.
Oh,ADONAI!! They don’t have a union- most of them are too slimy to be able to join one!
But that’s ok- we can sacrifice them anyway! 😉
jkk, slimy? It doesn’t get any more slimy than this. BTW the number 3 also could also mean the number of times my beloved St Louis Cardinals won the National League Pennant with Lou Brock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doqTSev-_lQ 🙂
jkk, slimy? It doesn’t get any more slimy than this. BTW the number 3 also could also mean the number of times my beloved St Louis Cardinals won the National League Pennant with Lou Brock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpJDTNCNr5E 🙂
Wrong you tube here
It DOES, TEx – but he does not have to intervene. They are adults and he has stood up time and again for the principle. They can stand up for their rights. We don’t need Daddy! Again – would you have demanded this of FDR? Even of CLINTON who had a NATIONAL strike on his hands several times with airlines and never uttered a peep? No one ever even thought Clinton should be vocal on these issues with US Air or Eastern. US Air got settled. Eastern did not. WE did not bitch about Clinton being absent – did not even consider he might be present.
I do not expect any president to intervene in what people can do for themselves. These are STATE matters. He had (because I KNOW the person) people from Dept. of Labor watching – but they were not needed insofar as the unions themselves have said. I rspect a president who respects people’s ability to take back their own power.
Choice I DON’T NEED A DADDY but an ombudsman of the first order. That’s all I ask of any POTUS or politician for that matter. By the way I can’t stand the Clintons.
I don’t think this is over either.
Democrats didn’t lose last night, Republicans barely survived.
Democrats had nothing to lose politically. This was a challenge to Republican rule and they barely held on.
I know Democrats made ground cause here we are barely 24 hours later and Republicans wanna change the rules for recall elections. Those are the actions of a coward.
And I wanna say to Ed Schultz, good job, BUT how about instead of Obama walking into a local hospital for a photo-op, the people of Wisconsin just keep fighting to determine their future.
Power to the people.
AD, been watching Ed tonight, found it stunning Obama’s press secretary thought Obama only learned about the results of the recall when he read the newspapers this morning. GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZ
No disrespect to the people of Wisconsin but it’s a big job.
There were many, many things weighing heavily on his mind when that head hit the pillow last night.
It’s a state issue. Settle it. Stop asking daddy to step in.
Good call, tex! Would we have asked FDR to “be on the lines”? No way. POTUS is the president, not your buddy. The asshats who took in George W. wanted someone they could “have a beer with”. See how good THAT was? We need a president, and he’s doing that.
4++++
I’ll take a piece of that.
bito and I walked the lines in ’89-93 for Eastern AL mechanics. I walked them time and again through the 90s – no one EVER said Clinto should come out. Let’s get rid of false standards for this president. We act as if he should come do our laundry to prove he’s our best bud.
He’s the president. I think that is very hard for people to accept. He IS THE PRESIDENT. I don’t need or want him to “show solidarity” with me – I want him to pass LAWS that protect MY right to be on the line without qualm.
Sorry, missed ya AD 5
6?
AD not yet, but I’m sure someone will post one soon enough
……..k
Tell ya later
HOORAY!!!!!
Rating system for Obama supporters..
jkk, it’s more like counting anyone who has a positive view about your President which quite frankly proves nothing except that they support him, and it’s their perfect right to do so without being called “Obama apologists” on a Progressive and open minded site. Excuse me while I stifle a big yawn.
@Kalima,
Yes ma’am.
Kalima, that’s not true and you know it. I’m counting blind allegiance. President Obama granted juggles many balls, but he dropped this one and left a lot of union folks hanging
Support is not “blind allegiance” tex, some people just like to wait until they have all the facts before they blow up and stomp off saying they no longer can support him. Others realize how difficult his job is and that he can’t just go off on a limb and make decision without a Congress who spend more time just sitting on their hands than they do actually getting on with the important work the voters sent them there to do. A President can only do so much by himself, dictators can just do what the fuck they want to do. The choice is yours, but the last time I checked, the U.S. was a democracy.
Kalima, as we speak there is no more important issue than the right of working people to organize. Strip that and what’s left of democracy. I grew up in a Teamster family and learned that by the time I was old enough to walk. People who want to join a fan club should really kinda steer clear of party politics.
Nope. He honored their ability to pull it off. Polls were BETTER before the PLs showed up – scared people with their slavering anger. But union people never needed the president. Would you have demanded FDR walk the lines? Nope. The pres is the pres, and he said lots that was supportive. He did not need to be there. We HAD the guy you could drink beer with. You saw how well THAT worked.
I don’t doubt what you believe in tex, but there are no fan clubs here, that’s a low blow and you know it, you’ve been here long enough to know that many people here are hands on in trying to make things better. Expecting your President to be everything to all of over 300 million people is not only unreasonable, it is impossible. In every democracy there will be people who feel that they have been left out, but expecting the President to walk on water in WI is going too far in my opinion. He is for the working people, and if you stepped back a few paces to look at the big picture, you might see that in time.
Sorry, it’s very hot here and I need to rest.
Kalima, it’s been 102 plus here for 39 straight days. 106 today and oh yea I’ve seen lots of low blows and that wasn’t one
That would depend on how low one wears one’s belt I believe.
Exactly Adonai. No blurred lines here.
Let’s see…
When 79% of the districts were reporting in, Sandra Pasch was leading by about 1,200 votes.
When it was updated moments later with 82% reporting, Alberta Darling was leading by 4,000 votes.
Do the math.
The numbers don’t jive in District 8 for a shift of votes like that… 3% of votes cast would be a MAXIMUM of 3,000, NOT the 5,200 tallied.
THIS IS NOT OVER BY A LONG SHOT.
As Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said last night:
“We hope the Waukesha County clerk’s office is doing the right thing tonight . . . But it is a little curious isn’t it. Here we are on the cusp of victory . . . and Kathy Nickolaus is sitting on our ballots.”
… and in a press release a bit later after the miraculous “turnaround”:
“The race to determine control of the Wisconsin Senate has fallen in the hands of the Waukesha County clerk, who has already distinguished herself as incompetent, if not worse. She is once more tampering with the results of a consequential election and in the next hours we will determine our next course of action. For now, Wisconsin should know that a dark cloud hangs over these important results.”
Kathy Nickolaus.. Wisconsins “Katherine Harris” was at the center of this once more… and she is already under investigation for her malfeasance (fraud) in the WI Supreme Court debacle.
If you put all the facts together, we replaced 2 seats with LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.. seats that were held by conservative republicans since the CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION.
Walker no longer has a working majority in the Senate. His extreme anti-worker bill passed by only 2 votes, thanks to 1 moderate Republican. Our 2 wins are game changing.
If last night’s election was statewide, Democrats would have won in a landslide. We forced neck-and-neck races in Republican areas.
In 2012, if Democrats achieve last night’s rate of success in Republican House districts, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a 274-seat majority.
We sent a national message that when Republican politicians hurt working families, voters will punish them — even in Republican areas.
We also proved that when Democrats stand strong for progressive principles — as Wisconsin Democrats did — they will be rewarded by voters and volunteers.
Onward and UPWARD.
BSM, while I agree with most of what you say and one must always be suspicious of anything Kathy Nickolaus comes even close to touching, that district is very, very, red. Sandy only won the areas in Milwaukee County and she lost by major margins in the rest of the district. She did fantastic for the make up of the district to even be that close!
BSM, Very little has been mentioned about the absentee ballots with the wrong dates and the robo calls with misleading information. This should be treated under the same laws as any other vote tampering, IMO. Why are these RW outfits not being charged with crimes?
They had millions upon millions of Koch money pouring into already “red” districts…a real uphill battle! I think they fought one helluva fight up there and I’m proud of them.
I just don’t understand why the Kochs and Karl Rove and their smarmy operatives aren’t being at least investigated for vote tampering. How do they get away with it? This kind of stuff makes me nuts!!!
Give it time – I heard that the absentee ballot thing is already being investigated as is the handing out of phone cards to anyone who brought in the most absentee ballots. (That has been outlawed in CA by the way – they may be dropped off by the voter, ONE designated family member or friend, OR mailed, not hand carried en masse by anyone else.)
The fair political practices laws in WI are very tough. I think they WILL prevail.
BSM – with that kind of analysis, if the Baggers take over, you’ll have to join the witness protection program. Or become an expat somewhere without extradition. VERY insightful. And totally creepy.
Question – and I don’t have an answer. What would have happened if the Professional Left (Michael Moore, Ed Schultz, et al.) had stayed OUT of this? My understanding from the father of a young man who worked his butt off for the recall, is that they were ahead BEFORE the PL showed up. Not ahead in this key third distric AFTER they showed up and started telling people what to do. Narrowed the lead in the two that got won.
Is it possible that the PLs did damage – made centrists scared – and changed votes for the WORSE? We need to think on this.
Professional lefties who fulminate loudly MIGHT not be friends to real progress? And this from someone who has corresponded with Moore, likes his politics for the most part, and still worries he’s gotten too distant from his Flint, MI roots. (Worked in Flint – saddest town in America next to Youngstown, OH and Braddock, PA)
I’d probably put all that flood of Koch and corporate money as the main cause for that. To spend tens of millions on 6 state Senate races and spend it over a couple of weeks, that’s pretty powerful stuff.
Makes the victories for Dems even more remarkable.
Somewhere I read that the GOP spent $40m, and Dems spent $12M..
I will try to find a link..
If that’s true- GOP didn’t do too well..
It is being reported that the Democrats in Wisconsin are backing off on charges of vote tampering.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/127437863.html
I wonder how many times this same person is going to manipulate election results in favor of repubs before somebody nabs her…incompetent at best! I’m just sayin’….
There are the Democratic re-call elections coming up in another week. While these elections may not involve Ms. Nickolaus, they should be interesting. The Democrats certainly need to retain those seats.
Well I guess the WI voters want to kill unions after all.
KQ, I don’t think they do. They are fighting a huge uphill battle out there. What with the Koch brothers and Karl Rover putting millions upon millions into advertising, and of course, a strategically placed clerk to oversee the election just in case extra votes are needed for the rethug, it’s amazing that they have done as well as they have. And don’t forget Walker’s attempt to suppress the vote by passing that photo ID bill and closing the DMV offices where those ID’s could be obtained. Then we have the absentee ballots with the wrong dates on them, and the robo-calls telling voters to go to the wrong voting places! Put it all together and you have the perfect storm to defeat any challenger!
This thing is NOT OVER!
This was closer than I thought especially in several GOP dominated suburbs and rural counties. A bad omen for Walker in state wide elections. Congratulations to all those working folks who worked so hard. Now as to Cher’s story about Obama appointing Barlow to U S Attorney in Utah, WTF????????????????????????? I’m telling ya, OBAMA NEEDS TO BE PUSHED HARD otherwise he’ll have to run as an independent which would mean Mitt will likely be the next POTUS. What is the matter with his administration????? What is the matter with him????????????
Tex, this is one of those unfathomable things that he does! What is the matter with him indeed????????
Earlier tonight, I saw a portion of one of his campaign speeches about union rights. He was animated and fiery, the “old” Obama that we all fell in love with. I sat here watching and wondering…where did that Obama go? What the hell happened to him? I keep trying to come up with some explanation for this, but any sane reason eludes me! What kind of adviser would let him do something like this, knowing full well what the response from the base would be???
If he doesn’t want to be President in 2012, all he has to do is to announce that he will not run again. He doesn’t have to completely demoralize his base and do serious damage by appointing some teabagger tyrant!
With the election results in Wisconsin and now this, I feel completely demoralized myself. What are we fighting so hard for if our President is going to undermine our efforts and himself???
E1943, keep your head up, we didn’t do that badly in Wisconsin but it shows how desperately the base is needed. All of it. As for Obama, you’re right, I’m almost tempted to ask him to step aside. I wanna hear no more from the Obama apologists here or any place else.
Thanks, tex! Of course the base is needed, but the President seems quite ready to throw us under the proverbial bus for reasons that no one can understand.
As for the apologists, I don’t see many here tonight. Just when I think…”ok, now we can take the bull by the horns and get the agenda moving in the right direction”, we get stabbed in the back with some dum-fuck move in the name of “bipartisanship”!!! That’s the ONLY reason I can come up with at this point.
Barlow’s boss, Mike Lee is a total teabagger fruitcake. I had never heard of him until he was on TV last week, spouting the party line in a very loud and overbearing voice. He’s a great bagger foot soldier! I can’t help but believe that Barlow is anything but a hard-core bagger too. Why, in the name of God, would Obama want him in this position??? Does he think that by putting teabaggers into positions like this he is going to get cooperation from them??? If that is what he thinks, then he is delusional!
We do not need to apologize for the gains he has secured. That’s fact. The issue is yes, where has his ideological strength gone? We need more of the sizzle even when he is trying to govern for those in the center. But I have NO reason to be ashamed of him – he’s done so much better than Clinton at holding off the tidal wave of RW political gains in legislation, I don’t understand WHY anyone thinks differently about that. We – all of us – LET this happen by not fighting the encroachments of the Right be they religious or corporate. People now pound the drum for restoring Glass-Steagall but did not even pay an iota of attention in 1999 when it was killed off.
Obama is a progressive on issues but a centrist on style. Yes – I now want BOLD moves on jobs and infrastructre (which is jobs) and stimulus (again, jobs) and tax cuts for the wealthy but not for the middle.
But I don’t have to apologize – his accomplishments are major and protect the vulnerable more than any other president in my lifetime which is now considerable. I just want him to be able to keep on keeping on with these gains for us.
Hear! Hear! CL People don’t realize it yet but his presidency will be seen as transformational for what it accomplished already.
2
1
Guess I spoke too soon. Guess which Republican outlet announced the events tonight like this:
“WISCONSIN GOP PREVAILS
Republicans Retain State Senate.. Dems Pick Up Two Seats ”
That’s right, HPAOLBS.
Yep, against the odds, Dems pick up two GOP seats, yes, they didn’t take over the Senate as they had hoped but “Wisconsin GOP prevails”?
It’s not false, just the spin on what happened one would expect from the Right Wing.
And a HUGE HEADLINE at that!
There are apparently some “irregularities” being charged in the Darling/Pasch contest. Why am I not surprised??
AdLib, can you beleive MSNBC went to RE-RUNS of an election?! HUGE fail.
And I have no idea what’s going on. It’s a disgrace. If I were so inclined, I’d smell a rat at some very high levels–but while I don’t suspect that, I really cannot fathom WTF?!
The rat I smell is corporate greed. It costs money to provide live reporting and work to keep it interesting until more news comes in.
They just made a financial decision that reporting the story until the end just wasn’t economical.
That’s exactly what The Founders had in mind when protecting a free press, that they’d serve the public interest…unless it isn’t profitable.
Oh-HAH– no, I wrote that so badly! The rat I was talking about was from your earlier comment about the lack of DOJ election fraud investigations. Sorry.
Oh, sorry! I’m just bewildered why the DoJ seems so disinterested in being a Department of Justice.
None of the Bush era criminals or criminal corporations prosecuted. None of the Wall Street crooks who blew up our economy prosecuted. No legal action to block states like WI and FL from using laws to take away voting rights.
Is it all about terrorism or not even that? And if all the public sees are white collar criminals preying on the public freely, in politics and financially, what kind of country is left to protect?
It’s worse than that in a way–the Administration has more empty judgeships than ever, even those that don’t need confirmation, but that has hindered justice immensely. Obama DID recently appoint a judge in Utah (link is around here somewhere) who is a conservative Reep. And as you point out, Holder is pretty desultory in prosecuting.
The dearth of prosecutions seems to fit well with Obama’s reluctance for any conflict. But justice is something very deeply ingrained in all of us, and of all the criticisms people pile on the president, this is the one that upsets me the most.
Oops, not a Utah judge–worse:
Obama Nominates Top Advisor To Tea Party Senator As U.S. Atty.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/08/03/286554/wtf-obama-lee/
Why? I don’t understand this at all.
That guy’s crazy. I know that name.
And boy, the sharks are out in the comments. And I don’t feel like jumping in to defend Obama because I admit, sometimes he makes it hard for us.
I just don’t understand him sometimes. This is baffling.
Khirad, it’s plain indefensible. Don’t bother defending this one, for any number of reasons.
The best I could do is point to other things. Because there’s no way to defend the issue in question. And totally, it’s not worth it at all. I usually abstain anyway. It’s just that there’s always that second or two I mull it over before always concluding it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Better to get a sandwich, right?
Khirad, that’s my motto! When in doubt, make a sandwich.
Adlib, Eric Holder came up in another comment earlier today by BlueStateMan. Eric Holder has been a joke!
There have been several times that he has announced some investigation or special prosecutor only to have the story completely evaporate after that! I mentioned the destroyed CIA torture tapes. When it was announced that DOJ was investigating, I thought that maybe this would be the beginning of war crimes charges for those involved from the Bush administration. OH BOY!!
But after that, nothing…until there was a tiny little blip that said “there will be no prosecutions”.
Holder was hyped as a true independent, one that would not let politics affect his job, a true champion of the law. I’d like to know where THAT Holder went!!
Adlib, you may be correct about your kind of “rat”. While watching the live programming with Ed Schultz, I could almost feel the air being sucked out it when returns started to look bad for the Dems. Not profitable to televise a huge crowd of demoralized people realizing that the big money machine and the crooks had beaten them.
UPDATE: AP has declared Darling the winner.
Let’s see what the totals are tomorrow.
Of course, the Repubs losing two Republican seats in Republican districts will be celebrated by Repubs as a victory.
But Walker’s being recalled in 2012, bet on that.
MSNBC Darling declared winner according to AP
You just beat me, well done Bito!
Pasch speaks to packed house
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpSTnDzvr58
Her campaign also tweeted that there will not be any further statements to tonight.
NBC is also reporting that there will be an investigation of the votes in Waukesha.
This whole story stinks to high heaven!! How ironic that this race boils down to exactly the same situation that they had in the State Supreme Court election! I wonder how many votes Kathy Nicklaus will have to produce to put Darling over the top!!! I’m sure she will rise to the occasion as she did for “the choking judge”! And BTW, why is that guy NOT in prison for his assault on his colleague???
Just came back home. Well. I figured it would be Dems 3, R’s 3, and no matter what Waukesha’s Nicklaus says, I’m sticking with that. I think that’s a huge win in all-Reptilian districts.
BTW, here’s a useful Tweet:
Perfect!
Waiting to see the total vote numbers, keeping in mind there are absentee ballots outstanding too.
And definitely, need an investigation into Nickolaus and Waukesha.
Adlib, The investigation has been announced by NBC news, so we’ll see. I personally feel that of all the crimes we’ve seen during BushCo– the banksters, even the waterboarding, the war profiteers–election fraud and tampering should be tried and punished as treason. It is so elemental to the survival of democracy, it should be treated that seriously.
It’s ironic they don’t care about actual election fraud. Whether from fake ballots to this, I’d love to see someone go to jail. Because, as you say, what should be more fundamental and sacred to the Republic than democracy itself? fer chrissakes!
They not only don’t care, they depend on it. And absolutely, it should be considered among the gravest of issues. In Waukesha especially, there should be election monitors.
BTW–Anyine know if the Ed Show is live now? Because the news is good.
MSNBC went to re-runs, don’t know if it’s live now or not, stopped watching once the reruns began.
Where is the DoJ on all of these efforts to violate people’s rights to vote and improperly handling elections? What’s going on?
Khirad, good point! Why are these dirty tricks not being investigated? From the absentee ballots with the wrong dates to the robo-calls telling people to go to the wrong voting places, why are the responsible parties not being charged??? I know they could find out who’s doing these things if they really looked into it!
It really does chap my hide. You’d think this would be the one thing all Americans could get behind prosecuting.
I guess it’s okay to subvert the system as long as it’s your side.
Now, the ACORN stuff and ID fraud Repubs are railing against is phantasmic. But, if Dems are caught engaging in this type of robo-calling and deception like the Koch fake-ballots, I don’t care. Prosecute them all regardless.
This is what is truly un-American!
It would be nice to have a Justice Department that actually prosecuted someone for something illegal once in a while.
I’m glad they’re investigating News Corp but such obvious problems with our elections go to the heart of a functioning democracy.
If this Repub tool is just incompetent, she needs to be removed. If she’s a criminal, she needs to be arrested and put in jail.
And the problem is that with elections they investigate so long after the election, necessarily, that justice is effectively denied. Even if Nicklaus went to jail, the wrong person would still keep their seat! And all their votes remain.
It’s over. Wow.
Huh? 25% of Milwaukee is still out and if that’s not enough, plenty of absentee ballots as well.
And an investigation into Waukesha wouldn’t hurt.
It ain’t over.
I ain’t hearing the fat lady singing.
@news3jessica
Jessica Arp
Milwaukee final numbers: Darling (R) 13580 Pasch (D) 22225 #wirecall
She’s the only one reporting this, waiting to see it elsewhere.