By five o'clock central, we'll know whether Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg will ask for a recount in her close race against incumbent David Prosser. The deadline is today. As it stands now, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board took a look at the Waukesha County vote total -- which put Prosser in the lead after the County Clerk found some 14,000 uncounted votes -- and found "no major discrepancies" in the totals. If you're wondering what a minor discrepancy is, join the club. The board didn't elaborate.Whichever way that election goes, it's bad news for Governor Scott Walker and Republicans. Before Walker's attempt at union-busting, the incumbent was set to win reelection in a walk. It wasn't even going to be a contest. After only a few weeks of organizing time, pro-worker people narrowed the margin to a statistical dead heat -- if Prosser wins, he'll win by less than 0.5% as the numbers stand now. That's down from a 30-point lead in the primary. If everything goes David Prosser's way, Walker and Republicans will undoubtedly publicly claim they've been vindicated. But privately, they'll be sweating bullets. The final vote tally, even if their guy wins, will not be a good omen for the future.
However, it probably tells us very little about how recalls will go. The Prosser-Kloppenburg race was a statewide contest, while recall elections will be fought at a more local level. In some districts, Prosser ruined Kloppenburg. In others, Kloppenburg had Prosser for lunch. Looking at the state Supreme Court race to divine the outcomes of recalls is almost certainly a fool's errand...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
