Griper Blade: Why National Dems May Wind Up Thanking Wisconsin Recallers

As a resident of this state, I really do believe there are few good things you can say about Wisconsin Governor Scott "Divide and Conquer" Walker. He's not particularly smart and he's not particularly honest. He's also not particularly courageous. And courage is something he got some credit for. After his big unionbuster, Walker took a lot of heat. But I'd argue that this was heat he was unprepared for. The scale of the reaction scared the starch out of his drawers and left him a man obsessed with his own political survival. After all, this is a man a former high-level GOP legislative staffer described as a "giant fiery ball of ambition" -- and ambitions die if the career dies. He's gone from Tea Party Hero to a Romney-like weathervane, pointing in whatever direction the political winds are blowing at the moment. And, while Republicans control the State assembly and senate, this is the result of gerrymandering more than anything. The problem for Scott Walker there is that you can't gerrymander a statewide office. No creatively drawn district lines will save him from overreach and the ground looks very bad for him right now. At a time when Republicans would very much like to see him strike while the iron is hot and return to hard partisanship, Walker's survival instincts push him toward centrism. Rock no boats, make no waves, curb all overreach. Steve Benen caught a whiff of Walkers newfound political cowardice moderation, this time on the issue of a slow, bloodless coup attempt being waged by the GOP...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]