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Health & Fitness

Governor Walker Is at A Key Political Juncture in His Agenda

The governor is accumulating unprecedented power, but the recall elections are his current focus.

Those of us who are critical of our new governor have to admit that he’s a consummate politician. Prior to coming into office he had a well-conceived plan and he wasted no time in implementing it. He was well aware of the fact that he had a clear majority in the legislature, which pretty well has given him carte blanche. Many of us were surprised how far and how fast he pushed the state into a new direction. That being said, there are several issues that, I think, require closer scrutiny.

Generally, Tommy Thompson has been seen as a strong executive and pushed the state legislature into ceding more power to the Executive Branch than ever before. He attempted different maneuvers and got some of what he wanted; but in all, the state bureaucracy remained pretty much the same. This is not the case with the current governor. Through his actions he is eliminating up to 38 key civil service positions and making them governor appointees. This all is being done in the name of streamlining the change process he is attempting to impose on the state bureaucracies, reorganizing and restructuring in, what I believe, is the next step in his plan; a major move to the privatization of public services.

Governor Walker has clearly utilized the state’s budget deficit to his advantage. If he is going to get his agenda through, he needs to prevent the opposing party from achieving a majority in either house of the legislature. The only way to assure that is to cut off the money supply to the Democrats; thus, the legislative move to restrict collective bargaining for the public employee and teachers unions. He’s counting on the public employee unions following Indiana’s example; when Governor Mitch Daniels restricted collective bargaining, the unions lost 90 percent of their membership. No dues, no political contributions. The governor rightly predicted the public employees, teachers and progressives’ reaction to the BRB. The BRB opponents’ outrage communicated to the governor’s conservative base that they must join together and mobilize to protect the governor and the Republican legislators from the assault coming from the left. He has clearly orchestrated a polarization that puts his supporters in a political position of no compromises with the left. His only concern now is with the upcoming recall elections of six Republican State Senators.

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Just as Governor Walker stated at last weekend’s Republican State Convention; and I am paraphrasing here, “forget about whom we are going to run for Herb Kohl’s Senate Seat, we must work over the next two months to protect our State Senate Seats during the upcoming recall elections." The governor is well aware that the net loss of three seats in the state senate will derail his agenda. We can count on him being actively engaged in the recall campaigns and will be calling in political markers to make sure the Republican senators will be well funded to stave off the assault on their seats. Keeping with his overall agenda has also been the Voter I.D. Bill of 2011.

While in the State Assembly, Scott Walker was the strongest proponent of voter I.D. and the positive impact it would have for the Republicans. Based on a contrived problem of voting fraud, he has sought to place a few more obstacles in the path of selected voters. The selected voter he has in mind is the overwhelmingly Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee’s inner city and the liberal students of the colleges and universities. If just 20 percent decide not or are prohibited to vote, he will have emasculated the Democrats in their strongest areas of influence. After having attained political power he must now protect it, but to what end.

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One can never be certain what drives another human being; is it ego, ambition or ideology. The only way to judge is to look to their actions and dialogue. What has become quite clear to a number of us progressives is that Governor Walker is clearly an ideologue with, what seems to be unrestrained ambition. As so many of his age group that came to age during the Reagan Era, he’s absolutely convinced that his beliefs are unquestionably correct. With the zeal of an evangelical, he pursues his political agenda with a single mindedness similar to missionaries seeking to save the savage pagans’ souls. I think, he sees himself as a deliverer that will save the citizens of state from the evils of progressivism and socialism. To that end he demonstrates a proclivity to accumulate and wield power in the Great Crusade against the forces of evil. For the governor, he sees that the means justifies the ends. Clearly he wants to govern as an autocrat thinking like an oligarch. Autocratic governance gets things done but at a loss of freedom and free thinking.

If we progressives and independents wish to bring balance back to state government, then we must remain solidly united and work, through the recall process, to regain control of the state senate. As it is now, we have only one opportunity before January 6 of 2012 to protect those things so precious to us; freedom, social justice and protection from a return to 19th century America.

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