 |
| Teamster brothers and sisters in Madison on Sunday. |
Here's how we know: The Washington pundits are starting to notice polls that show
Here's what Forbes (not exactly the Socialist Worker) had to say in a piece titled, "Gov Scott Walker Has Lost the War":
In what may be the result of one of the great political miscalculations of our time, Scott Walker’s popularity in his home state is fast going down the tubes.And the Washington Post quotes Mike Lux, a political strategist:
A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving.
The all-out war on public-employee unions by right-wing Republican politicians and the conservative movement is going to backfire in a big way. In the short term, the right wing is taking a public opinion hit because most Americans think teachers, nurses and police officers ought to have the right to bargain collectively. But it is over the long term that the Republicans are really hurting themselves.We may still lose the Senate vote in Wisconsin. But Walker's miscalculation -- and our response -- has breathed life into a national movement that is uniting people from all walks of life. We see students, doctors, retirees, nonunion workers and moms marching in Wisconsin. Next week farmers will drive their tractors to Madison in a tractorcade. And brother Steve Nelson from Local 200 offers this photo of a new ally to our cause:
This will play out in three ways. First, the American middle class is being reminded why union bargaining is a good thing and how the public employees attacked every day by Republicans as faceless bureaucrats are just regular, middle-class folks like them: nurses, teachers, secretaries, cops. Second, Republicans have done organized labor a great favor by putting the movement back in labor movement, creating a level of passion and activism for workers' rights that hasn't been seen in generations.
