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Recall Organizers Manage Expectations Well
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 23, 2012
From WisPolitics . . .
Politics is often about expectations, and insiders say recall organizers smartly managed and then dramatically exceeded the bar they set. It all culminated in the national and state headline they wanted: 1 million signatures. What’s more, insiders on both sides give them credit for pulling off an impressive organizational feat to gather almost twice as many signatures as needed to recall Gov. Scott Walker — plus hundreds of thousands of others against the lt. guv and four GOP state senators. Conservatives are quick to point out they still need to be verified, but acknowledge recall elections are almost certain. After some union folks last fall started floating 1 million as their signature goal, organizers quickly walked that back and put out updates after hitting the 300,000 and 500,000 marks before announcing a new goal of 720,000. Some conservatives complain the media too quickly forgot the talk of a million signatures and bought into the 720,000 number spin hook, line and sinker. They’re also quick to note that a quarter of the signatures in Ohio for the unions’ efforts to negate a collective bargaining law were found to be invalid, so don’t buy the 1 million number just yet, they say. Witness the massive GOP effort to review the signatures. Some debate the impact of the authorization process. If Walker & Co. can knock out a big number of signatures, they can use it to muddy the waters on the legitimacy of the recalls and continue to raise questions about the process. Others say that’ll happen even if there are just a few thousand problematic signatures. Republicans will pounce on any problems they can find. Still others argue it won’t matter either way. Organizers got the “1 million” they wanted in the headlines, and that’s all the public will remember. The question now, though, is whether that 1 million is a ceiling for how many people will turn out to oppose Walker at the polls. Some argue it was easier to get people to sign the petitions than it will be to keep their enthusiasm up for an election that looks to be months away. But many observers say passions are so inflamed that turnout won’t be a problem on either side.
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