Wisconsin Recall Sputters?

That sound you hear may be the sputtering of Wisconsin Democrats and public-sector unions’ campaign to oust Republican Gov. Scott Walker. On Tuesday, Democrats went to the polls to choose a candidate to square off against Walker in next month’s recall election. But the union-led opposition’s hopes that the standard bearer would be a Big Labor darling were dashed with the election of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, rather than the unions’ preferred candidate, Democratic operative Kathleen Falk. Falk’s defeat marks only the latest setback for a recall campaign that is increasingly running out of steam.

While he is also committed to restoring collective bargaining, he has said that he would do so by introducing the issue in a special legislative session. The latter is particularly unattractive to unions because it would require Republican support for the legislation. Barrett’s victory in the Tuesday primary means the unions’ dreams of restoring collective bargaining through gubernatorial fiat have been shattered.

Yet another setback for the unions is that their efforts to turn the recall into a referendum on collective bargaining appear to have failed.