Yesterday, the people of Wisconsin went to the polls and decided to keep Governor Scott Walker and his Lieutenant-Governor Rebecca Kleefisch in office for at least a couple more years.  The recall fight has been acrimonious, and there has been a high level of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the losing side in the last 24 hours.  Hopefully the citizens of Wisconsin can finally get on with running their state instead of an election.

Mitt Romney has the Republican nomination in the bag, and it’s no surprise that President Obama has the support of his party.  As much as I have reservations about Romney, now that the preliminaries are over, it’s time for the title bout.

A lot of people are trying to read the tea leaves from Wisconsin to predict how November will go.  Depending on which side of the political line you fall, it’s either a good augury of victory for Romney or it’s a meaningless side show in Obama’s path to re-election.

Count me among the ones who think it’s a dry run for the campaign in general, but isn’t a leading indicator of how the country as a whole will go. The recall in Wisconsin was a unique set of circumstances in a unique state, and I think it’s folly to try to extrapolate the results into something that can be applied to the rest of the country.

What I think it does portend, however, is one of the nastiest elections of my generation.  I’ve read books and articles about the elections in 1960 and 1968, and I think we’re going to see repeats of a lot of their features.  Dirty tricks, massive protests, voter fraud, and a whole Pandora’s box of other ugliness may be all we have to work with for the next five months or more.  I don’t expect Obama to go quietly into that good night, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney doesn’t have a few hatchetmen somewhere in his organization who are doing their warm-up stretches as we speak.

As for me, I made my thoughts on how I hope elections are held in the United States here.  I still believe that a well-fought election is a way for us to continue our tradition of dissent and arguing followed by unity.  I hope that I am not disappointed this time.