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.

A man and his family returned to their home recently and found a political rally happening across the street from their house.  Several signs for the candidate holding the rally were on their property, and the man and his wife removed them.  They claim they planned to call whoever they belonged to and complain.  Instead, several individuals from the political gathering came over and demanded that the signs be put back.  When the husband resisted their efforts, the people from the rally commenced to lay a beating on him and restrain his wife from coming to his aid.

A policeman who was at the rally is reported to have decided to not get involved, but now denies knowing about the attack.  The political candidate who held the rally, who is running for a judges seat by the way, appears to be only concerned that someone was messing with signs supporting her candidacy.

The husband was treated for injuries to his mouth, cuts and bruises, and a concussion.  No-one else is reported to have been hurt.

Those are the facts as reported in the media.  You can assume that the rest of this post is nothing but my opinion.

Deep breath

What in the wild wild world of sports is wrong with these people?  My guess is that signs were put in every yard and on every vertical surface in the vicinity of the ‘meet and greet’ so that it would look like the candidate had broad support when the news media took their footage.  When this family objected, they weren’t accommodated because of their property rights, or reasoned with and given promises to remove the signs after the rally.  Instead they were physically attacked for asserting their rights.

Politics in this country  is taking a nasty turn.  Voter intimidation is being ignored as long as it supports the right cause.  Governors who have the temerity to actually try to make things better are inundated by disruptive and violent protests and are distracted by pointless recall campaigns.  And people who have the balls to enforce their property rights get beaten while their family watches.

This kind of crap does.not.happen.in.my.country. Period. Dot.

Violence is not part of our political process.  Our political process is set up to keep the violence out.  If I wanted to live in a banana republic where dissent was put down using the muzzle of a gun or the end of a bludgeon, I would move to one of the third world shitholes I’ve been lucky enough to leave behind in the past 25 years.  Yeah, tempers flare and things happen, but usually when someone disagrees with you, you don’t beat the hell out of them, and if you do, you go to jail.  A policeman who sees someone being beaten for disagreeing doesn’t look the other way, and a candidate whose supporters beat a dissenter should be at the forefront of demands for a thorough investigation and swift justice.

People, if you’re not pissed, you’re not paying attention.  And if you’re not prepared to provide for your own personal defense, you’re a fool.   You never know when someone will decide that your front yard is a good place for a sign, whether or not you agree.