Agreed, but of course that is what "they" would want us to feel: defeated and hopeless. The effort in Wisconsin was stellar; it is hard to see campaigns, including all the grassroots backing, having to be even stronger than that in order to have a chance to win. One slight reason for hope is that a recall is inherently a more difficult hill to climb.

I come from the "election fraud" camp. I'm a computer professional who has studied the issue of machine voting and counting for about 8 years now, and I can assure you that there are many opportunities for tampering in the counting and tabulating process using the kinds of vote systems we do now. Many of them could be pulled off with just a handful of people "in the know". As a practical matter our elections are based upon trust in the election officials and trust in the vendors they hire. While I can't prove that there has been tampering, neither can the winners prove they have won. I see no reason to believe that people who would spend tens of millions of dollars to win an election, and who would resort to disgusting dirty tricks like robo-calling people telling them that recall signers need not vote, would refrain from tampering with the machines (or just traditional ballot tampering) to get some insurance on their investment.

We should trust only if we can verify the results. The money might just be a smokescreen for outright theft of the election. They've certainly got the media convinced that it was the money alone that did it.

Despite years of effort we are still where we were in 2000 -half the people vote Republican. Not any significant bit of the electorate has been effectually nudged from this nice neat 50/50 split in over a decade. The pendulum is not swinging -it's rusted stuck and the divisions only deepen in our cold civil war. A crashed economy, a war we didn't have to fight, crazy Bachmann/Palin talk and and a looming "end times" theocracy hasn't been enough to wake people up.

One thing I can tell you is that the vanishingly small number of people like Sailorman who actually show up and do anything -at all- are getting pretty tired of fighting this crazy train alone. Four or five hundred people in my congressional district and maybe a few hundred more who pop in the week before election day do the work for almost a million people -half a mil if you figure the other half are GOP pod-people. And that few hundred number has not changed much since 2004, meaning all the zillions of bloviators having flame wars with right wingers in comment sections must feel that kind of pointless babble is more important than actually persuading voters in person or getting them to the polls.

So blame Citizens United and GOP propaganda all you want, but if you are one of those ersatz patriots who sits on your keester instead of volunteering for a campaign or party (or being in leadership or running for office) then you, my friend, are the freakin problem. The GOP is just taking advantage of the fact that you say you care -but not enough to actually hurt them in any way.

We need to remember how to speak into the darkness, create a spark, kindle a light and build a bonfire. We need to remember how to step into the breach, join hands together, throw one another a line then build a bridge. We need to remember that we are We the People, what We the People are, and we are our power.

I know that Saint RawnDawg Raygun and gambling Willie Bennett then GWB43 destroyed a huge hunk of America's institutional memory in their war on humanities education. I know that wingnut media feeds folk with the attention spans of goldfish propaganda in jingoistic sound bites that lodge in to their lizard-like brains. I know the economic royalty have a nearly insurmountable lead to purchasing messaging power . . . BUT

I remember having my soul moved by a passage or a quote. I remember that words have weight that that can be felt across millennia. I remember how to shout into the darkness.

I need to teach one other how to teach another how to shout into the darkness.

Welcome to "Amercia", the best government money can buy! A place where all MEN are created equal, except in color and wealth. Thanks!

-GOP, keeping you down so we can go big!

Question:

What was the voting in Wisconsin done on?

Just curious - wondering if electronic voting intersected this story also.

I find that films often provide insight into conversations into "White Privilege". A lot of folk don't remember these flick's AND it means loaning out my DVDs for several months BUT . . .

Gentleman's Agreement, 1947, Gregory Peck

Watermelon Man, 1970, Godfrey Cambridge

This is a baby steps conversation. I find the issue is big . . . even in more liberal folk.

the real end of the progressive movement is when we lose faith in our democracy. Cynicsm is the worst enemy we have, not Republicans. The outcome of the WI recall was a disappointment, but democracy still won because the recall took place at all:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/azizpoonawalla/2012/06/wisconsin-recall-aft...

The Death of our democracy became very apparent here in Wisconsin.

The unlimited sums of money raised by Walker is one issue but the main issue, and the real concern for everybody here is that the lies, misinformation and scare tactics he bombarded the public with, the messaging was cruel, unscrupulous, and worked…. they drank the cool-aide. The Republican messaging machine is brilliant and I believe, even at even money, Barrett would have lost. Our great Senator Feingold, who was so instrumental to protecting our rights being assaulted by the Patriot Act, was targeted and taken out this way and the domino effect so proclaimed about Vietnam will be a reality with our state governments, our Congress, and the Presidency. The Republicans have figured out how to tell ruthless lies that the public will believe and accept as they walk merrily to the gallows to vote against their own best interest and kill this, yours and mine, modern experiment in individual empowerment, the United States of America. What wil the Republicans do to education, heath care, social security, the export of American jobs, with unlimited power and AUTHORITY. What will they do with our econcomy as they blackmail the rest of the world? What will they do with the most powerful military on Earth, to other countries, to the protesters in our streets? I was on State Street in Madison, WI when the National Guard became a band of thugs. They were our Wisconsin National Guard. What would Blackwater do under the authority of the Patriot Act and an all powerful Republican President and Congress?

Did Obama’s DNC effectively through Wisconsin under the bus so as not to antagonize Obama’s ALECy’ campaign supporters?

Hey beano, have you seen the "overwhelming evidence" ?

It's not just the Republicans!! Although the Dems do a lot of pretending to be on our side...they also lie. With the two party system in charge, Republicans or Democrats, we are screwed. Republicans use their money to buy votes from simpletons too stupid to know any better and Democrats use empty sound bites and promises that they break..they pander false hope..they are part of the problem...so it's stupid to keep voting for them.

The one example of how it really could have mattered... by kicking out that Koch Brother's useful idiot, Scott Walker, by people that are fed up and acting through the ballot box, have been undermined by their own stupidity....ie: their votes influenced by the monied propaganda. Once again, Scott Walker's out of state wealthy backers will have bought the election for him. Now, if Scott Walker wins this one, as it looks like he may, people can now either hang their peon little heads in shame for having been, once again, suckered by the propaganda of money...or the many that just won't take it anymore may have to go back out into the streets and send their strong messages that the sham ballot box method will not hold. It has happened in other countries and it may happen here.