"The recall election in Wisconsin... 'sets the template for the fall campaign.'"

"If Walker wins... you'll never see Obama defending unions," says Nelson Lichtenstein, an American labor historian at the University of California – Santa Barbara. 

And, he suggests, public-sector unions will gradually lose support. "Out of sight," he said, "out of mind."

He also says:

"All these governors are under tremendous fiscal pressure... If they see the public sector unions can be defeated, this will be seen as an easy way out." Lichtenstein, who calls what Scott Walker is doing an "assault" on public sector unions, makes it clear that he personally doesn't think it would be an easy way out. But he acknowledges that "if Walker ekes it out and wins, it will embolden" other governors, both Republicans and Democrats.

Interesting, especially after the assertion by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka that if Scott Walker wins he'll be "a debilitated governor."