The anti-Walker "rhetoric wasn’t just hyperbolic. It was strategically suicidal."

Writes Charles Lane (at WaPo):

The unions and their various apologists whipped progressive Wisconsin into such a frenzy — falsely claiming, for example, that Walker was about to unleash the National Guard — that the anti-Walker forces could no longer perceive political reality.

Even after they lost a crucial state supreme court election in early 2011, Walker’s foes persisted in state legislature recall elections, also futile, that summer. Still not getting the message, they went ahead with the recall of Walker, and lost, yet again. Now it’s hard to see how the state Democrats can recover in time for the 2012 general election, or even the next gubernatorial race in 2014.

Lane goes on to argue that progressives should be glad Walker won. I'm seeing that opinion here and there: If government is more efficient and financially sound — in this case, because of Walker — then it can be used to do the things that people who like government to do things like. 

But speaking of the predictable futility of the Walker recall, completely by chance today, I ran across a Public Policy Polling article from last October, which made it clear, before the signature-gathering even began, that the recall effort should not have been attempted: "Wisconsin Recall Prospects Dimming."

(And by the way, what if the presidential election is so close that the Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes make the difference for Obama? And what if this year of recall fighting has alienated Wisconsin voters from the Democratic Party?)