Walker Will Recall That His Mistake Was Using Us

Scott Walker, neophyte Governor, but already brushing off Vice-Presidential chatter (maybe the reporters should have asked him about a higher position?) has turned public budgeting and policy-making from the State Capitol to the smallest village hall into a one-man political calculus - - and worse, is using us, based on 52% of the November vote, as data and inputs for his desired outcome.

Has there been a bolder narcissist in the Governor's office?

Have so many people ever been used to advance the agenda of a single politician?

What Walker wants from this forced political experiment is the creation of statistical claims to conservative fame - - be it a number of jobs 'created,' or a state deficit closed, or public employee unions de-certified - - wrapped inside a central talking point, or campaign theme for future TV spots, or a tag line in official biographies for every news release and media story and lecture circuit programs...for years.

He is, after less than three months in office, recreating an entire state as a personal spreadsheet and looking for legacy material.

A political spreadsheet into which is fed the value, on his terms and for his use, of every diminished public worker, BadgerCare enrollee purged, pothole not filled, bus line halted, teacher position erased, power plant given away, ton of recycling land-filled and phosphorus discharged into trout streams - - even every dollar wrung out of a W-2 welfare mother's reduced check, every penny squeezed on to tax returns from the working poor, and, yes, even every calorie cut from poor children's school breakfasts at Milwaukee Public School.

The goal of this political computation is advancing the career of one person, Scott Walker, as it sets the state back 50 years, wrecks middle-class household budgets, undermines professions and degrades a world-famous landscape whose previous stewards included Aldo Leopold, Warren Knowles and Gaylord Nelson.

It was Walker's unprecedented selfishness and grasp for power that produced protest crowds in Madison and across the state.

And is propelling recalls of Walker's State Senate Republican allies.

And which will yield enough signatures early next year to force Walker's recall, too.

People don't like their state being turned inside out to serve as one person's radical, self-serving vehicle, and they especially do not like being used for that purpose without their consent.