In Search of the Anti-Walker

An election to recall Wis. Gov. Scott Walker is now certain. His opponent is not.

BY Liz Novak
InTheseTimes

To win the recall election, Democrats will need to nominate a candidate who can inspire the unlikely coalition of Wisconsinites that occupied Madison last year.

On January 17, people power prevailed–or so Wisconsinites thought.

Since that day, Wisconsin’s state elections agency was tasked with reviewing each of the 1 million submitted recall petition signatures. And while it’s inevitable that Gov. Scott Walker will face voters in 2012, less than two years after he was first elected, it is far from clear which Democrat will prevail in the primary election to face him.

The field lacks a strong, consensus-building candidate – someone who will unite the 1 million recall petition signers around her or his candidacy. Democratic Party activists want to find “the one” who will run against Walker, whose virulent anti-union legislation inspired a mass occupation of Wisconsin’s capitol in February and March 2011 that put the governor in the national spotlight. After Walker signed legislation eliminating most public-sector workers’ collective bargaining rights, Wisconsinites channeled their anger into the recall effort. (Four Republican state senators are also facing a recall.)

“No candidate that is currently considering running or has announced is inspiring, or has what it takes to get out the vote and beat Walker,” says Jason Lawler, a Recall Walker volunteer who slept many nights on the floor of the capitol.

(Original here.)