Barack Obama's re-election campaign faces another potential setback today as polls show Republicans are poised to win a key election that is being seen as a bellwether for November's battle for the White House.
The Obama campaign has insisted that the President has been too busy to campaign, a claim that attracted some ridicule since Barack Obama has found time to attend fund-raisers in both Minneapolis and Chicago in recent days – both a short hop by helicopter from Wisconsin
The "recall" vote in the mid-western state of Wisconsin, seen as a popular referendum on the politics of austerity, was triggered last year after the union labour movement collected a million signatures in a bid to oust a fiscal-firebrand Republican governor who had outlawed collective union bargaining and slashed public-spending.
On Monday night the Republican candidate, Governor Scott Walker, was more than six points clear of his Democratic challenger according to an aggregate of polls by RealClearPolitics, as both parties campaigned frantically to win an election that could deliver vital national momentum to the winner.
The battle to unseat Govern Walker has taken on national significance after Republicans from across America rallied to support a politician who was treated as a hero after he introduced swingeing cuts to plug a $3.8 billion (£2.5 billion) gap in the state budget following his election in 2010.
The Walker budget, which increased the cost of benefits for public sector workers and stripped unions of their collective bargaining rights, bought some 100,000 workers on the streets during several weeks of demonstrations last year.
If he is defeated, Mr Walker would become the third US state governor recalled from office during his term, after North Dakota's Lynn Frazier in 1921 and Gray Davis of California in 2003.
Big-name Republican politicians have travelled to Wisconsin to campaign for Mr Walker, whose fiscally austere policies were seen as a beacon of good practice by many Republicans who accuse Mr Obama of bloating public spending and failing to tackle the US's ever-growing debt-mountain.
Mr Obama has conspicuously failed to campaign in person for the Democrat challenger, the mayor of Milwaukee Tom Barrett, leading to taunts from Republicans that he was running scared from a defeat that could highlight the President's fading star power.
"If I were the president, I wouldn't want to be attached to a loss," said Rebecca Kleefisch, the Republican Lt-Governor, who is also facing a recall election. "It also doesn't bode well for the President if he comes into Wisconsin and then doesn't have the potency in order to lift Tom Barrett to a win."
The Obama campaign has insisted that the President has been too busy to campaign, a claim that attracted some ridicule since Mr Obama has found time to attend fund-raisers in both Minneapolis and Chicago in recent days – both a short hop by helicopter from Wisconsin.
David Axelrod, chief strategist for Mr Obama, said the campaign has spent more than $1 million on the race.
"Our entire field operation is committed to it, we've got hundreds of lawyers up there for voter protection programmes, so we're invested in it and we're very much in the corner of Mayor Barrett," he added.
The Wisconsin campaign has been fought largely on the issue of job creation, a key issue in November's general election where Mr Obama now looks vulnerable following a sharp slowdown in job creation in the last three months.
And in another barometer of national trends, the outcome will also reflect the power of outside money to swing the vote, with Mr Walker outspending his Democrat opponent after raising some $30m, more than half from out-of-state sources.
Among the big donors are Charles and David Koch, the oil billionaires who have been reviled as political "contract killers" by the Obama campaign, and have invested more than $10 million in Wisconsin since February 2011.
The Wisconsin vote is also seen as a key test of both parties to get out the vote – the so-called "ground game" – pitting the organising power of the unions against the grassroots fervour of the Republican's Tea Party movement, which has strongly backed Governor Walker.
Conservatives have traditionally feared and respected the left's ability to mobilise voters, but on Monday night were preparing to claim a symbolic and morale-boosting victory for the organising powers of the right.
No comments:
Post a Comment