Delight with a Side of Worry

One million. Well. Even I was surprised. I thought maybe closer to 750,000 would be the final recall total…but ONE MILLION??!! Wow.

There are, no doubt, a lot of ecstatic people in Wisconsin right now. Thousands of them are in Madison as I type. Ed Schultz is reporting from there this afternoon and tonight. And a march to the GAB office is about to begin. Quite a celebration indeed.

Regardless, I am not doing flips and cartwheels quite yet. And not just because that would probably land me in the hospital. I cannot find it in me to rejoice in this monumental number because I know the rocky road ahead of us. I want to cheer and bust open some champagne like my friends at the Capitol, but I still harbor a great deal of apprehension and fear. For example:

• Walker’s administration is gathering millions of dollars – much of it from Texas and other states – to fight this recall. And as we all know, sometimes money speaks louder than voices.

• Walker’s administration is going to tie up the proceedings for as long as they can, hoping the movement will lose its momentum. Lawsuits and complaints are sure to be in abundance.

• Walker’s administration implemented a Voter ID Law which has basically amounted to a poll tax in the state of Wisconsin. There are countless stories of people who have been denied cards due to the inability to retrieve original birth certificates. Also, while the cards themselves might be free, the hoops to jump through in order to get them are not. Many counties do not have DMVs with reasonable service hours. They will do everything they can to keep the people from voting.

• Walker’s administration is initiating rumors that petition signers will have their names and info plastered on public websites in order to punish them with threats of privacy invasions.

• Walker’s administration has tried to push for an early start to the redistricting maps so the numbers will favor them prior to the recall elections.

• Walker’s administration can afford to invade our living rooms with constant television ads full of his own chest thumping and over blown lies.

They will do anything and everything they can to impede this process and right now, like it or not, they have the reins and the cash. So, no, I cannot bring myself to get overly excited here. I know what these people are capable of and nothing will shock me anymore.

There is one more thing which worries me and that is the same thing that got us here in the first place. Lazy, head in the sand, apathetic lumps who do not bother to get off their butts and VOTE!! Signing a petition at the grocery store is much easier than taking 15 minutes out of your day to cast a ballot. So, yes, I do worry there will be an aire of complacency and we will be right back where we started.

Keep in mind I am glass half empty kind of gal…hell, in my experience the glass is often bone dry. So you will have to forgive my poo-poo attitude. There are plenty of great people who are quite confident this endeavor will see a favorable conclusion. And I hate to stomp on their joyous day. So I will leave them with a raised glass, a big ole “atta boy!” and a wholehearted “CHEERS”!! But I will still worry.