Frederica Freyberg:

And so here we go. In just 25 days Wisconsin will have an historic election. We thought it was a good idea to get a forecast on the politics of the next month with one of our favorite political scientists, professor Mordecai Lee of UW-Milwaukee. He joins us now. Thanks a lot for doing so, Mordecai.

Mordecai Lee:

Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

We wanted to start out with this video clip because a little bit of news blew up today over this clip in a film that shows Governor Scott Walker talking to the owner of ABC Supply, which is headquartered in Beloit, about whether he was going to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state. He doesn't directly answer that. But the filming happened two weeks before the governor announced his collective bargaining changes and he tells the business owner he's ready with the first step.  

Woman:

– a  completely red state, and work of these unions?

Scott Walker:

Oh, yeah.

Woman:

-- become a right-to-work. What can we do to help you?

Scott Walker:

We're going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we're going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, use divide and conquer.

Frederica Freyberg:

So that business owner too, not that you don't know this, Mordecai Lee, has since donated $500,000 to the governor's recall campaign. What's your reaction to both that conversation in the clip and then that mega donation?

Mordecai Lee:

Frederica, this is such an odd period in our politics because if we were in a normal political circumstance, I'd say that the clip you just showed and then the follow-up, half million dollar contribution, that this was big, this was as big as it gets. This could change a campaign. But we're in a world where 95 percent of Wisconsinites have made up their minds who they like and who they don't like. There really aren't any undecideds. So I think the repercussions of  today are different than under normal circumstances. I'm guessing what it’s going to do is it's going to reaffirm people's support or opposition to Scott Walker, that people who say I knew this was a conspiracy to slowly chip away at all union bargaining rights and that he was being very manipulative in exempting, let say the firefighters and the police from his collective bargaining bill.  They're going to say this proves it. The people on the other side are going to say what a great guy he is, I really  agree with his long-term strategy.

Frederica Freyberg:

And now this isn't even necessarily the most overriding issue in this campaign anymore. What do you make of kind of the trouncing that union endorsed Kathleen Falk took in the primary?

Mordecai Lee:

Boy, that was just a wipe-out, and I think it's a indication both of Tom Barrett's appeal as a candidate and it’s an indication of the weakness of a union endorsement. After all, she was backed up by $3 to $4 million worth of advertising. That's a serious TV buy. And so for her, things just didn’t turn out well. Sometimes in politics one is lucky, sometimes one is  unlucky. Who would have thought one measly question in an endorsement interview would become the controversy of the campaign. That's how things unfolded for her. Tom Barrett in retrospect looked toward of brilliant that he told union labor to go jump in the lake, he's going to run anyway. He runs, he wins and now he has credibility when he says he's no union lackey.

Frederica Freyberg:

Does this suggest that the unions are losing their power then?

Mordecai Lee:

I think one shouldn't make too large of a generalization. After all, a union endorsement is still valuable. It still carries some votes and some money and some volunteers. But we're living in these very unusual circumstances that I'm not sure we should generalize from it. After all, unions are now getting behind Tom Barrett's campaign. They want anybody to defeat Scott Walker. As for regular politics, what about the union endorsement, I'm not sure. I mean, after all, WEAC will probably slowly atrophy as a result of the collective bargaining bill and they were indeed a major force in Wisconsin politics.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of Wisconsin politics and Milwaukee and the rest of the state, Scott Walker is blasting Tom Barrett for Milwaukee's woes. Now, he even said Wisconsin doesn't want to be Illinois and it doesn't want to be like Milwaukee. How does that work for the incumbent, do you think?  

Mordecai Lee:

You know, Frederica, there's a dirty little secret in American politics and that's that the only people that can influence job creation and the macro economy are all in Washington. It's congress and the president and the federal reserve. Governors don't influence employment. County executives don't. Mayors don't. So I tend to think that in terms of the reality of it that Tom Barrett should not be held accountable for that, but I also think that Scott Walker should not be held accountable for it when he was the county executive of Milwaukee county. I’m not sure what’s going to catch. If we're going back to where we started the conversation, this is not about undecideds, it's about inflaming your base, it about keeping your base excited. I suspect that that's a very effective attack line to keep the Republican base really hot and heavy, but I'm not sure it's going to persuade anybody. I'm not sure there is anybody to persuade. 

Frederica Freyberg:

And so looking forward to the next 25 days and the staggering amount of money that is in this campaign, do you think this will go off the charts down and dirty?  

Mordecai Lee:

I think it's going to get as dirty as it can be because the purpose of the advertising, the purpose of the mailings is going to be to agitate the base, to get them really angry, to get them dying to go to vote. And I think a lot of the money is going to be wasted. I'll predict that when it's over and done with, there will be $100 million worth of spending on this recall. It's a California size or even a presidential size amount of money. I live in the North Shore suburbs of Milwaukee and yesterday I got my first mailing that was anti-Barrett and pro-Walker, and I suspect I’ll probably get one every day for the next three weeks. 

Frederica Freyberg:

Buried, to be sure. Mordecai Lee, thanks very much.

Mordecai Lee:

Thank you, Frederica.