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By Dominique Paul Noth
 As a consequence, Scott Walker (shown during a visit to District Council 48) easily won the two-man contest for County Executive, decisively offsetting any Ryan surges with strong turnout particularly from the suburbs.Walker immediately sought to reassure county workers in his acceptance speech, pledging to seek ways to "empower good county workers to do the right thing." Ryan in his concession promised to continue to work for a better community. Walker was sworn in May 9. (In fairness, in the first few months he has been accessible to union concerns as he tries to formulate his new administration.) Finally, turnout in this contest virtually matched the 182,000 signatures on Tom Ament recall petitions. That means, despite predictions to the contrary, that turnout was higher than in the April 2 primary. Ryan's people felt that strong turnout would help their candidate, and it did close the gap so that the final numbers stood at 55% for Walker and 45% for Ryan. Early study of the election numbers suggested that labor organizers did very well getting out the vote among working families and minorities. Ryan actually carried the city of Milwaukee through strength in the inner city, downtown and the east side, while Walker took outlying districts. But the high city of Milwaukee turnout -- about 28% of registered voters compared with 22% in the primary -- didn't help enough. Not as Walker carried every suburb except Shorewood, where Ryan got 67%. From Cudahy to River Hills, from Fox Point to West Milwaukee, the voters swarmed to Walker. He even, by a bare 50 votes, carried Ryan's home suburb of Hales Corners. What clearly worked for Walker was his wholesale embrace of the Ament recall effort, positioning himself as the champion of the outrage. That paid off, even as he made pledges that, if he truly wants to govern the county, he will have to quickly backpedal from because Ryan correctly pointed out that they are costly and unworkable. Still, Ryan deserves credit for a thoughtful and candid campaign that refused to promise quick fixes or abandon basic tenets of management and negotiation. Monday morning quarterbacks will suggest that the niceness he radiated may have been the wrong tactic, since Walker's ads continually tried to put Ryan on the defensive with innuendo and side issues, while Ryan waited until the last week or so to directly attack Walker's eminently attackable record. Ryan can take satisfaction, though, that with only a few missteps he focused on issues and sought to educate the electorate about the real complexities awaiting the new county executive. Both candidates also deserve credit for sheer endurance, sharing forums and TV sessions a rather incredible 30 plus times in four weeks. It was in fact something of a miracle that Ryan, a candidate who was largely unknown to the community 10 weeks ago -- facing a candidate who has been a constant talk show guest and an expert on getting headlines over such issues as opposing a Wican chaplain at a state prison or defending pharmacists' right to refuse prescriptions that oppose their conscience -- could stage so strong a race. Ryan not only won second place in the primary but was also given a real chance by pundits to pull off the final victory. On April 29, many observers viewed the race as a tossup. What happened? Several factors. It could be that the hearty endorsements of Ryan from all quarters may have worked into Walker's arguments that Ryan represented not change but the status quo. It could be that the Citizens for Responsible Government, whose leadership has taken some strange directions after driving the Ament recall, is actually right now a force to be reckoned with. The voters were not in the mood for logic, so they settled for an irony. The "throw the rascals out" rage has resulted in installing an absolutely hard-line member of the GOP status quo. But that reality about Walker was either not delivered well enough or maybe didn't matter to the voters. 
One labor organizer we spoke to Tuesday night at Ryan's post-election party, where the candidate displayed constant good grace in defeat as he mingled with supporters (photo), suggested that labor groups indeed did a professional job in door to door campaigning, phone banks and poll monitoring. But he also suggested that the rank and file did not "burn in the belly" over this race. There was never the sort of laser precision outrage over what Walker stood for. So nothing really countered Walker's embrace of the recall movement.Nor were Walker's tactics called into account. They included some last minute hanky-panky, including an automated phone call to many households on April 29 from Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois praising Walker's stand on right to life (hardly an issue the county exec deals with). Then there was Walker's effort to offset minority opposition to his voting record by gaining endorsements from black advocates of school choice (another issue the county exec has zilch to do with). In terms of modern politics -- races that hit hot buttons and deflect from genuine issues while the candidate seems always polite and earnest -- Walker's people ran a textbook campaign. Carp if you will about the lack of intellectual honesty, real depth or even proven commitment to the disadvantaged. The method succeeded. It will win praise and be modeled by other candidates, and if that further reduces complex issues to partly true sound-bites, so be it. And there were many union families who also let their wrath about rich pension deals and potential tax hits rule their ballot choice. In interviews, some county workers also admitted that their morale has been so diminished by middle management that they think only Walker would really dump those people. That may not make pragmatic sense, but it certainly reflects an emotional reality. All this may cause some serious self-examination by community organizers, labor groups and others who had good reason to regard Ryan as a better choice, even though he was a candidate labor inherited rather than helped choose for this race. What should labor be doing about getting the best candidates to run and getting behind them early? What does Walker's victory say about politics in the future in what has traditionally been a Democratic stronghold? Are union leaders spending too much time preaching to the choir? How do they get their concerns about the value of public service and the importance of helping the have-nots out to a larger community? What political tactics are ethical and right in the current environment? With Walker as county exec, how do they work with him? And with Walker as county exec until 2004, what do they want now on the county board, in the state assembly and senate, and sitting in the governor's office?
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© 2002 AFSCME District Council 48 Your e-mail feedback welcome!
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