Once and Future Recalls

If you missed the State Journal's piece on the the midpoint of the recall efforts around the state, give it a quick read.

It's worth pointing out that if Dems manage to pull in all the signatures required to recall the 8 eligible senators that would have no less than 138,671 signatures, all of whom would presumably be game to sign recall petitions against Scott Walker. That's just over 25% of the 540,206 signatures needed to recall Scott Walker -- all of them coming away from the Democratic strongholds and population centers of places like Milwaukee and Dane counties (not to mention other target rich environments).

This is probably one of the reasons spending time and money trying to recall Grothman and Lazich aren't necessarily bad ideas. Both senators should be able to handily beat back any recall elections, but there are bigger points to be scored. 40,000+ signatures represent over 7% of the total needed to recall Walker and if the Dems can pull those kinds of numbers out of extremely hostile territory they shouldn't have too much trouble finding signatures elsewhere.

The GOP doesn't have this kind of fall back plan. Those poor cats running through Mark Miller's district looking for signatures? Those names will probably just end up on a list they already belong on. And the volunteers? They'll probably end up pretty demoralized. The situation would only get worse if Dems manage to force 3-6 recall elections, while the GOP fails to force any. (And this is a decent possibility, since the only district they seem to have a fighting shot in is Holperin's, which is difficult to traverse on account of its ruralness.)

So on January 3rd, 2012 Dems wake up with a list of 140,000 people who want to recall Scott Walker, and that's before the even unlock the offices in Milwaukee, Madison, Kenosha, Racine, Eau Claire, Superior, Appleton/Neenah/Menasha, Stevens Point, Sheboygan, parts of Green Bay and so forth. They'll also have funds to go after the 11 senators who become eligible for recall the same day that Scott Walker does.

You can see where this is going, can't you?