The "centrists" running the Democratic Party are to blame for Walker's win.

Multi million dollar ad campaigns are to blame. If people are willing to vote against their own best interests based on these ads they will be sorry. They will get the government they deserve. I really have lost faith in people's ability to think critically.
The Republicans will view this as a
mandate to push on with their anti worker pro 1% agenda. And the Democrats will continue to let it happen.
One thing the republicans are good at doing is pushing through their agenda no matter how slim their victories may be.

Oh wait--she didn't. The campaign was run by the Wisconsin Democrats.

Putting up the same guy Walker beat in 2010 is to blame for Walker's win.

Wish Feingold had ran....

Corporations are not People, Money is not Speech. Democratic Party leadership should make those the top issues now, in my opinion.

What you said may be also right too, I don't know.

to make outlawing mouse hunting the top issue on its agenda.

We need to pressure them to do this. It will not happen unless we force it to happen.

Change is not coming from inside this purchased system unless we stand up en masse and demand it. We must occupy.

It is not at all what we need to do right now.

Walker won for a lot of reasons, He had more money, he was better at getting his voters to turn out, Barret wasn't all that charismatic.

Most importantly id say that the anger at Walker over the Union stuff which spurred the recall didn't last as long as we needed it to, and so Walkers approvals recovered. Granted there are a ton of other reasons why Walker is a bad Governor but nothing he's done has gotten that much attention, put with people who just dislike recalls it just made it very very difficult to win.

it was a campaign that very much identified with organised labour, particularly the public sector unions. Even the stylings of the campaign - the blue stylised socialist clenched fist for example - were far more bolshie than the sorts of messages you normally see in Democratic campaigns.

I have no doubt that the 3:1 money advantage that Walker had was instrumental. That had nothing to do with Citizens United, but apparently a provision to do with recall elections that essentially allowed him unlimited spending.

But it has to be said that the average punter isn't exactly thrilled to bits with the public sector unions. When you're on $5.50 an hour with no benefits its a bit hard to get excited about a bunch of people complaining that they only get $60,000 a year or so in salary and benefits.

since WI was Ground Zero for attacks on workers, public servants, teachers and education, unions, all the traditional Dem voters ... where is the groundswell? even from outside the state?

First, the person being recalled is a proven vote-getter, since they are already in office. So that's the first handicap. They have already shown that they can get over 50 percent of the vote.

Second, not everybody supports the idea of recalls. Many people believe that win or lose, elections should stand. It's sort of the electoral equivalent of 'stare decisis' (or whatever it's called), where you don't go around reversing court decisions. Once something is established, it stands.

Third, this was a big deal, with lots of media coverage. Both the left and right were out in full force. And relating to my first point, if all things are equal in the recall, the incumbent has the edge, because they won the first time and have the advantage of my second point, which is people who don't support them not thinking that recalls are a precedent that should be set. You need Gray Davis levels of unpopularity to win a recall and that just wasn't present this time in Wisconsin.

Recalls are supposed to be difficult. That's why they are special. I don't fault anyone for this outcome. People gave it their best shot and came up short. It happens. You can't win them all.

A recall isn't for when a vocal segment opposes a leader. It's for when that leader is discredited and there is a consensus to throw them out. There was no consensus this time and that's why it failed.

We can go around blaming anyone but at its core the simple fact is Walker just wasn't unpopular enough, he won nearly a fifth of self-declared Obama supporters.

Had this happened last year at the peak of the Anger over the public union issue Walker would have lost as his approvals where way underwater at the time. We expected that anger to remain, we were wrong.

You can talk about Citizens United, Money in general, Barret as a candidate (and this one is important, we had better candidates who simply choose not to run however Barret did better than Falk would have). But really in the end Walker won because Walker isn't all that unpopular, he's very polarizing yes but his approval in most recent polls is in the low 50s.

Recalls are not for polarizing figures like Walker. People forget that 'polarizing' means roughly equivalent sides. Recalls are for thoroughly discredited leaders. And Walker wasn't that.

or non-voters in WI period!!! They own it! And Citizens United owns them. Let's just concentrate on CU not owning us and the rest of the country!

I would not be surprised if they privately supported Walker.