Sure you did!

"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Albert Einstein

GoodAmerican, as you can see, that's not Sigma40's definition of insanity which you seem to have a problem with.

A definition of insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting different results. Should we have another election with the same candidates? Durrrrr.

I guess being politically polarized has a cost after all.

Shrek,
1. It's not that the unions flat out refused to negotiate, it's just that they didn't give SW everything he wanted. That's why it called negotiation - it's a give and take. Walker just wants take with no give.
2. Please quote who said "You want a war we will give you a war".
3. No one goes into negotiations to be nice, but they should go in with good faith. Walker talked about negotiating when he wanted votes, then after the election, it was his way or the highway, divide and conquer. So if you want to call it a "war" it was Walker who started it.
4. The time to negotiate is when you hold all the cards and you have the other side over a barrel. Walker could have gotten what he wanted ($$$ concessions) and kept a decent reputation in the state instead of having to go through a recall had he been a better politician. Teacher's unions hated Thompson with a passion, but he never got recalled. The idea is to get what you want and let the other side think they got a deal too. Again, your negotiation skills are sorely lacking if you don't realize this.

He was really out to bust the unions and implement his puppet masters right wing agenda, not negotiate. He said he would compromise, but that was never his plan and everone knows it. What is disturbing is the amount of people in this state that think that's an OK way to behave.

I'm guessing this is peanuts compared to all the money regressives are spending to rid the country of the Affordable Care Act, something they wanted before they decided they didn't. Had Mr. Walker been honest and up front about his divide-and-conquer intentions during his campaign, maybe we could've saved a few $$$ on a recall.

"Last year nine state senators had recall elections and another four were on the ballot this year. Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch also faced a recall.

Of the 15 races, only three incumbent Republicans were tossed from office. That gave Democrats a slim 17-16 majority in the state Senate."

And with Cullen talking about switching to Independent, the Democrats may not even retain control of the Senate until November.

"What you fools don't seem to realize is that you let people from other places than Wisconsin decide who your Governor is." I agree 100%! Just remember what George Carlin said "they just want you to THINK you have a choice"

Ok for all of you that say the money was “wasted, thrown down the sewer” etc, it was NOT.
That money helped keep people employed, it paid for TV commercials, news print, signs, and every other piece of material that you found about the election.
NOW do I think it could have been better spent, yes, was it a waste NO.

look at the Heavy hitters on this site, see who the top 10 donates to. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.p...

Last one, the 81mill paid for democracy to work. How awful!!(sarcasm).

Everyone does realize this article is talking about candidate spending that was voluntarily given, not monies from the public for programs/services???

I encourage people to go to the WI Democracy Campaign searchable database and look up the contributions to all state candidates, especially Scooter from Rock County and high level contributors from out of state.

http://www.wisdc.org/database.html

Just think, Kohl's Corp got 62 million in stimulus money by itself for doing nothing.

Walker already had tried to come to ageements with Unions when he was Milw. Co. Executive. They flat out refused to negotiate on anything.
He knew what type of push back he would encounter had he tried to (be nice). The WEAC wanted to make contributions only after they said no at 1st and realized Walker meant what he said, To Late now. They should have shown more willingness and not said "You want a war we will give you a war". So tell me who won the war the Unions and Dems started. LOL

shrek, it wasn't the only way. You may remember during Feb and March of 2011, WEAC had said they were OK with the pension and insurance contributions if they could keep CB rights. That would have been the time to sit down and work together, as he had said he would do during his campaign. He never had any intention of working together; that was all just a bold face lie.

Surely there was someting your union wanted that they would have been willing to negotiate for. I'm assuming you QEO'd them if they "refused to negotiate" as you say. Don't be angry at the local union just because you weren't a good negotiator.

I agree it was a waste of time and not a good use of state money, but it did not just go down the sewer, it paid for the recall such as all of the temporary workers, rental of additional space for those workers, supplies for those workers (which was purchasing from other stores) and so on for the trickle down of economics. I support what Walker tried to do to balance the budget (do not necessarily agree with the tactics). I could tell you my thoughts on what else he should have included in the balanced budget but I have limited time and space to write. Government should run a as business: Income pays for your output (services in government), pay employees based on performance not yrs of service, and look at pay from a total benefit (salary plus all benefits) and government does not produce profit so there should be no bonuses.

What you fools don't seem to realize is that you let people from other places than Wisconsin decide who your Governor is.

81 million bucks just TOSSED down the sewer. What a waste. Imagine all the people and jobs that money could have helped, saved or created. And all because Walker wanted to balance the state budget.

wiggle, it's an AP story reposted by the Gazette...not to say they don't butcher the reprints with editing. wi55lady - it actually was mostly out of state money - if they want to dump it here in our economy, so be it. Shrek, you got that right. Even in our school district, we ended up going to arbitration to save our taxpayers going on a million dollars in health care expenses by getting away from WEAC insurance, although our teachers' union has been flexible since Walker's changes were implemented.

yadamousewiggle
you mean out of state union pocket liners.

Not to mention the taxpayer's cost for the liberals tantrum. They should have just given all that money to Cullen. Now they won't even have the out of session Senate control until November either.

check mate Republicans.

wi55lady- WI wouldn't have gotten the money, it was what scooter collected from out of state pocket liners. Gazette is very misleading with this story!

Well everyone happy now what a waste of money and Barrette didn't win. Now guess who is stuck with the bill that's right we did and it makes me angry we can't get that money back and Walker is still the Governor so I wonder why we ever had this recall in the first place. We did not accomplish A thing now did we same old politics same old BS nothing changed.

Wow, what this state could have done with the $81 million!!!!! So senseless!!!

Shrek I am interested. Did your school board just give up and sign a deal? How long did negotiations go on? If your school board wasn't satisfied why didn't you go to arbitration or mediation?

It seems obvious that corporations and the top 1% are making enough money to fund these elections. It is interesting how these corporations and people cry for tax breaks so they can "create" jobs but none have ever come. Why.... Simple economics... There is no demand for the products and services they are offering because the lower and middle class have no money! You can give the "Job Creators" more tax breaks but they will never create more jobs. They just use the money to buy politicians (both sides) so they can continue to get more money.

Sad!

Dtb,
I served on a school board before Act 10 and we tried and tried to be reasonable, the unions flat out REFUSED to negotiate. Walker did this the only way possible to get the necessary changes accomplished. You keep talking about compromise, but with the unions, there was no such thing.

713, it seems to imply that was the total amount spent on the election from all sources.

ninja, if Walker had been reasonable in the first place none of this would have happened. He could have had his Act 10 budget concessions without this if he were a better politician. Other republicans have been governor and gotten their agendas through without being recalled. The people felt they had to do something to counter his aggregious actions and with a better candidate running, they might have won. As it is, they did not and we move on.

The author of this story need to clarify whether this was money spent by candidates' campaigns, or taxpayer money spent on the cost of the recall process. That point is not made clear in the article, and it's a fairly important point considering it is what the whole story is supposed to be about. Great writing.

Send the bill to the Unions, Oh they are short of Money. They lost big time.

There is no "bill".
Donors gave their money to the campaigns.
The campaigns spent it in Wisconsin.
Actually, a lot of money for both sides came in from outside the state
and was spent in Wisconsin.

Send the bill to "The list".

Awesome waste!!!!!!! Congrats!!!!

Lots of WI infrastructure could have been repaired with this money...

Thanks progs...........another new record reached!

Democrats, they will never learn.