Sending Scott Walker packing.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Cover story

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When the truckload of petitions with more than one million signatures to recall Governor Scott Walker pulled up outside the Government Accountability Board in down town Madison, the crowd on the street went wild.

The chanting and singing, the freezing winter weather, the clever handmade signs, even the giant Walker puppet--all were reminiscent of the massive rallies in Madison that kicked off the popular rebellion against Wisconsin's union-busting, bud get-slashing governor one year ago.

"Thanks a million, Wisconsin," one sign said.

That pretty much sums up the whole fight--invoking both the staggering number of signatures and Walker's famous "thanks-a-million" to a prank caller posing as billionaire donor David Koch.

Which side will win? The more than one million citizens fighting to take back their democracy, or the side with millions of dollars to spend in order to hold their monopoly on government?

On January 17, things were looking good for ordinary folks.

One by one, volunteers who had gathered signatures on street corners, at shopping malls, in neighborhoods, and on thoroughfares all around Wisconsin carried boxes of petitions into the elections board building, through a corridor formed by the cheering crowd. They also submitted more than enough signatures to initiate a recall of the lieutenant governor and four Republican state senators.

A whopping 46 percent of the electorate from the last gubernatorial race signed the Walker recall petitions--186 percent of the total number needed to trigger an election--making it the largest recall in the history of the nation.

As Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch put it, "This is becoming a spectacle!"

The weight of all those petitions is symbolic of the huge popular opposition to Walker.

It also, state Democratic Party chair Mike Tate pointed out, should be enough to withstand any Republican challenges and delaying tactics.

"Given the numbers we've turned in, it should be no problem showing we met the goal," Tate said.

Meeting that goal is one thing. Defeating Walker is another. The Democrats have no candidate yet, and, with no clear leader and new potential challengers declaring every day, the party will likely hold a primary, which will push off an election.

There is even a grassroots campaign to bombard former Senator Russ Feingold with letters begging him to run--although the popular Democrat has said repeatedly that he is staying out of the race.

All along, Democrats have been expecting Republicans to drag things out. Rush Limbaugh signaled this approach, denouncing a state elections official for saying it was up to individual candidates, not the elections board, to challenge suspicious names like Adolph Hitler and Mickey Mouse--as if the whole recall effort could be dismissed as a massive fraud.

But the day after the petition drop, Walker appeared to change the Republican message about the recall, telling the Associated Press he believes there are enough valid signatures to force a recall election against him, and he wants it to happen soon. "Walker says he does not think enough [signatures] will be invalidated to stop the election," AP reported, adding that the governor said, "The sooner the election is over the better it is for the people of Wisconsin."

Walker may have good reason for wanting to hurry up a recall election.

Painful cuts to health care and education are taking a toll around the state. Nor are the promised new jobs appearing--the rationale for Walker's budget cuts and corporate tax breaks. Wisconsin lost 3,900 private-sector jobs in December, making it the only state in the union to lose jobs for six consecutive months, even as the nation as a whole added jobs during the same period.

As one bumper sticker on a pickup truck in Wisconsin put it: "OK job creators, you got your breaks. Now where are the jobs?"

But the biggest reason Walker might seek to rush an election is a secret corruption probe by the Milwaukee district attorney and the FBI. The John Doe investigation of Walker aides and associates is getting more interesting every day, as investigators search homes and seize computers of...