Last Call

At what point does Scott Walker realize he's won the battle, but lost the war?

Yet another poll in Wisconsin, this time commissioned by a free-market think tank, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, shows voters disapproving of Gov. Scott Walker, and saying he should compromise on his budget proposal and its anti-public employee union provisions. Furthermore, the key groups with whom Walker is jousting -- Democrats in the state legislature, public employee unions in general, teachers' unions in particular -- all have significantly better favorable ratings than he does.

It should be noted that WPRI's polling, despite the organization's ideological bent, is often cited in Wisconsin's media as a reliable survey, and is conducted by UW-Madison political science professor Ken Goldstein. This demographically weighted poll of Wisconsin adults was conducted from February 27-March 1, and has a ±4% margin of error.

Walker's overall approval ratings and personal favorable numbers are identical, at 43% approval/favorable to 53% disapproval/unfavorable, with only some internal variation between the "strongly" and "somewhat" sub-categories in each.

By contrast, the favorable-unfavorable numbers for the Democrats in the legislature -- who are most famous now for the minority state Senate Dems, who have fled the state in order to block budget quorum on the proposals -- stand at 50%-42%. The public employee unions' favorables are 59%-34%, and teachers' unions are at 59%-36%.

Oops.

Walker is getting annihilated here.  He should really come to the table, but he refuses to do so.  He's gotten 90% of what he wants from the unions too:  salary cuts, benefit cuts, pension cuts.  But the coolective bargaining he refuses to budge on.

And that last mile is costing him everything.