But What if it doesn’t Work?

Years ago I read an article reporting on a poll that purported to show that roughly 25% of scientifically selected respondents meant to reflect the general US population believe that the moon landing was a hoax. At this point I came up with a theorem that if this poll was true then 25% of the US population must be easily persuaded to believe most anything. It doesn’t mean that they’re all crazy; just that they can be easily persuaded to believe things that can be argued as plausible coherently but are demonstrably untrue. This theorem is the reason that there really isn’t any usefulness in having more than two large scale political parties and that it can actually be dangerous to have several of near equal size. This is because of that 25%, if you have five political parties close in size, all you need is 25% to win a plurality and those easily persuaded conspiracy minded folks get to pick those whom decide how to govern the rest of us.

After new Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, along with that state’s bi-cameral legislature, was able to pass reforms (real, actual hope and change) limiting collective bargaining for the state’s public sector employees, democrats and “labor” activists (I apologize for the redundancy) promised to get back at the Governor and Republican lawmakers by way of recall elections. In Wisconsin, a politician can be recalled after they have been in office for one year if a petition signed by 25% of voters from their last election seeks it. Currently there are 8 Republican legislators being targeted for this summer with Governor Walker’s turn coming up early next year.

It’s all well and good to pitch a tantrum and gather signatures, but will it work? The hardest part of persuading 25% of voters to sign a petition will be finding them and collecting the signatures. Getting the right 25% to sign will not be a problem. Wisconsin isn’t North Korea, so probably close to 50% of voters didn’t vote for those up for recall anyway. The reason behind the hysteria is that state employees identify any effort to curb their ability to fleece the taxpayer as an affront to liberty, no matter reality. A sizeable portion of citizens in Wisconsin are state employees, and many more are tangentially reliant on state largess and all of them have friends and families which should help them get to that 25% number. Easily persuaded.

But what if it doesn’t work? After all the work required gathering those signatures, 25% isn’t enough to win election in a two-party system. Also, there’s no guarantee that from the time a person signed that they were committed to the defeat of that politician and that they would even vote in the new election if the recall petition were successful. Because of the 25% theorem it’s likely folly to assume that a successful petition will translate to a successful recall election.

That’s not to say that the politicians targeted shouldn’t be concerned. And, the democrat state laborers are not the only ones pulling this shenanigan. There are Republican backed efforts to recall democrat legislators but at least it’s because those legislators abdicated their duties and left Wisconsin for Illinois trying to force the majority’s hand. And, because the Republicans don’t have every state employee union in their back pocket their 25% will be more difficult to obtain. Most of the coverage on this issue is usually set as a warning to Republicans, but I wonder if the democrats have thought through everything, including what if they don’t win the recalls? You know, like how they didn’t win in the last general election.