A funny thing happened on Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin. 100,000 people turned out to welcome home the 14 Democratic State Senators who had been on the lam for three weeks. It was one of the largest outpourings of anti-Walker protest, if not the largest, since the whole Wisconsin imbroglio began. While Scott Walker labeled them cowards, the public on hand treated them like heroes:"For Wisconsin Lawmakers, a Hero’s Homecoming"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/us/13wisconsin.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=for%20absent%20lawmakers,%20a%20hero's%20welcome&st=cse

So here's my question, where are the crowds that should be turning out in equal or greater numbers if Mr. Walker's bold political gambit has so much public support? One would think that he has the same degree of support if not a greater amount, that is if you discount the polling which was so undeniably against him. Even in the protests before the "Ash Wednesday Ambush" the amount of pro-Walker protests were insignificant when compared to those opposing Walker and the Republicans. But now in the hour of "victory" one would think that Walkers supporters would at last be emboldened to turn out in great numbers, but they have not. That is unless you are a sucker for conspiracy theory and believe that they are out there but that the liberal press is just ignoring them, you know the way the press has systematically ignored the "progressive violence" that is fueling the "uprising" in Madison, weird, huh?

Perhaps there is an abiding fear that court challenges and a springtime wave of recalls will make the entire Walker experiment a passing chimera. Time will tell and spring will arrive sooner than later but in the meantime the relative silence among Walker's supporters seems a bit more than ominous.

sjg

3/13/11