Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Wisconsin aftermath

_{Visual source: Newseum}

WaPo:

President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have raised a combined $60 million in May for his re-election effort.

The totals helped the president exceed his fundraising haul in April, when his campaign and his party raised $43.6 million. That was slightly more than his presumed challenger in the November election, Mitt Romney, and the Republican Party, which raised about $40 million during the month.

WaPo:

If the Wisconsin recall battle was a test of the power of political spending, the big money won big.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who survived an effort by the state's Democrats to unseat him in a special election on Tuesday, outspent his opponent by more than 7 to 1 and easily overcame massive get-out-the-vote efforts by Democrats. The recall contest ranks as the most expensive race in Wisconsin history, with the candidates and interest groups spending more than $63 million combined.

WaPo regarding CBO testimony on the stimulus:

But on Wednesday, under questioning from skeptical Republicans, the director of the nonpartisan (and widely respected) Congressional Budget Office was emphatic about the value of the 2009 stimulus. And, he said, the vast majority of economists agree.

In a survey conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 80 percent of economic experts agreed that, because of the stimulus, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise.

EJ Dionne:

The left will make a big mistake if it ignores the lessons of the failed recall in Wisconsin of Gov. Scott Walker (R). The right will make an even bigger error if it allows the Wisconsin results to feed its inclination toward winner-take-all politics.

The danger on the right is greater because winning an epic fight is a heady experience and conservatives can claim a real victory here. Walker didn't just win. He won decisively. And it turns out that a majority of Wisconsin voters ' including many who voted against Walker ' simply didn't like the idea of a recall.

Charles Pierce:

Nobody understood what was going on here. Almost everyone watched the crowds in Madison in the snow last year and missed the great force of resentment and anger that was building on the other side. Almost everyone listened to the exit polls early last evening and missed the great frustration of people who might not like what Walker had done, but they hated the idea of a recall even more.

(One MSNBC exit poll had 60 percent of the people who voted believing that recalls should only be employed in cases of actual criminality. Two points: 1) the last recall of a governor was Gray Davis in California, and he was dumped primarily because Enron rigged the electricity market and because a lot of important people ' coughChrisMatthewscough ' wanted a political career for meat-puppet Arnold Schwarzeneggar; and 2) if the John Doe investigation now lapping around Walker's heels begins to heat up, those 60 percent of the people may get what they want after all.)

WaPo on the union vote in WI:

The lesson: polls must be parsed carefully. Early in the night, the increased turnout from union households was seen as a potential game-changer for Barrett.

By the end of the night, it became clear that Walker's victory came in large part thanks to people who were close to the same union members who derided Walker's governance.