Followers and devotees of President Barack Obama frequently refer to his election as being in many regards "historic". Indeed it was, and both Obama's supporters and detractors would most certainly have their own reasons as to why they regard his election as such.
June 5th, 2012 was a historic day of its own in Wisconsin. Throughout history there have been only three recall elections of sitting Governors. Two of those recall elections were successful, so the fact that Governor Scott Walker was to be the third was not boding well for him. But history has decided otherwise.
Wisconsin is a very decidedly Blue state. Wisconsin has not voted for a Republican President since 1984. The unions, both public sector and private sector wield intense power. So what exactly happened? And why did Walker win this recall election by an even wider margin (including a higher percentage of union households) than the election that originally brought him to office?
Let's start with the most simple, and the most obvious. Scott Walker did what he TOLD the voters he would do if he was elected. He reduced unemployment by a full percent in only 16 months. He took a crippling Wisconsin budget deficit of over 3 billion dollars, and in 16 months, converted it to a 100 plus million dollar SURPLUS. Just one of the ways he accomplished this was by making the public sector unions contribute the small sum of 5% to their own retirement (yes, just like most of the rest of us do) instead of having that retirement completely paid for by taxpayers. He also gave the "rights" of the citizen to be employed by the government without being forced to join a union back to those citizens. The public sector unions screamed that he was "union busting" and their paid-for Democrat State Senators left the State to hide in Illinois rather than do their jobs and vote on the bill. In fact, rather than union busting, it was nothing of the sort. The unions weren't busted at all. They are still there. They just can't control the citizens anymore who want the freedom of choice as to whether they have to join that union or not in order to work in the public sector.
Walker did all of this while exempting the cops and firefighters, and he did all of this without anyone losing their jobs.
If anything, this "historic" election in Wisconsin says one thing loud and clear. People are getting very fed up with the boot of government on their necks, the mandatory support of unions and State pensions without representation, and the increasing knock of job killing regulations by the government at their door.
Those of us who are Conservatives refer to this strange concept as "Liberty".