They’re not apathetic in Wisconsin.

They needed a little over half a million signatures to put the recall of Governor Scott on the ballot in Wisconsin.

The organizers planned on 750,000 just to make sure.

They got a million. Almost two million if you add in the signatures they got to recall the lieutenant  governor,  Rebecca Kleefisch, and Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.

The number of signatures to recall Walker are equal to nearly have the voters in the state. It required a face to face, feet on the pavement effort that should make every Wisconsinite proud. It is a victory for the labor movement, which was the main target of Walker’s legislative agenda, and for the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

There is a certain sub-text to this, however.

I was watching Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate on TV as I lay nursing a cold in bed yesterday. Tate called the election of Scott Walker in a historically blue state like Wisconsin a result of apathy on the part of the state’s voters.

I don’t think so.

The results of the 2010 election in Wisconsin and other states was less the result of voter apathy than it was voter disappointment with the failure of the Democratic Party to fight for working people’s concerns.

Ohio’s historic vote to defend collective bargaining rights and Wisconsin’s amazing recall campaign provide plenty of evidence that there is no apathy here. You just need something important to fight for.

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