What a night that was! Many of us were awake until the AP stopped reporting. Not much sleep! The first official count is now in, and out of nearly 1.5 MILLION votes, Kloppenburg won by 204.
First of all, preliminary rumors are that 10,000 + signatures were collected at polls across the state today. That on its own is awesome. We used the day to keep the snowball rolling. The more we bring in to the cause, the bigger the block we'll be. If there are enough of us, and we band together as a unified group politically, politicians will have to worry equally about us as they do about the Teabaggers when making their decisions.
The AP reports Kloppenburg victories in the following counties Walker won last fall:
Adams County
Chippewa County
Columbia County
Dunn County
Grant County
Iron County
Jackson County
Juneau County
LaCrosse County
LaFayette County
Lincoln County
Monroe County
Pierce County
Richland County
Sauk County
Vernon County
Washburn County
Wood County
Look at that list again. It's friggin' huge. Eighteen counties. 18! Today Scott Walker apparently said this election proved that there's more to the state than Madison. If that's true, I'm certainly willing to take his word for it. We've done well here, people.
On a Tuesday in April, we set records for voter turnout in a judge's race. Eau Claire had nearly 16,000 votes for Kloppenburg. By contrast, we had around 18,000 for Walker during the 2010 governor's race.
Even the counties that didn't quite pull it out were amazing. Florence County only had 688 votes for Democratic Candidate Tom Barrett last election. In a turnout that was probably half their normal rate, they managed 483 votes for Kloppenberg. Barron County had over 8,000 votes for Walker. They turned out barely 4,707 for Prosser, while Kloppenberg got 4,640 votes - nearly 70% of the votes that Barrett got last fall. Sawyer County tossed 2,650 votes toward Barrett last election, and 1,800 toward Kloppenburg this spring.
The folks up there didn't win their counties, but we heard their voices, loud and clear. If you know someone in that area, be sure to let them know that their struggles are worth every moment. Quite obviously, we've got a lot of folks that disagree with us. But we're making some very strong headway. The important thing is that we stick together, continue to hone our political chops, and keep moving ahead.
It's clear that we still have a lot of work to do. There will be a recount. It takes many volunteers to go through this process, and it's yet another place where we can make inroads with independents if we honestly and faithfully carry out the process. If we manage to hold our own heads up, and challenge honest discrepancies, we again will emerge the victors. I can't stress this enough, though - we need to be the sane people at recounts.
And of course, we need to continue pounding on doors for the recall elections going on. We showed up very strongly in those districts, and if we want to win those elections, we need to continue to put in that time and effort, house by house and block by block.
We've come very far in this state in just a few short months. We are bound together as one community - one huge voting block. Once again, I'm in love with Wisconsin. We can and will overcome the odds, and Wisconsin will be ours!
