True story.
I had a friend in college who went to visit some mutual buddies in San Diego. One night, after a couple of beers, my buddy decided to drive across the border into Tijuana. When he woke up the next morning (on a park bench), he noticed that his wallet, car keys and shoes were all missing. He also had some unexplained bruises.
After listening to the story, I asked him why he drove into Tijuana in the first place? He replied: "It seemed like a good idea at the time"!
I thought about this story last night as I was watching the election returns. Kathleen Falk, the ever so opportunistic hand-picked candidate of the big public employee unions in Wisconsin, received 35% of the vote - in the Democratic Primary. She lost about 55 counties in Wisconsin - and lost her home base of Dane County by an almost 2 to 1 margin.
Talk about epic fail.
What is so amazing about the Falk flame out is that it came after organized labor dumped around $4 million of the money of their members into supporting the Falk run. $4 million.
WEAC and AFSCME should be passing out t-shirts to all their members with the slogan: "My union blew $4 million of my money and all I got was this t-shirt".
Organized labor has so little clout that word is that a "Unity Rally" scheduled for today had to be canceled because it is speculated that Tom Barrett didn't want to be seen at an event with a bunch of Union-istas. Ouch!
As a practical matter, the candidacy (and political career) of Kathleen Falk was doomed the moment she pledged to veto any State budget that didn't contain a provision repealing Act 10. I mean, it's one thing to be a closet union shill, it's another to be a total toady.
What's really incredible though is that, campaign promises aside, the big labor bosses didn't realize how flawed Falk was as a candidate. Then, after blowing $3 million in initial ad buys, they added another $1 million in the last days of the campaign. So much for union clout and political savvy.
If I were a Wisconsin public employee today, I might be inclined to ask my union leadership how they miscalculated so badly? I mean, how could they blow $4 million on Kathleen Falk?
To save you the trouble of asking, I think I know the answer you'd get to the question: "Why did union bosses give Kathleen Falk so much money?"
Because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
At least my buddy had some fun in Tijuana before he got rolled. I wonder if Wisconsin public employee union members can say the same thing today?
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