A new ad for Democrat Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Falk skewers Scott Walker over his repeal of Wisconsin's Equal Pay Enforcement Act:
It' a wonky ad — pay equity isn't usually a get-out-the-vote issue — but Wisconsin's recall race, based off of public sector bargaining rights, is a wonky affair. Wisconsin for Falk's ad also isn't entirely genuine. Scott Walker only repealed a part of the Equal Pay Enforcement Act, and he didn't do it secretely, just quietly.
PoliticOlogy has written before about Walker's eff-you-that's-why style of governing might pose problems for Walker's BFF Mitt Romney as the presidential candidate tries to pivot from his conservative primary positions toward a centrist general election campaign. The nexus of women and labor policies in Wisconsin politics is the exact intersection Romney should be worried about. The candidate has been pushing back against the GOP's bad rep with women voters by portraying Obama's policies as bad for women, and got a boost last week when a Democratic operative criticized Ann Romney for workplace abstinence. A Romney backer running around openly deleting policies to increase pay equity for women is a nail in the road of Romney's plan.
Walker is up for a recall election in June. A betting man would say he survives (though betting on the longshot occasionally pays off), and his campaign may energize conservatives enough to put Wisconsin into play for Romney.
That having been said, it's hard to tell how Walker gains politically from his current moves disadvantaging workers. He's already proven his austerity, anti-labor bona fides. Any more legislation at this point just serves as fodder for ads like the one above. And even if the recall movement were having trouble motivating people to come to the polls over Walker's original anti-union drama — which they're not — new actions reminding everybody what an aggressively antagonistic governor he is would do the trick.
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