What's next?

If, as appears to be the case, David Prosser did win another term in the Supreme Court in Wisconsin, you have to wonder what will happen next. A few observations and guesses:

• Will the unions want to keep up the fight? They have to, doncha think? But how? One of the things that I've read in multiple places is that, aside from Dane County, in most parts of the state of Wisconsin Prosser won pretty easily, at a rate similar to margin of victory that Scott Walker had in November. That punches a pretty big hole in the narrative that the state had turned decisively against Walker and the Republicans. My sense all along was that while there was sympathy for the protests early on, the longer and more self-indulgent the protests became, things shifted a bit. There's always been a huge difference in the worldview of Dane County and the rest of the state and based on what we've learned thus far, that hasn't changed.
• You now also have to wonder if the recall movement is going to work, especially for the Democrats. In order for recalls against Republican state senators to succeed, they will need to be successful in areas other than Dane County. The two senators currently in the crosshairs hail from La Crosse, which leans left, and Fond du Lac, which leans right. I'm not sure there's going to be much enthusiasm from the voters to have another election after all of this. So I'm thinking the whole thing might fizzle.
• For his part, Walker has been pretty quiet throughout all this. In retrospect, it now seems that he made the right decision. In a sense what he's been doing is what Muhammad Ali called the "rope-a-dope" strategy:  take the blows of the opponent and survive long enough to let them punch themselves out. It seems to have worked. It will be difficult for the unions to come up with a new angle for the protests, since we've all heard their arguments now, ad nauseum.
• Meanwhile here in Minnesota, the Republican-controlled legislature has been quietly doing its work and the ball will soon be moving to Mark Dayton's court. The problem for the DFL is that they anticipated that Dayton was going to be the gubernatorial equivalent of  Lt. Col. Henry Blake, the clueless character on the old television show M.A.S.H. who had to ask what he was signing every time. The plan had been that he would sign whatever a DFL lege would present and we'd get A Better Minnesota or something. But the lege is Republican, so instead of being Henry Blake, Dayton has to be Cesare Maniago. Not sure he has that skill set.