Recall vote on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker appears imminent

Opponents of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday will submit a mountain of petition signatures demanding his recall, and in anticipation the embattled Republican has flooded airwaves with ads highlighting his stewardship in creating "thousands of new jobs."

It is a claim at once correct and misleading, federal jobs data suggest, underscoring how the drive to dislodge Walker is shaping up as both a fact-challenged slugfest and a pre-presidential election proxy for competing economic visions in a sharply divided land.

Democrats have been as quick to inflate the magnitude of job stagnation as Walker has been to paint an unduly rosy portrait.

In little more than a year in office, Walker has become one of the nation's most polarizing figures. He is adored by the tea party but reviled by Democrats and unions for austere policies that he said would restore prosperity: the gutting of collective bargaining rights for public workers and spending cuts for schools and other programs, but tax breaks for business.

Central to Walker's approach was his pledge that it would lead to the creation of 250,000 jobs by the end of his four-year term. So far, however, job growth under Walker has been anemic, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Non-farm employment grew by 4,500 jobs between November 2010 and November 2011, up just 0.2% — one of the worst performances among the states.

Wisconsin has been a center of nonstop political tumult from the moment Walker took office, with liberals charging that the governor's attack on unions was a smoke screen orchestrated by wealthy conservative ideologues to destroy a key Democratic constituency. Walker argued that he was elected to fix a state budget bleeding red ink, and union intransigence was getting in the way.

"Collective bargaining in the public sector is not a right, it is an expensive entitlement," is one of his frequent refrains.

The recall attempt ensures the bitterness will continue. A month ago, organizers said they were close to gathering the minimum of 540,208 signatures needed to force a vote — a number equal to a fourth of all votes cast in the 2010 election that put Walker in office and enough to signal broad misgivings about that result.

Tuesday's formal submission of petitions to the state's election agency is expected to include a healthy cushion.

Election officials say it could take two months to vet the validity of the signatures, and Republicans say they have fielded thousands of volunteers to scour them for flaws. Walker, nonetheless, seems resigned to having to face a vote and has predicted it might take place by June.

That sets up a scenario in which many of the same pocketbook issues sure to dominate the November election will play out at the polls in Wisconsin months before.

It also points to a delicious irony: a sudden resurgence in the Wisconsin jobs picture that could help Walker depends in great measure on an improving national jobs climate, which would probably aid President Obama's reelection chances.

Recall is a bit of a misnomer. The petition drive essentially asks for a redo of the 2010 election in which Walker would be forced to run against a Democratic challenger, not yet chosen. Parallel petition efforts also seek recall elections for GOP Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators.

In a warmup last summer, several lawmakers of both parties were forced into recalls, with Democrats slicing but not eliminating the GOP's majority in the Senate. Republicans also control the Assembly.

The tumultuous year has rubbed emotions raw, and disagreement often gives way to demonizing.

In Racine, high school guidance counselor Alan Hutton said he was most put off by what he considered the "sneaky" way in which Walker avoided talk of going after unions until he was sworn in.

"He would not have been elected if he had said he was going to do this," said Hutton at a weekend party for petition circulators in the southeast Wisconsin city. "We've had Republican governors before. We can deal with different views in Wisconsin, but this guy just got a little power and went nuts with it."

Not surprisingly, Republicans frame the recall drive in a sharply different light. To Ben Sparks, spokesman for the Wisconsin GOP, it is a Democratic "power grab …largely fueled by out-of-state liberal interests."