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Two years ago, politics here burned with a white-hot intensity. Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican elected in 2010, had pushed a bill through the Legislature eliminating most collective bargaining rights for state workers. Unions and their Democratic allies sought to recall him from office. Republicans sought to recall Democratic legislators. The battles buried any notion of voter apathy, but they split families and sundered friendships. Nearly a third of Wisconsin voters stopped speaking to someone they knew because of political disagreements that spring, the state’s leading poll, sponsored by Marquette University Law School, found at the time. Walker survived that fight and became...