◼ The Obama referendum - Chicago Tribune Editorial
Quick — who's the most fearless politician in America? Not the one with whom you most agree. Not the one whose dulcet words and seductive smile best say, You people have no choice but to love me. No, who's the politician who courageously risks his or her career with every provocative proposal — and who doesn't care if multitudes of us flagrantly disagree?
Clues: He lives beyond The Cheddar Curtain. And on Tuesday he decisively won an election.
Scott Walker, the governor so polarizing that TV talking heads have made that adjective part of his name, took office early last year committed to live or die by his agenda for rescuing Wisconsin from deficit spending and dangerous debt. You decide the significance of his introducing his bombastic 2011 legislative package on Feb. 14 — a toxic Valentine, perhaps, to his apoplectic opponents.
And on Tuesday, Walker not only lived, he lived large. He had delivered solutions. We'll pause here for the side debate on whether his style — choose uncompromising or obnoxious, principled or vicious — is one to emulate.
On this we all can agree: Wisconsin's election was a referendum on Walker. All else paled. A traditionally liberal electorate knew he had made mistakes, then decided that, on balance, his policies had helped his state. That conclusion — not whichever Democratic candidate opposed him — sealed Walker's fate.
We invoke Wisconsin not to predict the outcome of the nationwide presidential race, but rather for what it teaches about the sitting president.... Read the rest, at the link.
◼ And where is the president in all this? On his way to Anna Wintour's house. He's busy. He's running for president. But why? He could be president now if he wanted to be. - Peggy Noonan/Wall St. Journal
