Bloomberg's ridiculous photographic bias.

Reporting on yesterday's Wisconsin recall primary, Bloomberg runs this photograph of Tom Barrett...



... which comes straight from Barrett's mayoral office. That is, it's Barrett's own propaganda.

And this picture of Scott Walker...



... taken by a photographer who has a job in the Bloomberg organization either in spite of his inability to shoot a decently lit image or because of his ability to make selected targets look as bad as possible.

The text of the article is equally slanted, largely a collection of quotes from Barrett said from UW-Milwaukee professor Mordecai Lee. Lee is the guy who told us 95% of Republicans would cross over and vote in the Democratic primary, but Walker got 626,538 votes even though he had only nominal opposition in the Republican primary, and the 4 Democrats combined only got  665,436 votes. How many of those 665,436 were Republicans? Anyway, now Lee is feeding Bloomberg crapola like:

“In the 1950s there was a saying, ‘He’s a nice Catholic boy... That’s Tom Barrett. He believes the world is good... He believes in doing good. He believes that in a moral universe, right always wins out.”

And:

“In his view, the November 2010 election was simply an error and he welcomes the opportunity to right the wrong."

It's a moral universe thing. Walker beat Barrett in the regular election, a fair election, a democratic election. But somehow that was a wrong, and the nice Catholic boy is all about righting wrongs in the moral universe. Holy lord, what nonsense. That's the Milwaukee professor's assertion about the candidate's quest to get his hands on power: For the world to be good, I must rule.

Anti-Walkerites will have a tough time celebrating a Falk victory.

UW-Milwaukee political scientist Mordecai Lee expects 95% of Republicans voters to cross over in today's recall primary and vote for one of the Democrats — most likely Kathleen Falk, who stands to the left of her Democratic opponent Tom Barrett, because she polls much worse against Scott Walker. But Barrett has been so far ahead of Falk in recent polls, that if Falk wins, it should be interpreted as a victory for Scott Walker, even though Falk has campaigned as an embodiment of the values of the anti-Scott Walker protests.

Ironically, the anti-Walkerites might need to protest.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson endorses Mitt Romney.

On this morning's "Meet the Press."

... Johnson says Romney is the only candidate with a realistic chance of getting the necessary number of delegates to win the nomination.

Johnson also says the candidates have had “a spirited debate” but he thinks it’s time “to end this” and prepare for the campaign against Obama.

I like the way everything is climaxing in Wisconsin.

ADDED: Meanwhile, Governor Scott Walker is not doing an endorsement.

Walker’s campaign spokeswoman said he’s not picking a favorite because his full attention is on defending himself against a recall election scheduled for June. But some political scientists say that’s only part of the story.

"Is Tommy [Thompson] nimble enough to pivot to the right and position himself as a staunch conservative?"

Asks Marquette polisci prof Charles Franklin.

Mordecai Lee, a UW-Milwaukee political science professor and former Democratic state lawmaker who served with the former governor, said Thompson believed in using government to achieve conservative goals.

"That is a marked departure from modern Republican dogma," he said. "Now, they want to kill the beast. They believe government is the problem. Compare old Tommy to Sen. Ron Johnson. They are as different as the North and South pole."

Old Tommy. He's 70. He's got opposition in the Republican primary, but he's leading in the polls. Whoever wins the Republican primary is, I think, very likely to win the Senate seat, because the the opponent is probably going to be Tammy Baldwin, who currently serves in the House, representing the district that is dominated by Madison. She's never had to appeal to the people of the entire state, and from what I've seen of her, she's not really that good at glad-handing folks. Which is to say, Republicans should pick the candidate they really want, because he is going to win. No reason to go for the one who seems most electable. That's what I think.

"Politicians and political operatives far beyond Wisconsin will be watching closely..."

"... not just for what the recall effort may imply for other states’ leaders who are considering cuts to workers’ benefits and union powers as a way to solve budget problems, but also as a sign for the presidential race."

... In 2008, Mr. Obama won here by almost 14 percentage points, and a Republican presidential candidate has not won Wisconsin since 1984. But overwhelming Republican victories in 2010 and a State Supreme Court election in 2011... has raised new questions for races in the fall, including a United States Senate seat left open by the retirement of Herb Kohl, a Democrat.

“It’s an early skirmish, a dry run, a fight of proxies and laboratory for experimentation,” Mordecai Lee, a former state legislator who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said of the recall’s significance for the presidential election.

On both sides, the recall could create a testing ground for larger national themes about collective bargaining and unions, and build volunteer and political operations (not to mention a list of some 720,000 recall signers) long before fall.

I'd say it's more than just an early test. It's a place to shape public opinion. An immense amount of money will be spent focusing attention on a pretty specific set of issues: government employees (and their benefits and unions) and how to balance the budget. Presumably Mitt Romney will have the Republican nomination sewn up and presidential politics may be in a bit of a lull. I'm picturing national party politics overshadowed by the crisply ideological fight we're having here in Wisconsin. Suddenly, the spokesperson for conservatism will be the little seen but oft-denounced Scott Walker. And holding up the liberal end of the argument will be... somebody. We don't know who. I wonder how that will work out.

I happen to believe Russ Feingold will step forward, even though he's said he won't.  (I explained why back here.)

Will any of the "fake Democrats" — AKA "protest Democrats" — win in the Wisconsin recall primaries today?

They might!

Mordecai Lee, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political scientist, says "single-digit turnouts" are possible, which he thinks tend to skew more conservative than higher turnouts.

Single-digit turnout?! As they say around here, "this is what democracy looks like."

Though Tuesday's elections are Democratic primaries, Republicans can cross over and vote in them because Wisconsin's open primary law allows it.

Do you think they should? Or would that somehow be wrong?

Most political observers don't expect any of the fake Democrats to win primaries against the Republican senators' real Democratic challengers, though Lee said a couple of weeks ago that the real Democrats faced a real risk of losing. He said lesser-known candidates Moore and former Oshkosh Deputy Mayor Jessica King might be especially vulnerable. King is the real Democrat challenging Sen. Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac).

As I said yesterday, I agree with Meade, who wrote:

As Mrs. Stapleton said to Fred Clark (the Undemocratic Party District 14 candidate for senate), "it's a crime" that these recalls are happening at all. The cynical true purpose of these recall elections is to reverse the democratic expression of the voters in last November's general election. A vote for the so-called "fake" primary candidate tomorrow is a vote against the recall election itself - a waste of time and money and an insult to all Wisconsin citizens.

"Can 'fake' Democrats really pull an upset" in the Wisconsin recall primaries?

Here in Wisconsin, 6 Republican senators are facing recall elections, and there must be a challenger in that election. How is it determined who that challenger will be? Republicans are forcing primaries by fielding Republican candidates vying for the challenger position in the recall election. This apparently isn't just a delay tactic. Wisconsin has open primaries, so there is nothing stopping voters who like the current Republican senator from showing up at the primary and voting for a Republican challenger instead of the Democrat, which would make the ultimate recall election a battle between 2 Republicans.

... Mordecai Lee, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, [says] the primary elections are likely to have very low voter participation, and low-turnout elections tend to attract more conservative voters than high-turnout races....

Charles Franklin, a political scientist at UW-Madison, considers the likelihood of a protest-candidate win as "remote but not impossible."

"What makes it remote," he says, "is that it requires a tremendous amount of coordinated effort" to educate voters on which candidate to favor, and then get them to the polls.

It seems to me that the whole idea of recalling a senator is a protest, and anyone trying to unseat him might as well be called a protest candidate. What makes the Democrat challenger "real" and the Republican challenger "fake"?

If, as Franklin says, it's hard to educate voters, why would that problem favor one primary candidate over the other? We're talking about districts that went Republican in 2008, which was a strong year for the Democrats. Why shouldn't the people who want a Republican senator head over to the open primary and vote for the Republican? I think a lot of people are irritated that recall elections are happening at all, that Democrats have failed to accept the results of the last regular election. These people have every reason to come out to the primary and protest against the whole misguided recall movement.