Useful Data Re: The Wisconsin Recall

I got an email this morning, that included this:

But what the national media is not telling you is: I am the new Democratic Senate Majority Leader after winning an important Senate recall election by just hundreds of votes.

Starting today, Senate Democrats will be a strong check on Scott Walker's power. If Walker tries to pass extreme policies that bust unions, hurt women, or attack middle-class families, we will have one word for him: No. We will demand laws that benefit the middle class and start repairing our state.

Solidarity,

Mark Miller, incoming Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader

From the Washington Post:

This election was anti-recall, not pro-Walker.  Had Tom Barrett won, the rich man's bootlicking babblers in corporate media would be squealing about the dire fate it portended for another incumbent chief executive, Barack Obama.

More below the fold.
I also have a strong suspicion that a much bigger factor than is being noted, was voters just wanting to stick it to the recall forces, who many blamed for their having to endure months of media and robocall saturation.  And I gotta admit that I get where they were coming from.

A key demographic factor:

Second of all, young people didn't turn out. Only 16 percent of the electorate was 18-29, compared to 22 percent in 2008. That's the difference between 646,212 and 400,599 young voters, or about 246,000. Walker won by 172,739 votes. Turns out having the recall in the summer, when the universities were out, was among the biggest strategic miscalculations.

From a good deal of the corporate media coverage, one gets the impression that we might as well just all give up and meekly submit to kleptocratic rule. Unfortunately, the same attitude can be discerned among some on the political left, or at least purporting to be on the left, which is why, among other things, I've long since stopped checking out comment threads at Daily Kos. What a bunch of sorry-a** wusses!

I haven't double-checked, but I'm pretty sure that amending the Wisconsin constitution is a fairly tortuous process, at least compared to Minnesota's:  the same proposal has to get through consecutive sessions of the legislature, and get the governor's signature, to get to the ballot.  Or something like that. Even so, I anticipate that proposals to end recall elections in the state, will get traction.