The referendum effect

There has been a lot of talk about how the Republican strategy of putting the proposed amendment to ban on gay marriage and civil unions and the advisory vote on the death penalty backfired because it drove up Democratic turnout. That's true, but there is something else at work here that is very typical of our state that is being ingnored. Split-ticket voters.

Wisconsin has one of the highest percentages of split-ticket voting in the nation. Putting two Republican-themed items on the ballot in a year that turned out to be very anti-Republican let enough conservative voters split their vote in a new way. They could vote socially conservative on two issues and then punish the Republicans for their mismanagement of the government. The Republicans gave some of their swing voters a way out and they took it.

Kathleen Falk also fell victim to Wisconsin's need to split their vote. How else to explain how Dawn Marie Sass got elected but Falk did not? When the many split ticket voters in our state found themselves in the voting booth looking down the line and wanting to vote Dem over and over again, they needed a balance. And they found it by voting for a Republican for Attorney General and voting for the social issues on the back. The Attorney General race was the easiest choice to vary on because, right or wrong, the law and order theme is more associted with Republicans.

While many find it odd that Van Hollen is the only one to survive the Democratic wave, I think it's more likely that he won because of the Democratic wave. In a typical year, when voters weren't so upset at the legislative section of government and they could have varied their votes further down the ticket, Van Hollen would have come up short.

Let's hope the Republicans have learned their lesson on referendums. Playing games with the electorate is no way to modify the constitution of our state.