Obstacle for Obama with Wisconsin vote

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s re- election campaign faces another potential setback today with Republicans poised to win an election regarded as a bellwether for November’s battle for the White House.

The recall vote in Wisconsin, seemingly a referendum on the politics of austerity, was triggered in 2011 after the union movement collected a million signatures in an attempt to oust a Republican governor who outlawed collective bargaining and slashed public spending.

Gov. Scott Walker is more than six points clear of his Democratic challenger in an aggregate of polls by RealClearPolitics, as both parties campaigned frantically to win an election that could deliver national momentum to the winner.

The battle to unseat Walker has taken on national significance after Republicans from across America rallied to support a politician who was treated as a hero when he introduced cuts to plug a $ 3.8- billion gap in the state budget following his election in 2010.

The budget, which increased the cost of benefits for public sector workers and stripped unions of collective bargaining rights, brought about 100,000 workers on to the streets during several weeks of demonstration.

If he is defeated, Walker would become the third U. S. state governor recalled from office during his term.

Big- name Republican politicians have travelled to Wisconsin to campaign for Walker, whose austerity policies were seen as a beacon of good practice by many on the right who accuse Obama of bloating public spending and failing to tackle America’s growing debt mountain. Obama has conspicuously failed to campaign in person for the Democrat challenger — Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee — leading to taunts from Republicans he was running scared from a defeat that could highlight the president’s fading star power.

“If I were the president, I wouldn’t want to be attached to a loss,” said Rebecca Kleefisch, the Republican lieutenant- governor, who is also facing a recall election.

The Obama campaign has insisted the president has been too busy to campaign, a claim that attracted ridicule since he has found time to attend recently fundraisers in Minneapolis and Chicago, both a short hop by helicopter from Wisconsin.