Marquette pollster Charles Franklin ought to get a raise.  His May 30th poll of likely Wisconsin voters showed Scott Walker with a seven-percentage point advantage over Tom Barrett.   Sure enough, Walker won the recall by seven percentage points.

A victory for social science, and of course Governor Walker.  For a full analysis of the election I urge you to read my colleague Christian Schneider’s breakdown at National Review Online.  I will offer only a few hopes for the future.

I hope Walker’s win will be a cautionary tale against using recalls to settle policy disagreements.  It is mind-boggling to consider the amount of time, money, and energy spent simply to retain the status quo.

I hope Wisconsin citizens of all political stripes will respect the important role played by public employees.  Our public institutions and the employees that run them are key to Wisconsin’s quality-of-life and economic future.   To that end, I hope new state revenues can be used to restore reductions in take-home pay for public employees.

I hope public employees are open to new approaches to service delivery in a post-collective bargaining world.  A Government sector built on collaboration and mutual respect between public employees and management will be more productive than one built on mutual distrust.

I hope Tom Barrett will focus on being an advocate for the City of Milwaukee.  His concession speech was classy, and the state’s largest city needs an advocate as sincere as I believe Barrett is.

I hope the urban non-urban divide so evident in the recall campaign is not a permanent fixture of Wisconsin politics.

Finally, I hope we can regain a little bit of civility, and really dignity in our public discourse.  Dismissing policy ideas because of the messenger only guarantees good ideas will be wasted.