It's great news for opponents of the budget repair bill that a judge ordered people sleeping in the Capitol to leave. The 100 or so stubborn snoozers were playing right into Walker's Nixonian strategy to paint the protests as a giant party for petulant hippies and radicals, rather than as a gathering of working Wisconsinites.
While Walker and other Republicans make the insinuations clear by dismissing the protests as the work of out-of-staters, they leave it to attack dogs like Grothman and Nass to articulate the insults, lest anybody miss the message:
"It has become a pig sty…people are staying overnight…the place smells," opined Grothman. "Slobs have taken over the building."
The public relations battle will be won for the unions if they can keep mobilizing crowds of thousands to demonstrate in and around the Capitol day after day. However, a stalemate over the rights of 100 people to occupy the Capitol at night will only distract from the message and play into the GOP's contention that it is fighting a battle with an unreasonable opponent.
