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T he television cameras were rolling in the top-floor hearing room of Wisconsin’s Capitol, and every Republican was smiling for them. The members of the GOP’s newly elected majority in the state Senate whooped and applauded as Scott Kevin Walker, a trim figure of medium height in a dark suit and red tie, took a triumphant turn through the room. The governor-elect had thinning hair but a youthful face and energy. He had celebrated his forty-third birthday just two days before, on November 2, 2010—the same day he’d won the election. His potential at that moment seemed enormous. A former lawmaker himself, Walker had left the statehouse for more than eight years to serve as the elected executive of Milwaukee County, and now he was returning in style as the first Republican to win the governor’s race in Wisconsin in a dozen years. He got backslapping hugs from the male senators and a kiss from one of the women. He shook the hand of every senator, leaning in close to say a few words to some. “There’s too many people to meet,” Walker joked. Boosted by a national wave, the Republican Party had taken control of all of state government in a complete flip, something not seen in Wisconsin since 1938. Republicans didn’t just win back the governorship and both houses of the Legislature; they seized sizable majorities and stunned the Democrats by defeating both the Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader—the top lawmakers in each house. In the Senate especially, the win had been impressive , overcoming Democrats’ hopes even late into the campaign that they could hold onto that house. The GOP’s gains in Wisconsin that November outstripped those in almost any other state, putting Walker and other Badger 1  “Put Up or Shut Up” 3 State Republicans in the vanguard of a national conservative movement gaining ground in other states like Ohio and New Jersey. Wisconsin was more than just a bright spot for the national GOP; it was a beacon and would be so for the next two years. Wisconsin became the leader among statehouses, in Congress, and in the national Republican Party, as the country took a more conservative approach to meeting its financial challenges. The Republican senators and Walker were meeting in one of the most striking statehouses in the country. Just a few feet shorter than the nation’s Capitol and with the largest dome in the United States, the Wisconsin Capitol is a stately 284 feet 9 inches of white granite rising from the isthmus separating Madison’s two largest lakes. The building is laid out in the form of a giant X whose two sets of paired wings measure 483 feet 9 inches long apiece. Ornamented with carved oak, intricate mosaics, stained-glass skylights, and dozens of varieties of stone, it provided a grand setting for the intense events that would soon sweep through it. Begun in 1906 to replace an earlier building destroyed by fire, the Capitol had been built by Progressive-era politicians as a kind of temple of democracy, and it had been reinvested with that grandeur by a $159 million, fourteen-year restoration completed in 2002. This is a building to make those who enter it—whether a governor-elect or an anonymous citizen—reflect on the high purpose that lies or ought to lie at the heart of politics. Just before Walker entered the Senate Republican caucus room, the senators finished electing their leaders. As majority leader, they had chosen Scott Fitzgerald, a short, stocky retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve whose silver hair made him appear older than his forty-six years. Fitzgerald had served as minority leader for the Republicans for the past four years and had overseen their return to power in his house. Now, by a unanimous ballot, his colleagues picked Fitzgerald to guide them through what would turn out to be the most divisive and bizarre year and a half in state politics since the turbulent 1960s—a period that stands out not just in the history of Wisconsin but in that of the United States. Fitzgerald was by no means a novice for this task; he had a sense of the way political power could be preserved for decades or lost overnight. He was part of an influential political family in Dodge County, where his father was elected sheri¤ as a Republican before going...

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