SALENA ZITO: GOP Can’t Ignore Wisconsin Recall Battle. “Unions and the left are far outspending pro-business interests and the right on recall ads. Democrats are wise to see more at stake than a single state Senate majority and a new political map that could unseat two freshmen Republican congressmen. They know this is the first battle of 2012 — their version of 2010’s surprise election of Scott Brown, R-Mass., who won a blue-state U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Democrat Ted Kennedy. . . . Massachusetts Democrats got ambushed. Will Republicans let that happen to them in Wisconsin? . . . If Republicans don’t engage with real cash in Wisconsin, they could lose the state Senate in advance of redistricting this summer, embolden unions and scare hell out of Republicans in statehouses everywhere.”

They don’t call it the Stupid Party for nothing.

UPDATE: Reader Allen S. Thorpe writes:

I don’t think it’s just the GOP that can’t ignore the Recall fight. It’s also the Tea Party. They provided the big push that put the GOP in office. Now the Dems, especially the unions are coming to get back what they think is theirs. Each side has to get 25% of the votes in the last election for each office they go after. That means practically the whole senate will be faced with recall drives. For Walker, it’ll take 25% of the entire vote in the last election. It’ll take someone like Michael Barone to figure out how to how to handicap that. This is too important to leave up to the GOP alone.

Indeed.