My headline was better the last time I wrote about this.

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate said on the party’s website that recall petitions will be circulated starting Nov. 15, giving supporters of the effort until Jan. 13 to collect 540,208 signatures…

A group called United Wisconsin is leading the Walker recall effort and has collected pledges from more than 200,000 people to sign recall petitions. The group’s leader, Mike Brown of Appleton, did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment Monday night.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin said it welcomed the recall effort.

“Wisconsin school districts and local municipalities have saved millions of taxpayer dollars thanks to the Governor’s reforms, and we welcome and encourage a comparison between the positive results we’re seeing around the state and the failed policies of the past favored by those seeking a recall,” Stephan Thompson, the state GOP’s executive director, said in a statement.

They’ve been talking about doing this for ages but 540,000 signatures in 60 days is a heavy lift even with unions bankrolling the effort. (They’ll need thousands more signatures than that, in fact, since some are bound to be duplicates or void for various reasons.) I wonder if they would have followed through on it if the Occupy Wall Street thing hadn’t become a media darling when it did. If the political climate were different, they might have licked their wounds and ignored Walker after failing to take back the Wisconsin senate with the last recall drive. But now that the left is “energized” and wants to fight fight fight, they have to try it, no matter the cost. No doubt they’re hoping to borrow a page from Ed Rendell and try to get Occupy Madison or whatever to go knocking on doors for them. It’s the protesters’ first big show of strength, potentially; if they can’t mobilize to circulate recall petitions aimed at ousting the newest Republican Hitler, what good are they?

Speaking of OWS and fawning media coverage, here’s Kanye West enjoying his populist close-up downtown today by chatting with fellow one-percenter Russell Simmons. I wonder how many kids’ college debt he could singlehandedly pay off by cashing in that awesome chain.

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