Jim: Well, Wisconsin, for starters. This is looking like a policy victory, but the polls look pretty ominous for Scott Walker and other reform-minded governors.

Obi: Forget the recalls or the polling. Wisconsin has been too sweet. Remember Margaret Thatcher. She would suggest some bold initiative to her cabinet and then watch the empire’s bravest sons squirming in their red-cushioned seats at 10 Downing worrying about what the media might say and how their precious image might be affected. Mrs. T. would say to herself, in looking at those preening males: “And women are supposed to be vain?” The point here — the lady who was not for turning used to say, “Controversy is good.” That’s how we advance our agenda, how the public finds out what is going on, how the good guys win.

The mistake political junkies always make is wildly overestimating how much detail normal folks have about politics and government. (Not a criticism of normal folks.They are sane.We are not.) So with Chris Christie and now Governor Walker, the public is just beginning to gets its head around the pay and benefits and pensions of state employees. And Wisconsin has brought the whole question of giving state employees not only civil-service protections but the kind of collective-bargaining rights that corrupt current politicians into giveaways that force generations of taxpayers into indentured servitude and ultimately hurt public employees by bankrupting their pension funds.