John Kasich–the dollar store Scott Walker–is now hilariously backing away from his maximalist anti-union legislation (via TPM):

Kasich said avoiding a fight over state Issue 2 is in “best interest of everyone, including public employee unions.” He asked the unions to “set aside political agendas and past offenses.” [...]

Niehaus said Democrats expressed no willingness to meet in middle during the legislative process.

“We did reach out. Made concerted effort,” he said. “Delete, delete, delete” is what the Democrats wanted to do.

The other side’s response to this was pretty dismissive, and rightly so. You don’t make a deal when you’re winning. But really, this whole thing is all about Kasich and his friends trying to position themselves as the reasonable ones and Democrats as the hard-liners. Problem: in the real world, ramming through unnecessary and unpopular legislation (and it was rammed through, they reshuffled committee assignments to do it, and forced some legislators to break commitments they made with voters) simply precludes the victim approach. It’s not going to happen. And since the real world isn’t much like Fox News, where logic is suspended and anything can be connected by anger and fear, this is a lesson Kasich will have to learn the hard way.

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