Zogby: Recall Battle Is Union 'Haves' vs. Private Sector 'Have Nots'

Respected pollster and commentator John Zogby tells Newsmax that the recall battle in Wisconsin defines the conflict between the “new haves versus the new have nots” — public sector employees versus private sector workers.

Zogby is a best-selling author and senior analyst and managing director of JZ Analytics, a market research and opinion firm.

As Wisconsin voters went to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to remove Republican Gov. Scott Walker from office over his efforts to rein in public employee unions, Zogby was asked if Walker will survive.

“He may very well survive this,” he says in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV.

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“The late polls look like it, although I haven’t seen exit poll results. The thing is that while he may survive, both sides will be hardened, both the pro-union and the most conservative side. This is likely to be an issue in the fall campaign, unless the result is completely lopsided on one side or the other.

“Even more than the presidential election this really defines the two sides in the United States today.

“On one side are conservatives, on the other side liberals. But more importantly this defines the new haves versus the new have nots in the United States, which is not the 1 percent versus the 99 percent other, but frankly the new haves are those who are perceived as public employees who have pensions and benefits and vacations and up till now job security and the sorts of things that their co-equal private sector employees do not have.

“It’s the private sector employees who not only are going through the anxiety of not having those sorts of things, but are saying hey, we’re the middle working class that are paying for the new haves. And that is a serious concern.”

Discussing the recall election’s implications for the GOP and the labor movement across America, Zogby says: “If Scott Walker wins a bunch of things happen.

“One, the wind is at the back, at least for the short term, of the GOP going into its convention in late August.

“It could also possibly embolden Mitt Romney to choose a conservative governor — a John Kasich, governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, someone who is a fellow outsider, a battler of the unions, someone who speaks for the taxpayers.

“The downside for Romney is that if he tilts too far over in that direction it makes it hard to then talk to the middle, and it allows Barack Obama not only to seize the middle but to say, look, we’ve got a team now led by a guy who was in the private sector and killed — this is Obama talking — thousands of private sector jobs, and he now chooses as a running mate and defines his campaign as someone who wants to kill thousands of public sector jobs. This is very risky business.”

In his exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Zogby also discusses the presidential election, the “serious crack” in Obama’s base, and the “real problem” Romney faces.

And Zogby discloses why Romney’s wife Ann will be a “tremendous asset” to his campaign.