[T]he Republicans went too far in their zeal to bust the unions and too far in their stubborn tactics to accomplish that mission. They are forcing these changes on an unwilling state at great cost — and they still haven’t filled the budget hole the original measure was designed to fill … Republicans, in the end, did what they had said they would not do: They cast aside provisions in the ‘budget-repair’ bill that actually dealt with the budget and took an up-or-down vote on ending most collective bargaining. … Walker never campaigned on disenfranchising public-employee unions. If he had, he would not have been elected. He got a spare 52% of the vote — hardly a mandate for what he is trying to do.