David Frum:

Wisconsin has definitively exposed the failure of the American left to build an effective populist movement despite the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. The Wisconsin recall vote was a battle at a time and place of the unions' own choosing. They still lost, and in one of the bluest states of non-coastal America. Who'll fear them now? Say what you will about the Tea Party, it collected scalps. The unions plus Occupy plus the remnants of the '08 Obama campaign have not. Perhaps that will change if a Republican wins the White House - but until and unless the left loses that fight too, we won't know.

Krugman:

I'm even more unhappy with how it happened, with national Democrats basically sitting on their hands while conservatives poured resources into the race.

Yglesias:

Over the past five years I've read more and more progressive lamentations of the decline of organized labor in the United States, but typically in narratives that seem to deny agency to the union leaders themselves. But part of what you see in Wisconsin is labor leaders paying the price for inability to deliver their own members.

Frum (who is probably ok with the Wisconsin results) and Krugman both end on a somewhat positive note for Dems. But it's ugly, and i don't see the Dems getting better organized in time for the election later this year.