State Sen. Jon Erpenbach, one of the 14 "Lincoln Democrats" (go to the bottom of this post for an explanation), has become an almost nightly guest on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show." Last night, when Maddow asked him what Scott Walker's budget address meant, the calm and articulate legislator from Middleton went through a long list of specific bad features and then summarized the whole thing this way:

    "We're seeing a hostile corporate takeover of the state of Wisconsin."

I can't think of a better, more succinct way to put it.

[BACKGROUND: "Lincoln Democrats" is the descriptive preferred by linguist and progressive strategist George Lakoff to describe the 14 state Senate Democrats who relocated to Illinois rather than let Walker bull-rush his "emergency" budget-repair bill through the legislature before anyone might actually read it, including Republicans. Lakoff has explained that the phrase makes a perfect political frame, because not only does it reference the current address of the determined Wisconsin Democrats, but it harkens back to the mid 19th century, when a certain Illinois state legislator and future president named Abraham Lincoln actually jumped through the window of the Illinois statehouse in an effort to prevent a quorum that would mean the enactment of some especially pernicious legislation. That would be as in, REPUBLICAN legislator Abraham Lincoln, of course.]