Here's a headline you won't see, but should: "Scott Walker Spent 88% of the Money to Get 53% of the Vote."
Political pundits will spend the next few days and weeks analyzing the Wisconsin recall election, examining exit polls, spilling lots of ink over how different demographic groups -- income, race, religious, union membership, gender, party affiliation, independents, liberals/conservatives/moderates, etc -- voted on Tuesday.
But the real winner in Wisconsin on Tuesday was not Gov. Scott Walker, but Big Money. And the real loser was not Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, but democracy.
Walker's Republican campaign outspent Barrett's Democratic campaign by $30.5 million to $4 million -- that's a 7.5 to 1 advantage. Another way of saying this is that of the $34.5 million spent on their campaigns, Walker spend 88% of the money.
Walker beat Barrett by 1,316,989 votes to 1,145,190 votes -- 53% to 46% (with 1% going to an independent candidate).
Here's another way of saying that: Walker spent $23 for each vote he received, while Barrett spent only $3.47 per vote.
But the reality is even worse than this, because the $34.5 million figure does not include so-called independent expenditures and issue ads paid for primarily by out-of-state billionaires (like the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and Joe Ricketts), business groups, and the National Rifle Association, which were skewed even more heavily toward Walker. Once all this additional spending is calculated, we'll see that total spending in this race could be more than double the $34.5 million number, that Walker and his business allies outspent Barrett by an even wider margin, and that he had to spend even more than $23 for each vote.
In other words, business and billionaires bought this election for Walker. The money paid for non-stop TV and radio ads, as well as mailers. There's no doubt that if the Barrett campaign had even one-third of the war-chest that Walker had, it would have been able to mount an even more formidable grassroots get-out-the-vote campaign and put more money into the TV and radio air war. Under those circumstances, it is likely that Barrett would have prevailed.
Pundits can have a field day pontificating about the Wisconsin election, but in the end it's about how Big Money hijacked democracy in the Badger State on Tuesday, and how they're trying to do it again in November.
Peter Dreier teaches politics and chairs the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His new book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame, will be published by Nation Books later this month. An earlier version of this article appeared on AlterNet.
My relatives in 3 states who work in first responder positions kicked in "voluntarily" $100. The unions spent $500k per week for almost 2 years----as they should have---but it failed to sway the "non union" retirees on slim retirement incomes who are fed up paying for exhorbitant teacher health care plans.
Police and fire retirees DO NOT make out well---they should have been allowed to keep union representatives!
In fact, why don't you vote for Republicans to take over Congress and then you will see all of the social programs deleted. No more Medicare, no more Medicaid, no more Social Security. They want to privatize everything - and that will not work because there will be far too many people slipping into the cracks. That's not the America I was born to in the 60's. We moved forward and got better. Now we are moving backwards and becoming a third world nation. A vote for the Republicans of today is a vote for America's best days are behind us.
Sad, but true.
Semper fi
Semper fi
And we also need to institute a transaction tax for the speculating banks. That will add billions to the coffers and help to get us out of debt.
But cutting spending now? That would be crazy, utterly crazy.
Semper fi
Governor Walker won because he spent oodles of money.
FALSE
Over $63.5 million was spent. Walker about $30 million; Barrett about $4 million. Most Walker money came from out-of-state sources – The Republican Governors Association $4 million, most from out-of-state; Kochs $1 million; CofC $500,000. It appears Walker had a tremendous cash advantage. Not so fast. Unions spent an additional $21 million on the election.
In last falls elections Democrats outspent Republicans $23.4 million to $20.5 million.
Politico’s Glenn Thrush says there’s “only one paragraph you really need to read this ayem, courtesy of the Center for Public Integrity,” then quotes a paragraph talking about Walker’s biggest donors, that’s hackish reporting. The CPI actually adds: Campaign contributions tell only part of the story. National unions kept Barrett’s campaign alive by funding outside groups dedicated to defeating Walker. More than a year since Walker limited collective bargaining rights for most public employees, the nation’s three largest public unions — the National Education Association, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees , and the Service Employees International Union — gave $2 million from their treasuries and super PACs to two Wisconsin-based expenditure groups.
All of the donations to Walker and pro-Walker groups were not mandated. Big Labor dollars come from mandatory unions dues in most cases.
In terms of strict numbers, Walker spent some $30 million; Barrett and the unions spent $25 million. That’s not a 7-to-1 differential.
the whole thing was shady.