Jim Hightower

"Scott Walker Wins Wisconsin," screamed headlines across the country after the labor-bashing incumbent governor hung onto his job in the June 5 recall election.

Well, yes... but no. Walker will get to stay in office for the rest of his term, but he did not win the election ­ money did. This was a victory for the Citizens United edict issued two years ago by a five-man corporatist majority on the Supreme Court. Their anti-democracy ruling opened the door for unlimited sums of corporate cash to barge into our national, state, and local elections... and take charge. Walker is the first
ugly sprouting of that alien seed.

He sacked up some $30 million from corporate interests ­ nearly eight times the money that his Democratic opponent had to spend ­ and two-thirds of Walker's stockpile came from out-of-state interests. Bob
Perry, for example, an anti-labor, anti-government Texas tycoon, put more than half-a-million bucks into his Wisconsin soul mate's campaign. Likewise, the far-out DeVos family from the Amway fortune gave a quarter-million
dollars, as did Las Vegas casino baron Sheldon Adelson.

Then came the insidious, secretive, "outside" campaigns that the Supremes green-lighted, allowing corporations to dump mountains of their cash into elections. The multibillionaire, laissez-fairyland Koch brothers, for example, shoved at least $3 million behind Walker ­ practically all of which went to vituperously-negative attacks on his opponent.

So ­ some victory! Honest conservatives might take cheer that Walker still clings to the governor's chair, but there can be no joy in the fact that money rules. That's the lesson of this election, and that's the real fight. To join it, go to Public Citizen's grassroots rebellion: www.democracyisforpeople.org.