Follow the Money

If you want to understand why what's happening in Wisconsin has been so contentious, it helps to look at this chart from Open Secrets, which tracks political giving for the past 20 years. Fully 12 of the top 20 political donors are labor unions. The largest public employee union, AFSCME, has given over $43 million, nearly all to Democrats. And of the top 20 donors, only one, the National Auto Dealers Association, significantly favors Republicans.

By the way, Koch Industries, which has lately become the big bogeyman for those on the Left who decry the influence of money in politics, sits at #84, while Target Corporation, much derided locally for becoming involved in the 2010 governor's race on Evil Tom Emmer's behalf, is not among the top 140 donors.

What Scott Walker is doing represents an existential threat to the way unions and the Democratic Party operate. It's clear, when you look at the numbers, that the Democrats absolutely, positively, gotta have union money in order to survive. And because they do, the Democrats are absolutely loyal to the wishes of their paymasters. Although it's been less remarked upon, the real issue with Walker's initiatives, from a union perspective, is that the sum of the reforms will make Wisconsin a "right-to-work" state, ending the closed-shop advantage that unions currently enjoy there. If the unions have to collect their own dues, they lose a lot of leverage. And the Democrats lose a lot of money. If I were dependent upon such a system, I'd fight like hell to preserve it, too.

Other major non-union donors, such as AT&T (#2) and the National Association of Realtors (#4), tend to split their money between the two parties. They are in the game because they operate in heavily regulated industries and the political money they provide is paid to the political parties for the same reasons that local shopkeepers might wet the beak of the local crime boss -- it's protection money.

It's a cliche, but it's true -- you'll never be able to get money of politics so longs as the politicians are a position to dictate how money is made. Poke around that list a little bit more -- you'll learn a lot.