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Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin got caught the other day talking to a fake Koch brother about the protests in his state over his attempts to strip away bargaining power from public employee unions. Now, people are trying to shout down each other on the Internet and cable outlets over who came off worse, the governor or the blogger who faked the call. This is not a very productive exercise.
Even the right should admit that their favorite governor of the moment, Walker, took a big hit on the tape recording. Exactly how much of a hit depends on how you interpret his words and read meaning into them. He doesn't look good, from either side of the equation, unless you start by trying to make excuses for him.
Some have charged that groups like Common Cause are no different from the Koch started and supported groups, because both depend on contributions from the wealth. In fact, all "public interest" groups depend disproportionately on the wealthy for support. Middle class Americans could easily step up to bat and replace the money from the rich, but they generally have other priorities. People who work for salaries and make a hundred thousand or less per year tend to give a higher percentage of their income to charities than the rich and often give small political donations, but it is very difficult to motivate wage earners to give enough, on a regular basis, to support any public interest endeavor in the form of a group like Common Cause.
The Koch brothers are following a long line of the super rich who would like to take over the country, corrupt democracy to the point of irrelevance and have their way with the world and environment. What makes these two different is they are being successful in new ways. They are organizing untold "astroturf" public groups and funding the startup of the Tea Party grouping. (In fact, the whole Tea Party “movement” can, in some degree, be considered an astroturf effort.) An orchestrated campaign began the moment Obama was elected to undermine his presidency by rumor. His birth origin and religion being brought into question were key elements in weakening his great electoral victory. By slipping small doubts into the minds of millions, the task for negating the last election began and grew.
These rumor mongering efforts were followed by the most massive outside-the-campaigns spending in the history of the United States. "Most massive" here being defined both by the dollar size (close to 500 million, by reliable estimates) and in real dollars. All lot of the anti-democrats money came from those opposed to health insurance changes. NOTHING on the scale approaching this effort had ever been attempted. As a result, the Republicans retook the House, won seats in the Senate and weakened a president to the point where his reelection chances can be openly and widely questioned.
The hostility to any Democrat serving in the White House is apparent for all to see. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined the fun, announcing a 100 million dollar anti-Obama plan, then spending about 80 million on the effort. The goal was to, first, weaken the new president in the public eye and then take down Democrats wherever possible. The full extent of this effort is not known, but we do know it included dirty tricks that would have made Nixon blush. One was having college age students with video cameras follow around Democratic incumbents with video cameras shouting out embarrassing questions. One of those incidents turned into shoving between a Congressman and the fake cameraman. There could be many more such dirty campaign efforts yet to be uncovered, but the major media has so far begged off finding them because, one, they are intimidated by the left bias charge and, two, the story lacks the snap of presidential illegality that was found in Watergate.
Our democracy, already damaged by many forces, including the growth of presidential power to take us to war without question, is under direct assault by the Koch brothers by ways and means not taken by previous generations of the very wealthy. Historically, the moneyed class has worked behind the scenes to get what it wanted and done very well at it. Now, the hostility toward the democratic process is being played out in public, with the contributors to the 527 (outside campaign) groups kept from public knowledge. In this case, the very basis of democracy is under assault.
As for governor Walker, he has overstepped his electoral mandate and the bounds of powers granted him by the people of Wisconsin. When this is attempted, especially by a governor new to office, it seldom works out well for the politician. He might be a hero to the right, but he likely has very little else to look forward to in his future.
Doug Terry, 2.26.11
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