Big labor loses, Americans (and esp. Wisconsonites) win

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Its too simple to say the election was bought, there is never a direct correlation between money spent and votes, it it was, rich people would get their candidate in all the time.

That's pretty much how it works.

In nearly every election the person with the most money will win. Dollars don't vote, but dollars do allow one to shape the message the public gets in whatever way they want, no matter how divorced from the truth it may be. Give someone enough money and ad-time, and they can get the public to believe anything. If you don't see how having more money than your opponent in an election is an advantage, then you're not living in reality.

Walker won fair and square, increased his vote percentage even though the turnout increased from 50 to 58%, so more people voted for him in 2012 than in 2010.

And most of the money he raised came from out-of-state - people who could never vote for him anyways. Hence the point - the election was bought.

The Unions overreached, not just with the recall, but spending millions to try to nominate a blatant pro-union candidate instead of just rallying around the best candidate to beat Walker.

Exit polls also so a large percentage of voters, I think around 60%, disagree with a recall, except in a case of official malfeasance. That had an impact as well.

On this, I agree. They picked a crappy candidate to go against him.