In his HuffPo post, “Three Fatal Republican Mistakes That Could Spell Their Defeat Next November,” Democratic political strategist Robert Creamer illuminates some potentially costly GOP blunders:

First, Republicans forgot the fundamental truth that it is much more difficult to take something away from people that they already have, than to prevent them from getting something for which they aspire.
It’s one thing to campaign against the possibility of better health care — or against legislation that would restrain the power of banks to sink the economy. It’s quite another to propose measures that would cut someone’s pay, eliminate their power to bargain, or slash services that benefit everyday Americans — even worse to propose cutting Social Security or Medicare. Those kinds of proposals are downright personal. They really make people angry.
Nothing changes a political calculus like “facts on the ground.” That’s why the Republicans are crusading so hard to prevent the Affordable Health Care Act from being implemented. Once it’s in force, millions of stakeholders will form a political army that will prevent it from ever being repealed.

Creamer provides more detail on how the Republicans paid a political price for their ill-considered efforts to undermine Medicare and Social Security, then notes their second major blunder:

…The Republicans have forgotten the all-important political principle, that you can’t believe your own spin. That’s especially true if you spend all of your time talking to the small group of people who agree with you. Take the House of Representative’s newly-elected Tea Party Caucus. This insular crew talks to each other — repeats each other’s slogans — listens to Fox News and has convinced themselves that most Americans agree that government spending is the worst thing since murder and mayhem.
…But now that the Republicans have begun to propose concrete cuts to important public services, their view of what the “American people” want is completely disconnected from reality.
Last week’s NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that a 51% to 46% majority says the government should do more, rather than less. Fifty-six percent say that jobs and economic growth should be the government’s top priority compared to 40% who rate deficit reduction that way.
By 54% to 18%, Americans do not believe that cuts in Medicare are necessary to reduce the deficit. Forty-nine to twenty-two percent say cuts in Social Security are not needed. Fifty-six percent say cuts in Headstart Programs are “mostly” or “totally unacceptable.” Seventy-seven percent say the same of cuts in primary and secondary education. Majorities also call unacceptable cuts to defense, unemployement insurance, student loans, and heating assistance to low-income families.
On the other hand, while Republicans rail against increases in taxes — even for the rich, a whopping 81% favor placing a surtax on people who make more than a million dollars. Sixty-eight percent want to end the Bush tax cuts on those who make over $250,000.
An overwhelming 77% support the right of public employees to collective bargaining…To top it off, a Rasmussen (Republican) poll shows Wisconsin Governor Walker’s positives dropping to 43%, and his negatives soaring to 57%.
The winds have shifted — and because they believe their own spin, many Republicans have yet to notice.

The third major blunder Creamer cites is the GOP’s refusal to get it that voters will not buy discredited b.s. indefinitely:

Over and over, the Republicans have repeated their mantra that we need to “cut spending” in order to create jobs. Now, it is certainly true that controlling the nation’s long-term deficit will benefit the economy in the long haul. You can even make a case that when government debt begins to sop up lots of available credit, it can be a drag on private sector investment and growth. But no reputable economist agrees that cutting spending now — as we are just emerging from a recession — will create jobs. Just the opposite.
…The public is beginning to get the picture. The polling shows that voters want investments that actually do increase long-term growth — investments in education, research and infrastructure — that will allow us to win the future.

Chris Bowers has an equally encouraging (for Dems) take in his Daily Kos post “Why Wisconsin poses such a serious threat to Republicans.” Bowers notes that the normal fragmentation of progressives is being replaced by a more unified spirit because of Governor Walker’s union-bashing, and adds

If you will forgive me for being elliptical and finally returning to the subject promised by the title of this article, that last sentence is why the new labor uprising is potentially so dangerous for Republicans. In these fights, the interests and organizing of labor, the netroots, and the Democratic Party are very closely aligned. The result has been astoundingly effective activism: tens of thousands of people at continuous rallies, a constant buzz from progressive media covering the rallies, paid media campaigns of high quality and quantity funded by the people consuming that coverage, and Democratic elected officials willing to use whatever procedural means necessary to take the fight as far as possible. It’s caused at least the temporary disappearance of what my astute friend Matt Stoller called “the rootsgap,”–a lack of alignment between the interests of the grassroots and the leaders of a political movement.
In Wisconsin, all of the “everyone-elses” are joined together in a coherent political operation, and we are winning because of it. Despite the full-backing of the iron fist of the conservative movement, a newly elected hard-right Governor has seen his approval ratings plummet to around 40% only two months after taking office. That’s unheard of.
If what happened in Wisconsin is replicated elsewhere, then conservatives are in a deep pile of doo-doo. They know it, too. Tea party groups are sending out fundraising emails on Wisconsin admitting that they are losing…

And if it seems that this perspective is just pretty much what you might expect from progressives like Creamer and Bowers, here’s an excerpt from a post, “Gov. Scott Walker Has Lost The War” by Rick Ungar at Forbes magazine, which proudly promotes itself as the “capitalist tool”:

In what may be the result of one of the great political miscalculations of our time, Scott Walker’s popularity in his home state is fast going down the tubes.
A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving.
While these numbers are clearly indicators of a strategy gone horribly wrong, there are some additional findings in the poll that I suspect deserve even greater attention.
It turns out that the state’s public school teachers are very popular with their fellow Badgers. With 77% of those polled holding a high opinion of their educators, it is not particularly surprising that only 32% among households with children in the public school system approve of the governor’s performance. Sixty-seven percent (67%) disapprove, including 54% who strongly disapprove.
Can anyone imagine a politician succeeding with numbers like this among people who have kids?
These numbers should be of great concern not only to Governor Walker but to governors everywhere who were planning to follow down the path of war with state employee unions. You can’t take on the state worker unions without taking on the teachers – and the teachers are more popular than Gov. Walker and his cohorts appear to realize.
…The Wisconsin governor’s desire to be at the forefront of his perceived GOP revolution may not only have doomed the anti-union effort, but it may forever label him as the man who gave the democrats the gift that keeps on giving – the return of the union rank and file into the arms of the Democratic Party.

It’s looking a lot like Governor Walker is more interested in projecting himself as the new Reagan, than in helping his party win working class support in 2012. Other Republican leaders like Ohio Governor Kasich are nipping on the political koolaide as well. And that, for Dems, could be a very good thing.

Andy Kroll has a good MoJo article, “Inside Labor’s Epic Battle in Wisconsin: How big labor and progressive groups pulled off the biggest protests in 40 years,” featuring a dramatically told account of the protests.The lede:

They piled off of buses and out of cars, filling the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, and surrounding the towering Capitol. Thousands crowded inside the building’s beautiful rotunda, their cheers echoing throughout the domed structure. An estimated 100,000 people had descended on frigid Madison to protest Republican Governor Scott Walker’s “budget repair bill,” a sweeping piece of legislation that would strip 170,000 public-sector workers of their right to collectively bargain.
Last Saturday’s “Rally to Save the American Dream” was the culmination of two weeks of protests and a 24-7 sit-in inside the Capitol. Not for 30 or 40 years have unions and progressive groups come together in such an outpouring of support for workers’ rights. What makes the Madison protests even more incredible is how spontaneous they have been: There has been no master plan, no long-anticipated strategy to turn Madison into ground zero for a reenergized labor movement.

Kroll explains how Wisconsin progressives rose up and got organized in the wake of the hideous beating Dems took there in November, after losing both chambers of the state legislature and watching the governorship be taken over by a union-hating ideologue. It’s an inspiring and instructive case study, one which provides hope and guidance for Dems across the nation.

Read more…

Unfortunately, Wisconsin has no provisions authorizing initiative and referendum in state law. It’s a shame, because polls indicate that Wisconsin voters would shred Governor Walker’s union-busting measure in short order.
In Ohio, however, not only is such a referendum possible, there is very likely going to be one to repeal a GOP-supported measure that would limit public employee collective bargaining and strike rights, as Evan McMorris-Santoro reports in his Talking Points Memo post, “The Next Union Battlefield In Ohio: The Ballot Box.”

As the Ohio state House prepares to take up the controversial collective bargaining and union rights provisions contained in the just-passed state Senate Bill 5, union supporters and Democrats are looking ahead to a battle that will put the legislation in the hands of people they say are on their side: the voters of Ohio.
Though they plan to fight SB 5 tooth-and-nail as it works its way through the Republican-controlled House, leaders of the SB 5 opposition tell TPM that they don’t expect to win there. There are 59 Republicans in the House and just 40 Democrats, meaning there’s little chance for a repeat of the drama seen in the Senate, where SB 5 passed by just one vote.
But, thanks to the eccentricities of Ohio law, passage in the House doesn’t mean SB 5 is guaranteed to go into effect. Though they more than likely can’t stop it in the legislature, the opposition can potentially block its implementation by promising to take it on at the ballot box. That means the fight over SB 5 could extend for months — maybe even all the way to November, 2012.

After Republican Governor Kasich signs the bill into law next week, there will be a 90-day period during which opponents of the union-busting bill will gather 231,147 signatures (6% of the vote total in the 2010 gubernatorial race) to put the referendum invalidating the legislation on the ballot. The referendum could appear on either the 2011 or 2012 ballot, depending on the date the governor signs the bill. Either way, union supporters believe they can win.
If the referendum is held in 2012, it would likely increase turnout among voters who would be inclined to vote Democratic, which could put Ohio’s electoral votes in President Obama’s tally. That would be fitting poetic justice of a high order for union-busting Republicans.

It’s likely that we are going to see a lot more Madison-like protest demonstrations at state capitols across the U.S. Regardless of the outcome in Wisconsin, it’s fortunate that Madison is taking the lead among state capitols and providing a template for future protests in other states. Few, if any state capitols, have a more creative and energetic progressive community to show the way.
In terms of protest optics, I would give the Madison demonstrators high marks for signage that covers every angle. It might be good, however, to have more signs propagating variations on the Walker = Polarizer meme. The latest PPP poll, which I flagged yesterday, indicates that union families are now much more disposed toward dumping Governor Walker next election (2014), but there has been very little change in his image among non-union respondents. Make Walker the new poster boy for divisive, polarizing politicians at every opportunity. Same for his egocentric refusal to compromise. Ever the ambitious narcissist, Walker looks in the mirror and sees himself as Reagan 2.0, not a reasonable conservative who is willing to compromise to secure the best outcome for his constituents — which should be highlighted by the protesters.
The Madison demonstrators are making effective use of the American flag, and could even display a few more in the crowds. There’s a reason MLK always marched under the American flag. He knew his adversaries would try to portray him as somehow un-American. And when the opportunity was presented, King would leverage expressions like “the sacred heritage of our nation” to support his protests. Unlike the right wing, Progressives are often reluctant to tap the power of patriotic symbols and verbal expressions. But America is now awash in a rancid wave of neo-McCarthyism, in which every progressive reform is slimed by right-wingers as “Socialism.” The flag conveys a resonant visual impression that “We’re doing this because we’re good Americans,” and the more flags in this particular situation, the better.
Some spokespersons for the Madison protests have raised concerns about Walker’s attack as a an assault on the first amendment. While the first amendment does not explicitly reference the right of unions to organize, it comes close enough, as some constitutional scholars believe. Here’s the entire text:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The 1st amendment card could be played more effectively with a little more message discipline among spokespersons. Call out Governor Walker for trying to undermine workers’ constitutional rights. Make him waste time and energy defending himself with trifling terminology arguments that most people won’t relate to. Look, for example, at the traction the NRA has gotten out of a broadly interpreted 2nd amendment, despite the fact that the founders were talking about flintlocks, not high-capacity ammo clips. Walker’s initiative to crush workers’ rights to union representation is un-American, and it should be plainly said.
MLK also used prayer creatively. In tense situations, surrounded by armed adversaries, King would sometimes call his marchers to drop down on one knee and say a prayer for justice and a peaceful outcome. A third generation preacher, King and his followers were sincere in appealing for God’s help. But he also understood the power of humility in winning support from fence-sitters and in neutralizing potential adversaries. Prayer serves protesters well.
Lastly, leaders and spokespersons for the protest should always make a point of appealing for reconciliation in public statements, as did King, so that Wisconsin citizens can live together in a new spirit of cooperation and goodwill, in stark contrast to the chaos created by Walker’s stoking the fires of anger and resentment. It’s all about sharing a more inspiring vision of hope and opportunity for all, an invitation to real community most citizens will support.

Jon Terbush has a post up at Talking Points Memo, “Poll: Wisconsin Voters Wouldn’t Elect Gov. Walker In Do-Over,” which makes for a good addendum to Nate Silver’s post on union voters, which I flagged earlier today. Here are the nut graphs:

Wisconsin voters already have buyers remorse about electing Gov. Scott Walker (R).
In a PPP poll released Monday, a majority of registered Wisconsin voters say that in a hypothetical re-do of last year’s gubernatorial election, they would vote for Democrat Tom Barrett, whom Walker defeated in November. That finding comes as Walker continues to stand firm on his budget proposals that would strip most state public employees of long-held collective bargaining rights.
Fifty-two percent of respondents said they would vote for Barrett if the election were held today, while 45% said they would vote for Walker. That’s almost exactly the opposite of what happened in the election, when Walker won the governorship with 52% of the vote to Barrett’s 47%.

Terbush notes that almost all of the shift is in union households, which now favor Barrett by a 31 point margin, compared to 14 points in the November election. He also cites a poll by conservative Dick Morris indicating 54 percent of Wisconsin respondents oppose Walker’s plan to gut collective bargaining for public employees.
Walker clearly believes time is on his side in the Wisconsin conflict. But, It’s possible that the longer the protest goes on, the more Walker looks like a tiresome polarizing figure, a meme which could eventually take root among non-union households. And the more he refuses to compromise, the more reasonable the protestors will appear to non-union voters. It’s still early in his term, but his re-election is already in doubt.

Ezra Klein has a short, but provocative Newsweek post “Do We Still Need Unions? Yes: Why they’re Worth Fighting For,” which opens up a long-overdue dialogue. I like Klein’s opening grabber, which presents the danger and opportunity:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s effort two weeks ago to end collective bargaining for public employees in his state was the worst thing to happen to the union movement in recent memory–until it unexpectedly became the best thing to happen to the union movement in recent memory. Give the man some credit: in seven days, Walker did what unions have been trying and failing to do for decades. He united the famously fractious movement, reknit its emotional connection with allies ranging from students to national Democratic leaders, and brought the decline of organized labor to the forefront of the national agenda. The question is: will it matter?

Klein goes on to limn some of the specific benefits of unions — higher wages, safety, addressing workplace grievances and the weekend. He could have added the 40-hour work week, overtime, workman’s comp, holidays, health insurance and pensions, to name a few others we take for granted — none of which would be a reality today for millions of workers without the leadership of organized labor. I’m sometimes amazed how many presumably intelligent people I meet who diss unions in a knee-jerk way seem unaware of this important history — apparently it’s not well-taught in public schools, nor even colleges nowadays.
Klein also notes the important socio-political benefits of unions in the U.S. — checking corporate economic domination, lobbying for working people instead of corporate profits, fighting for a broad range of legislative reforms that benefit even unorganized workers and serving as the largest source of support for progressive candidates. Any further weakening of unions would be disastrous for America in this regard.
As part of the Change to Win movement a few years ago, there was an ongoing discussion about the kinds of reforms needed to modernize trade unions and broaden their membership options, as critical to increasing labor’s numbers and strength. I was looking forward to this dialogue eventually bearing some fruit. But it seems instead to have withered on the vine. Hopefully the Wisconsin protests will encourage invigorating this discussion in a more pro-active direction.
There’s a chance Klein is right that Walker may have inadvertently done a good thing for unions, by rallying them and their supporters and awakening progressives to the reality that organized labor’s survival is at stake. The law of unintended consequences occasionally works for the good.
But the trade union movement’s weak public relations outreach is puzzling. In this age of streaming video, where is Labor’s television station, or even nation-wide radio programs? Where are the academy-award nominated documentaries about labor’s pivotal contributions to American society? How about some public service ads educating people about union contributions to social and economic progress in America?
It’s no longer enough have labor leaders do guest spots on news programs and talk shows. a much more aggressively pro-active p.r. and educational effort is needed. That commitment, coupled with an effort to modernize union recruitment and membership could help insure that union-busting politicians like Walker don’t get the chance to do their worst.

For an interesting slant on what’s at stake for Democrats in the Wisconsin demonstrations, read Nate Silver’s “The Effects of Union Membership on Democratic Voting” at his Five Thirty Eight blog at The New York Times. Silver mines exit poll data and considers the propensity of union voters and households to vote for Democratic presidential and congressional candidates, noting:

In 2008, for instance, 59 percent of people in union households voted for Barack Obama, as compared to 51 percent of people in non-union households — a difference of 8 percentage points, according to the national exit poll. An extremely simple analysis might conclude, then, that the presence of the labor union vote boosted Mr. Obama’s share of the vote by slightly under 2 points overall: the 8 percentage point “bonus” that he received among union voters, multiplied by the 21 percent of the sample that was in labor union households, which is 1.68 percent.
The potential problem with this is that labor union voters are not distributed randomly throughout the population. Instead, virtually every other demographic variable — age, income, geography, occupation, gender, race, and so forth — is correlated in some with the likelihood of being in a union.
It could be, for instance, that because labor unions are concentrated in blue states, especially those in the Northeast and the industrial Midwest, the apparent influence of union membership on voting is really just a matter of geography. Alternatively, it could be that union members tend to vote Democratic despite having certain other characteristics that are ordinarily harmful to Democrats: for instance, union members tend to skew a bit older than the rest of the population and older voters normally tend to vote Republican. If so, the quick-and-dirty estimate from the exit poll might understate the effect of union membership on voting behavior.

Silver runs a logistic regression analysis on a large data sample from the National Annenberg Election Survey to help isolate the various factors. He presents a couple of bar charts which provide graphic depiction of the influence of 23 demographic variables on voters for president and congressional representatives, respectively. Silver calculates that members of unions and “union households” provided a 1.7 percent net advantage to Obama in ’08. However, if the National Exit Poll accurately reflected the union percentage of the turnout, Silver explains, the union member and household edge goes up to 2.4 percent. The figures were similar for congressional elections.
Further, in Silver’s analysis:

…Any votes that did not go to Mr. Obama instead went to Senator John McCain. Therefore, the impact on the margin between the two candidates was twice as large: not 2.4 points, but 4.8 points.
This is fairly meaningful. Of the last 10 elections in which the Democratic candidate won the popular vote (counting 2000, when Al Gore lost in the Electoral College), he did so by 4.8 points or fewer on 4 occasions (2000, 1976, 1960, 1948). So, while the impact of union voting is not gigantic in the abstract, it has the potential to sway quite a few presidential elections, since presidential elections are usually fairly close.

Silver then offers this interesting conclusion about the possible reverberations of Governor Walker’s and the GOP’s escalation of the political war against unions:

More tangibly, Republican efforts to decrease the influence of unions — while potentially worthwhile to their electoral prospects in the long-term — could contribute to a backlash in the near-term, making union members even more likely to vote Democratic and even more likely to turn out. If, for instance, the share of union households voting for Democrats was not 60 percent but closer to 70 percent, Republicans would have difficulty winning presidential elections for a couple of cycles until the number of union voters diminished further.

They could also energize union participation in campaign volunteer efforts. In the worst case scenario, Governor Walker may win his battle to eradicate most public employee unions. Even then, however, he may insure that it costs his party the presidency, and perhaps some other offices, in 2012.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker apparently thinks he is poised for a big victory. But the latest Gallup opinion data indicates that he may instead be opening a big can of self-sabotage. Gallup is not infrequently accused of conservative bias in survey methods, which makes this lede from Dennis Cauchon’s USA Today article, “Poll: Americans favor union bargaining rights” all the more interesting:

MADISON, Wis. — Americans strongly oppose laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The poll found 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to such a proposal in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.

The 28 point advantage favoring public employee unions in this controversy is impressive, but Independents were even more opposed to limiting public employee bargaining rights, with 62 percent opposed vs. 31 percent favoring limits. Wisconsin voters can’t be all that different from this nationwide survey sample in their views on the topic.
Not content to advocate an unpopular policy, Gov. Walker seized the opportunity to showcase his ignorance of labor history and a certain flair for Orwellian ‘logic,’ quoted by Cauchon:

“Most people … mistakenly think worker rights come from collective bargaining,” Walker told USA TODAY Tuesday. He said his plan would not remove union workers’ protections from wrongful termination or inappropriate discipline or hiring. “When you alter collective bargaining, it doesn’t alter workers’ rights,” he said.

Just wait till he starts meddling with Wisconsin’s educational system.

Evan McMorris-Santoro’s report at TPM on new polls of Wisconsin voters, conducted by GQR Research for the AFL-CIO 2/16-20 should give the demonstrators some encouragement in their struggle against Gov. Walker’s union-busting. McMorris-Santorro explains,

Sixty-two percent of respondents to the poll said they view public employees favorably, while just 11% said they had an unfavorable view of the workers whose benefits packages Walker says are breaking the state budget.
Meanwhile, just 39% of respondents had a favorable view of Walker, while 49% had an unfavorable view of the freshman Republican governor. Voters are split on his job performance, with 51% saying they disapprove of the job Walker has done.

As the GQR pollsters explain in their analysis, “Since the protests began, Governor Walker has seen real erosion in his standing, with a majority expressing disapproval of his job performance and disagreement with his agenda.” And when read the following description of the conflict in Madison, 52% of respondents said they don’t favor Walker’s scheme, with just 42% favoring it:

As you may know, Governor Scott Walker recently announced a plan to limit most public employees’ ability to negotiate their wages and benefits. The plan cuts pension and health care benefits for current public workers, and restricts new wage increases unless approved by a voter referendum. Contracts would be limited to one year, with wages frozen until a new contract is settled. In addition, Walker’s plan also changes rules to require collective bargaining units to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union, stops employers from collecting union dues, and allows members of collective bargaining units to avoid paying dues. Law enforcement, fire employees and state troopers and inspectors would be exempt from the changes.

…Which underscores the importance of unions telling their side of the story. The survey also found that 53 percent of voters rate unions favorably, with only 31 percent rating them unfavorably. Of those polled, 67 percent said they sided with the public employees, 62 percent with the protesters, 59 percent with the unions and 56 percent with Democrats in the state legislature. A majority, 53 percent, disagree with Governor Walker and 46 percent disagree with Republicans in the state legislature.
When asked, 58 percent of respondents oppose eliminating collective bargaining, 57 percent oppose cutting wages for public employees and half are against cutting pension benefits for public employees. Independents (59 percent) don’t like it much, either, nor do a third of Republicans, along with 78 percent of Democrats. Three out of four respondents said they opposed taking away public employees’ collective bargaining rights, including nearly half of Republicans.
It appears Governor Walker may have succeeded in currying favor with the Koch brothers. But Wisconsin voters are unimpressed with his polarizing attack against state workers.

Eric Lipton’s WaPo article “Billionaire Brothers’ Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute” raises disturbing questions about the motivation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who has introduced a measure that would dismantle public unions. Lipton writes,

State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts.
…Campaign finance records in Washington show that donations by Koch Industries and its employees climbed to a total of $2 million in the last election cycle, twice as much as a decade ago, with 92 percent of that money going to Republicans. Donations in state government races — like in Wisconsin — have also surged in recent years, records show.

Lipton points out that direct campaign contributions are just one pipeline for Koch money for union-bashing. As Lipton explains,

But the most aggressive expansion of the Koch brothers’ effort to influence public policy has come through the Americans for Prosperity, which runs both a charitable foundation and a grass-roots-activists group. Mr. Phillips serves as president of both branches, and David Koch is chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
…The organization has taken up a range of topics, including combating the health care law, environmental regulations and spending by state and federal governments. The effort to impose limits on public labor unions has been a particular focus in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states with Republican governors, Mr. Phillips said, adding that he expects new proposals to emerge soon in some of those states to limit union power.

Lipton reports that Tim Phillips, the president of the right-wing Americans for Prosperity, told an anti-union counter-demonstration at the capitol, composed of members of the Wisconsin chapter of the organization “We are going to bring fiscal sanity back to this great nation.” As Lipton notes,

What Mr. Phillips did not mention was that his Virginia-based nonprofit group, whose budget surged to $40 million in 2010 from $7 million three years ago, was created and financed in part by the secretive billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch.

Lipton adds that Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause warns that the Koch brothers are using their money, in Lipton’s words “to create a façade of grass-roots support for their favorite causes.” Edgar adds “”It is not that these folks don’t have a right to participate in politics. But they are moving democracy into the control of more wealthy corporate hands.”
Paul Krugman explained it well in his Sunday column,

In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.
…What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

Governor Walker knows that if he hangs tough, he will earn the gratitude of the Koch brothers, and likely become the new GOP poster boy for anti-union conservatism. The question is whether the people of Wisconsin will see through the Koch Brothers’ astroturf counter-demos and take a stand for workers’ right to union representation.