The final spending numbers on the WI recall are still being tabulated. At present it looks like we got outspent between 8:1 and 20:1. The result was political vaporization as Walkers relentless negative add campaign attracted a decisive 2.5 percent of the electorate.
The WI recall elections serve notice that no amount of groundwork can overcoming a major monetary advantage on the part of our opponents. To use an example from my own life - I remember once in middle school the daily morning TV broadcast in the classroom (don't you love public/private partnerships) carried add for Crystal Pepsi every morning. Now I don't know if any of you have ever had it but Crystal Pepsi is pretty foul stuff. Sure enough with a constant ad campaign the "cool" kids all started drinking the stuff regularly. Myself - I bought one bottle, got about a quarter of the way through it, and that was about it. That, however, is the problem. A product like Crystal Pepsi needs to be sold every day of the year. Eventually marketing can no longer make up for the fact that it tastes foul. On the other hand an election is a one day event. The consumer only needs to "buy" the "product" once. If the next day the voter regrets his or her choice, it is too late. In an election you can't buy just one bottle and trash it when you decide its not to your taste.
Our problem is that a concerted ad campaign can convince voters that-much as they don't like a candidate-the other choice is worse. Lets be blunt, we the progressive wing of the Democratic Party have caused the 1% to shun the party. Because of what we have done people will die. They will die from lack of healthcare. They will die from the results of malnutrition (though today malnutrition probably means obesity not starvation the results remain potentially fatal). They will die a slow death as they watch their future ground to dust-and will see the same for their children. We have championed causes that will prevent this. By displacing those that will capitulated to the moneyed interest in return for the limited power to help their fellow citizens we have become morally responsible for what will happen if we lose. Much as we might hate to admit it, the neo-liberal wing of the party knew what they were doing: giving the 1% whatever they asked for in return for the residual power to attempt to do something for the rest of the people. In insisting on a principled politics we have blood on our hands.
No matter how we feel about campaign spending WI shows that it is a moral imperative that we match the right dollar for dollar. Massive spending by one party amounts almost to a form of voter intimidation. It says that this party will win, and the only hope the average person has it to capitulate in the hope that they, or their community, will avoid retaliation for supporting a party sure to lose. We have created this problem for the democratic party, it is our responsibility to fix it. Either we must disband as quickly as possible and hand complete control of the party to the neo-liberals, or we must match the republican and their super PACs dollar for dollar. If they have a billion dollars raised from corporations we must raise a billion dollars - be it from five individuals, one million individuals and ten million individuals.
Where then is the DailyKos Superpac?