WHINING & CRYING IN THE BADGER STATE AND EVERYWHERE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER

Those pesky little facts

The biggest problem with the left’s self-image as victims of conservative corporations and the Republican super rich is that it is a spectacular reversal of reality. While one wouldn’t know it from their post-recall self-pity, Democrats and the Left are backed by the most powerful financial machine in political history. It is a cash-armed supporting cast that includes powerful unions such as the National Education Association (total assets: $143 million) and the Service Employees International Union (total assets: $69 million). Big Labor’s power may have waned in recent decades, but unions still have managed to sink fortunes into key races, including $400 million for Democrats during the 2008 election.

The left’s money machine not only includes George Soros, but also includes the powerful, tax-exempt left-wing foundations, which tower over their counterparts on the right. As reported in “The New Leviathan,” the 115 major tax-exempt foundations of the left have a combined $104 billion in tax-exempt assets, more than 10 times the amount held by their 75 largest conservative counterparts. Those funds, in turn, are funneled to a vast array of Democratic and progressive 501(c)3 nonprofits and 527 political groups that shape federal and local policy agendas, help Democrats get elected, and shape the nation’s cultural and social issues. For instance, one of the rare bright spots for Democrats after the recall defeat was the victory of state Sen. John Lehman in Racine, where television ads placed by Planned Parenthood had a generally acknowledged impact on the result.

In the final analysis, those foundations are permanent and unaccountable corporations that influence national policy far more than for-profit corporations do. But Democrats and the Left are too busy blaming corporate cash for their defeat to admit it.

From this this day forward, know that all the whining and crying about those evil Conservative corporations and Republican money machines (Koch Brothers for example) is without merit.