Big Money Isn't Everything in Elections

alternet.org — It was frighteningly typical. Last week’s Wisconsin recall election was a money machine. Analysts say there’s no doubt that big bucks played a big role in the outcome. In a year of super-PAC super-spending, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010, it was just the latest outrage in a political system that has lost its way, even lost its soul, selling out to big money. And it raises even more troubling questions about runaway spending for the general election, less than five months away. But far from despairing about big spending for TV attack ads, some voting-rights and good-government advocates are coming up with easy and inexpensive ways to get people interested, registered to vote, and then to the polls on November 6, or before. Indeed, 2012 may be shaping up to be the year big money was challenged by an equally powerful force: big and low-cost citizen participation.

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