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Madison360: Walker?s fate aside, rich conservatives are defining the debate

In December 2010, weeks before Scott Walker dropped his self-described ?bomb? eviscerating bargaining rights for public workers, the single divide that defines contemporary state politics today was already crystallizing in my mind. The truth is that, more than ever, we in Wisconsin are split into two tiers — wealthy conservatives who leverage their money and the influence it buys to control our policy debates — and the rest of us. Back then, my column was describing a series of interviews with regular people across the state by a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

UW-Madison political science professors Katherine Cramer Walsh, Barry Burden, and Çharles Franklin are included in this column.