HuffPo's Howard Fineman actually explains the political battle going on in Madison, pretty well.

In the last election, the GOP had a chance to win 20 governorships but only won 12. According to Howard, they were stymied by the political efforts of public employee unions in the 8 they lost and he quotes a GOP operative saying:

"We are never going to win most of these states until we can do something about those unions. They have so much incentive to work hard politically because they are, in effect, electing their own bosses -- the Democrats who are going to pay them better and give them more benefits. And the Democrats have the incentive to be generous."

Howard writes:

This is how top Republicans see the matter: a vicious cycle of union-to-Democrat-to-union power that they are determined to break.

He is quite right about this. And he goes on to show just how much political muscle and money the unions have to elect their own bosses.

It's not just the GOP who should be concerned about this. It's taxpayers, who are finally coming to understand how crooked and expensive this racket is to them. Democrats are much more likely to be willing to raise taxes to pay the people who work to get them elected. This puts them at odds with the vast majority of taxpayers.

For years, Democrats and to some extent Republicans have played this political game. But it is no longer affordable or political feasible.

This is not only how top Republicans see the matter, it is how any honest political analyst sees the matter as well. Fineman, an MSNBC regular, gets it, even if he hesitates in saying so. It's not what most MSNBC hosts want to hear.