A big victory for freedom and beleagured taxpayers everywhere with that big Scott Walker win in Wisconsin tonight. And the losers? Without a doubt, the public-sector unions who pured millions of dollars of union dues into a fight they brought on themselves. Rather than accept the decision of the people, the unions took a hissy-fit, and like some four year old in a tantrum brought on a recall battle that cost them no small amount of prestige, political capital, and money. As Michelle Malkin so aptly puts it:

Against a rising tide of rank-and-file teachers who oppose their leaders’ extremist politics, the national offices of the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers shoveled millions in forced union dues into Astroturfed, anti-Walker coffers. According the WisconsinReporter.com, strapped state affiliates also coughed up major sums to beat back Wisconsin’s efforts to bring American union workers into the 21st century in line with the rest of the workforce:

“The Ohio Education Association made a $58,000 in-kind contribution May 30, followed a day later by a $21,000 contribution from the Pennsylvania State Education Association. New York State United Teachers gave $23,000 on June 1, the Massachusetts Education Association gave $17,000 on May 31, and a group of unions based in Washington, D.C., poured in $922,000 during the past week.” Even the Alaska NEA affiliate pitched in $4,000.

There’s really one one word to describe unions like the NEA, SEIU, and AFSCME and the public-sector union movement tonight: L-O-S-E-R-S.

And it couldn’t happen to a nice bunch of people.

What does it all mean in the end? I think the editors of National Review Online got the night just about right:

And, most of all, Scott Walker saved his job by being the adult in the room. While Democrats in Washington seem to be relying on their belief that the United States government is “too big to fail” to justify a program of taxing and spending our way out of debt, the states don’t have such a luxury. And so, across the country, in states red, blue, and purple, they have turned to men like Scott Walker — and Chris Christie, and Mitch Daniels, and others — to close structural deficits, stabilize out-of-control spending, and break the death embrace between Big Labor and Big Government. In taking this toxic partnership head on, in a state with a rich progressive history no less, Walker became its biggest target. His enemies spent a year and a half preparing to take their best shot at him. And a combined total of $100 million or so later, they missed. They missed because voters are starting to understand that governing through crisis requires someone willing to make unpopular choices, stand up to entrenched interests, and hold the line against loud and determined opposition.

Of course, the big question tomorrow will be how the exit polls trumpeted early on by a frothing media (originally 50/50, then adjusted to 52/48 for Walker) could be so wrong. I’ll tell you exactly why they were wrong, but I’ll bet you’ll won’t hear it from the clueless liberal mainstream dino-media: I suspect many voters feared saying out loud that they voted for Walker due to public-sector union thugs hanging around to take names and numbers, so they lied to the pollers out of fear.

…Which squares, BTW, with an interesting story I heard from a pretty big GOP operative I happen to know here in Arizona (I won’t mention his name). This guy says his experience with polling since the 2010 midterm elections has been that people are afraid to say they’re against President Obama out of fear that: a) they’ll be accused by the pollster of being racist, or b) that their phone number will get out out and they’ll either lose their job or have their home vandalized. Call this delusional or paranoid all you want, but believe me when I tell you there’s a real fear factor out there, and you can put the blame squarely on a President who, far from being the so-called “uniter” he ran on, has done nothing but ratchet up racial, ethnic, and class divisions and hyper-polarize this country politically.

Something to keep in mind as you hear about polls going forward…