In our post-Citizens United world, one needs to look carefully at who the big money is supporting in elections. Buried in an article about GOP strategy for 2012, one fact stands out: David Koch is banking on (literally) Mitt Romney.

The generous giving to the state PACs is just one aspect of the 2012 money race, which is well under way. In recent months, many of the candidates-in-waiting have been actively cultivating the kinds of major donors needed to finance expensive presidential bids. Mr. Romney has been by far the most assertive, according to interviews with a half-dozen top Republican fund-raisers, already pushing for commitments from major donors should he formally decide to run. Over the summer, Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, invited top bundlers of campaign checks from key states to his vacation home in New Hampshire on several occasions to help firm up their commitments. Mr. Romney has already lined up an array of prominent supporters, including a billionaire, David Koch, who has donated heavily to conservative causes over the years, and Robert Wood Johnson IV, the billionaire owner of the New York Jets and one of the party’s most coveted fund-raisers.

Make no mistake: while I'm sure that Romney will get the maximum disclosable donation from Koch and Johnson, that's not what we need to look at. It's all that shadowy money, going to 501(c) organizations without disclosure or limits, that will demonize the Democratic Party and Obama specifically, deceive low info voters and otherwise muck up a functioning democracy.

And Mitt Romney--all empty suit and failed policies--will be there to have the money sweep him into the Republican nomination.