There's a lot to celebrate in the wake of Tuesday's elections; let's not let the recall of Michigan state Rep. Paul Scott slip through the cracks. Scott, a Republican, was chair of the state's House Education Committee, and in that role he worked with Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst to develop bills limiting collective bargaining for teachers and making it easier to fire teachers without reasonable and just cause. During his career, he had also amassed quite a record as a homophobe.

Scott was dragged kicking and screaming onto Tuesday's ballot, filing multiple challenges in court, but not only did his opponents collect enough signatures to trigger a recall despite having just two weeks to collect them, he lost repeatedly in court. Eclectablog, who followed the recall effort throughout, followed the money, and the groups that rallied around Scott are telling. Scott's campaign received sizable donations from the Michigan Chamber PAC, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the Realtors PAC. But it was the outside expenditures that, as always on the Republican side, tell the real story. Scott was the beneficiary of a radio buy by the DeVos-founded Great Lakes Education Project (which had also donated directly to his campaign), and of $200,000 in expenditures by StudentsFirst, through a PAC the group established in Michigan.

But Paul Scott lost anyway by a narrow, narrow margin—50.4-49.6 percent, just 197 votes. Eclectablog salutes the recall organizers:

Despite the setbacks and the emotional roller coaster the Scott recall organizers went through, they never quit. Outspent at least 2-to-1 (and probably far more) they still managed to get their message out. Pushing past the countless pro-Scott yard signs and the endless and obnoxious pro-Scott robocalls, they got their message to the voters, got out the vote and prevailed against all odds.

It was an improbable victory over a very bad guy, with not just major GOP donors like the DeVos family supporting, but Michelle Rhee's allegedly bipartisan StudentsFirst going all in, because apparently they value union-busting so highly that a major dose of homophobia is fine by them. Now we just have to make sure that Scott is replaced with someone better in the resulting special election.