It was a big win for MONEY in yesterday's election here in Washington state, where the side that spent the most campaign cash won almost every single race. And the bigger the financial advantage, generally the bigger the victory.

Hooray for the greenback! The free market at work. (Democracy, not so much.)

Elsewhere in our nation results inspired a bit more hope, with voters sending clear messages in response to right-wing overreaching in Ohio, Arizona, and even Mississippi. Ohio voters rejected Gov. Kasich's public employee union-busting law by a decisive two-to-one margin, Arizona voters recalled state Senate president Russell Pearce, the author of the state's controversial anti-immigrant law, and in Mississippi, voters surprised the experts by rejecting a ballot measure that would have defined personhood as starting at conception, thus outlawing all abortion for any reason, as well as some forms of birth control.

So I guess there are still limits, even in American democracy.