Kevin Drum has a post this morning which poses the question, who ratted out DeLay and Co. in Texas. And he suggests it may have been the corporations whose money was in play rather than any of the operatives.

I have no knowledge of the particulars. But to me that sounds like a very good surmise. Most of the soldiers will stay loyal until their own lawyers explain to them the multi-year prison terms. The point of weakness is the coerced money -- half non-ideological business investment, half protection racket.

And it suggests another point, something we're sure to see coming down the pike. The whole DeLay political machine has been built on the compliance, cooperation and cooptation of big corporations and trade groups who have little ideological truck with DeLayism. It's a business decision -- partly a protection racket. It's not only paying in big sums of money but also hiring DeLay soldiers on instruction.

With DeLay swirling down the tubes, who's going to start calling out those companies, the ones who've followed orders to hire and pay big salaries to DeLay operatives? Is it still good for business to be funding DeLay's operation? Especially when the spotlight falls on particular companies?