Thank you for your donations to aid our recall efforts. The tin cup has been out often and Kossacks have responded.
You have bought:
Canvassing materials
Office space and supplies
Phones and phone service for phone banking
Internal polling
But mostly you have bought paid media. Ads. Lots of ads.
Thank you.
For over a year and a half, Scott Walker has been running tens of millions of dollars of lies propaganda ads promoting what a great Governor he has been, how "it's working" (it's not), how his budget cuts to education has resulted in more teachers (talk about miracle math!), how his budget resulted in no tax increases (actually true, but only because his budget prohibited localities from raising taxes to make up for the loss of state revenue sharing above a miniscule amount limited by the state), how stripping wages and benefits from public employees is a great thing because they were so rich and pampered by the taxpayers, and I could go on and on.
He's had the traditional media helping him, too; Downplaying bad news, questioning Walkers opponents actions, and promoting Walkers propaganda like his meme that it's not Wisconsin citizens opposing him but "big gubmint union bosses" and outside agitators as well as his whine about "outside money" funding his opposition at the same time he's got his hand out all over the country raking in millions of dollars to save his own political hide.
I have been bringing you the most recent ads so you can see where your donations have gone. The latest one:
The John Doe Probe isn't widely known across the state. It has gotten some attention in Milwaukee and Madison, but not throughout the state as polling has shown. In Wisconsin, corruption is what Joe Biden would call a BFD. We pride ourselves on clean government and in Milwaukee we cleaned out the leadership of the Milwaukee County Board because of a pension scandal (and guess who politically benefitted from the recall of the Milwaukee County Executive - yeah, Scott Walker, who just loved recalls back then).
Job loss is also a BFD here, but Walker successfully muddied those waters by putting out his own job numbers showing tens of thousands of new jobs due solely to his own amazing governing. Just hours after reporting those numbers, slick ads were out promoting Walkers miracle math. Our media here, of course, promoted Walkers figures and not only downplayed, but disparaged the Bureau of Labor Statistics report showing 6200 job losses in April.
GOTV is in high gear for more than a week and volunteers have booked shifts through election day. Yesterday was my first time phone banking for this election with We Are Wisconsin and I want you to know about the awesome set up they have for phone bankers.
Every seat was filled when I arrived (I replaced a volunteer whose shift was over). Apparantly there were so many volunteers that the original location couldn't be used. The state AFL-CIO provided office space for the now larger number of volunteers. And phone lines weren't used at all! Instead, we used laptops with Magic Jack phone lines (wow - cheap phones!) and the laptop autodialed the phone numbers for us. Every phone banker had headphones with attached microphones (no red ears, sore arms, necks, and shoulders from holding a traditional phone to your ear. Amazing.
I was phone banking union households (I love signing up with different groups because I talk to different types of people with each one). Remembering the polls that talked about 39% union support for Walker, a number I simply can't believe, I began the call routine on the computer. The name, phone number, and address came up for each person dialed. With a couple of exceptions, every person I contacted was strongly for Barrett and Mitchell and had either early voted or was definitely planning to vote on June 5. Looking at the addresses, I was calling all over Wisconsin and recognized several red areas that I was calling to.
I'll be back there a few more times (I divided my time between the organizations doing GOTV) and the amazing phone banking set up makes me wish I signed up for more, however I do like "taking the temperature" of varying groups of folks for GOTV. People all over the state are in high gear in the 12 days before the election. And the internal polls are still showing a tie. We know that turnout is key to victory.
Scott Walker is scared. He's bringing in national figures like Nikki Haley, Tim Pawlenty, and Bobby Jindal to get media attention and putting out all the ads he and his monied interests masters can buy. He's been scared for 17 months and only polls well because of his massive spending on paid media.
Scaring him even more are the massive early voting numbers, particularly in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison as detailed in Giles Goat Boys excellent post.
On June 6 I want him shedding crocodile tears in a gigantic crying towel while packing his bags. We're making it happen.
People Power vs. Money Power
Here are the Act Blue donation links. Sorry for the tin cup being out again, but, yes, it's still that important:
For Tom Barrett, Democratic candidate for Governor
For Mahlon Mitchell, Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor.
For Lori Compas Democratic candidate for State Senate to replace Scott Fitzgerald (former Republican Majority Leader).
For John Lehman Democratic candidate for State Senate to replace Van Waangard
For Kristen Dexter Democratic candidate for State Senate to replace Terry Moulton
For Donna Seidel Democratic candidate for State Senate for the seat vacated by Pam Galloway.
If you can't decide, you can always contribute to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
Thanks again for all your support.
Update: News Edition: Of course I'm going to post news as it happens. The League of Conservation Voters has just issued a report cardfor Wisconsin.
The group's honor roll went to Sens. Robert Jauch (D-Poplar) and Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) and Rep. Janet Bewley (D-Ashland) for their efforts to oppose an open-pit mining bill, and to Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) and Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine) for their work to restore some provisions to a wetland regulation bill that eased limits for development on or near wetlands.
In addition to Walker, lawmakers named to the dishonor roll were Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) for ending the work of the Senate Mining Committee after he believed the work of the bipartisan panel had been taking too long.
Republicans failed to gather enough signatures to recall Robert Jauch. Besides Walker, his fellow listee on the Dishonor Roll, Scott Fitzgerald is also facing a recall election on June 5.
Double Header
In other news, inept Louisana GovernorBobby Jindal(you know, the guy who gave an Obama rebuttal speech lambasting government spending on volcano monitoring just before an Alaskan volcano erupted disrupting air travel...yeah, that guy) is in Wisconsin to support his buddy, Scott Walker.
"He has been a great leader for Wisconsin, a great leader for America," Jindal said.
Jindal, who campaigned with Walker in 2010, joked about having to come back to the state every year but said he was delighted to back his fellow Republican governor.
"Scott has done more in the last year, year and a half than many people do in their entire career in office," Jindal said.
Jindal also criticized Walker's Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
We and not Walker, should be complaining about "outside agitators" and "outside money" coming in to Wisconsin.
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