Big Labor and WI Recall: BIG MONEY

Earlier this week, the Democrats and their Leftist media mouthpieces were yapping about Scott Walker's $13 million war chest.

The Left wants to focus on cash.

On one southeastern Wisconsin TV station, Tom Barrett declared that if the recall election is about money, he's going to lose.

Mike Tate, chairman of the Wisconsin Democrat party released this statement on Sunday:

13 Million Pieces of Silver


MADISON - Following is the statement of Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate in response to the announcement by Scott Walker that he had raised $13 million in the recent reporting period and $25 million total.

"Scott Walker's campaign is based on a single premise: That he can raise vast piles of cash to obscure his dismal record of job loss, criminal corruption, attacks on women and rollback of Wisconsin freedoms. His unprecedented and unprincipled money machine, which relies on donations from out-of-state, has put Wisconsin up for sale. Does anyone believe that the special interests that are giving to Scott Walker have Wisconsin's best interest at heart?

The unprecedented amounts of money coming to defend Scott Walker's radical agenda are breathtaking and it is true that we will be badly outspent. It is also true that, at the end of the day, and until Walker makes it otherwise, money does not vote. The people vote. And it is the people of Wisconsin who will win victory over Scott Walker on June 5th."

The "pieces of silver" reference is over the top offensive. Typical Democrat stuff.

So the party set the talking points and the Democrat candidates latched on to the narrative. The media, willing partners, did their part to spread the word that Gov. Walker had big money and the poor little Democrats had a pittance in comparison.

What a load!

Gov. Walker is battling Big Labor's big bucks.

From Brian, Sikma, Media Trackers:

EXCLUSIVE: Big Labor Pours $7 Mil. Into Recall, Likely to Exceed 2011 Spending

Just released campaign finance documents show Big Labor both inside and outside of Wisconsin pouring just over $7 million into the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker and four GOP state senators. In the 2011 recall campaign combined total spending by unions and progressive groups reached $14.7 million, or just over twice what labor unions alone have managed to raise or spend in what is the opening round of the effort to knock out Governor Walker less than two years into his term.

Much of this pre-primary spending, disclosed in reports that ended April 30, went to promoting Democrat gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Falk and a bevy of attack ads aimed at Governor Walker. Tom Barrett, considered the favorite of Democrat Party insiders in the May 8th recall primary, directly benefited from only a fraction of labor spending.

Because it is still unclear as to which Democrat will be facing off against Walker in a general election set for June 5th, it does appear that labor groups may be holding off on releasing all of the money and manpower they can muster for the effort.

Wisconsin for Falk – an independent group promoting Falk’s campaign – has served as a conduit for millions of Big Labor dollars. AFSCME dumped $1,264,233 into them and WEAC invested an astounding $3,043,800 in the project. The money has mainly been spent on television and radio ads simultaneously bashing Walker and touting Falk. Should Falk lose the primary it is likely that the group will be shuttered in favor of another conduit since groups like WEAC have already promised to rally behind the eventual Democrat nominee.

We Are Wisconsin, an AFL-CIO creation, has a PAC and independent expenditure fund that served as major channels for Big Labor and progressive money flowing into Wisconsin’s 2011 recall elections. For the 2012 recalls they are back in action funded in part by over $524,000 from AFSCME’s state and national accounts and $500,000 from the SEIU.

The National Education Association, according to research conducted by the John K. MacIver Institute, spent only $219,670 on Wisconsin’s 2011 recall elections. They became the first labor group to nearly triple their spending in Wisconsin in 2012 by pouring $668,457 into We Are Wisconsin’s political fund.

The Greater Wisconsin Committee has a PAC that received labor money from We Are Wisconsin. The independent expenditure arm of the Greater Wisconsin Committee took $500,000 from the Democrat Governor’s Association.

Firefighters for Mahlon, an independent group promoting Democrat lieutenant governor candidate Mahlon Mitchell, a firefighter’s union boss, netted a quarter million dollars from the International Association of Firefighters. The fund also benefited from the contributions of local firefighter’s unions from as far away as California and Oregon.

A majority of the unions contributing to Democrat Tom Barrett’s gubernatorial campaign are private sector unions.

All told, the axis of Big Labor still has $2.8 million left in cash-on-hand just over a week out from the Democrat primary. After the primary the recall election campaign will begin in earnest, as Walker becomes the sole focus the Left’s financial phalanx.

If Barrett is the nominee, the notion that he will have no campaign money compared to Gov. Walker is ludicrous.

Big Labor will stop at nothing to stop US from electing Scott Walker, again.

The Leftists intend to overturn the November 2010 election and put Wisconsin back in a death spiral.

Bottom line: Scott Walker's reforms are working for us. Voting him out of office and replacing him with Tom Barrett, the miserable mayor steadily destroying Milwaukee since 2004, would be akin to suicide.