With the polls tightening and the energy picking up, the recall drive against Gov. Scott Walker has shifted into high gear with six days to go before the June 5 election.
Scott Walker and Tom Barrett filed their campaign finance reports with the Government Accountability Board Tuesday afternoon.
Immediately, the Barrett campaign put out a press release "Tied in the Polls, Tied in Cash on Hand" touting that Barrett had close to a $1.5 million cash balance at the end of the most recent reporting period, compared with Walker's $1.6 million in cash.
Walker still has an enormous fundraising advantage, having raised more than $30 million and spent more than $20 million since January 2011.
But as the TV ad war reached near-parity between the two sides last week, the Barrett campaign said internal polls showed it had pulled even with Walker.
Barrett will be at the Majestic Theater with former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold on Wednesday night, as part of a tour of Wisconsin Feingold is taking with Barrett.
Other rock stars coming to Madison this week to help get out the vote for the recall include Tom Morello, Jackson Browne, Brother Ali and Mike McColgan at a We Are Wisconsin get-out-the-vote rally at the Labor Temple on Friday, June 1.
So far no word from the biggest rock star of them all: President Obama. But there is a grassroots petition drive to get him to come to Wisconsin and barnstorm the state to support the recall effort.
"We say Obama must be here fighting by our side," Buzz Davis, treasurer of the Stoughton-based Recall for a Better Wisconsin, declared in a May 29 press release.
"Progressives have done the grunt work on the recall. This is the battle of a lifetime for good schools and good government. If we lose on June 5th Obama's chances for election in Nov. are toast. And he will take Tammy Baldwin's effort for the US Senate down with him. The 1% have found out how to corrupt WI and if they win on June 5th, WI will be locked into a corrupt administration for the next two and half years or more."
Davis said 750 progressives from across the state have petitioned President Obama, Mike Tate of the Wisconsin Democratic Party and Mayor Tom Barrett to have the Obamas barnstorm Wisconsin.
