The citizens of Wisconsin have been bombarded by this Scott Walker ad for over a week now and quite frankly I'm f*ing sick of it!
Transcript and evisceration below the fold.
Each Walker "factoid" in the ad is presented against a white background with a female voiceover. Each Barrett "factoid" is presented against a black background with a male voiceover.
Wisconsin creates 15,600 private sector jobs this year. (Between March 2011 - March 2012 Wisconsin has LOST 23,900 jobs. Oh, but 17,900 of those were from the PUBLIC sector so they don't count.
"Thanks to Governor Walker's policies Wisconsin businesses are creating jobs." Wisconsin lost 4,300 private sector jobs in March.
Barrett pledges to raise taxes on employers. Politifact rates this mostly false.
"Tom Barrett, he's promised to raise taxes on employers." What Barrett's campaign really said was "Of course controlling tax increases will be a priority. But Walker's caps are absolute and draconian. They don't account for inflation adjustments, or allow adjustments for real economic growth."
Unemployment rate hits 4 year low. I couldn't find anything to support this claim on google.
"Wisconsin unemployment rate is the lowest it's been since 2008." Things must be looking up right? Sorry, no.
Milwaukee unemployment up 29%.
"Milwaukee's unemployment rate has gone up 29% under Barrett." See how this works? Walker gets to take credit for trends under his predecessor and Barrett has to take responsibility for the entire recession!
Walker's reforms have saved taxpayers over $1,000,000,000. Wow! A billion dollars? That's great!
"Walker's reforms have saved Wisconsin taxpayers over one billion dollars." Oh, it's just the wealthiest taxpayers... There's always a catch.
Barrett campaigns on lifting property tax ceilings. Actually that was more Falk than Barrett, but why quibble right?
"Barrett wants to undo those reforms and raise your taxes to pay for it." Not yours really, just the richest taxpayers who got a huge inauguration present from Walker last year.
Forward. Walker. Backwards. Barrett. Bullshit!
What's it going to take to counter this corporate propaganda ad buy and the others like it?
MONEY! and lots of it...
You can donate to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin here.
You can donate to Tom Barrett's campaign here.
You can donate to the campaign of Lt Governor candidate Mahlon Mitchell here.
It would be nice if we could get the DNC to step up and chip in. You can lean on them at (877) 336-7200 or at @DWStweets on Twitter.