Will Walker Money Smash Recall Effort?

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism tracked the money pouring into the campaign coffers of both the Republican recall candidates and Democratic challengers. There really is no comparison. But according to the report from WMTV 15, say it with me..."both sides are doing it!"

It's an eye opening report that exposes how right wing special interests are desperately trying to meddle in Wisconsin politics. Sure the Democrats are attempting to keep up, but really, the amounts flowing into the recalled Republican coffers are overwhelming.

Compare the donations map below, and you'll notice there really isn't a comparison.

WMTV: "We wanted to know where these donations were coming from," said Kate Golden, a reporter and multimedia producer for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. "We took all the data of donations to Walker's campaign in the last year, basically January 1st through December 10th and we mapped it," she said.

The center did the same thing for United Wisconsin and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. "If you looked at Walker you could see that here these donations are coming in from all over the country,” said Golden. “This is unprecedented. It used to be that if a candidate got like ten percent of the donations from out of state that would be high. This is nearly half, I think it's something like 47 percent," she said. "If you look at the same map, we're talking United Wisconsin and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, the donations also came in from all over..... all over the country."

See, both sides are doing, despite the overwhelming Walker advantage. It's almost laughable:

The Center also broke down the top 40 donors to both Walker--and the Democratic groups. Walker's top 40 stacked up nearly $1.6 million. Almost 61 percent of that came from outside of Wisconsin.

The Democrats top 40 raked in just shy of $131,000. Around 37 percent of that total came from other states.

Balance reporting is one thing, losing the message is another.