Progressive Groups Step Up Recall Ad Campaign (VIDEO)

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They’ve asked the voters, they’ve filled the airwaves and now they’re getting down to business: Starting Thursday, a coalition of national progressives is openly calling for the recall of several Republican state Senators in Wisconsin with new TV ads aimed directly at them.

Recall fever is catching among the Wisconsin left these days. The state Democratic party has collected just about half of the signatures necessary to make a run at recalling eight state Senators eligible to have their terms cut short (Wisconsin law says only a politician who’s been in office for a year or more can be recalled.)

The progressive coalition of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy For America is banging the recall drum, too, after spending more than a half-million dollars on TV ads lambasting the Republican state Senate and Gov. Scott Walker (R). Now the groups are launching the first TV spots to call for recall directly.

The recall effort is the new focus for the coalition, which brings together national progressive groups representing more than a million members nationwide. The first recall spot is a new version of the add PCCC/DFA created from footage shot at one of the many anti-Walker rallies held in and around the state Capitol in Madison.

A new ad is coming, the groups say. That spot will “capture the grassroots magic of this recall effort,” PCCC co-founder Adam Green told TPM.

For now, Republicans will have to contend with a version of the ad that raised more than $200,000 in the first day it went on the air in Wisconsin. The spots are running in the Green Bay, La Crosse and Milwaukee media markets, with each spot tailored to specific groups of state Senators. All the ads point viewers to RecallTheRepublicans.com, an online fundraising hub the coalition is using to fund the recall efforts run by the partnership. PCCC/DFA have sent “hundreds of grassroots volunteers into local recall events” so far, according to Green.

In Green Bay, the ads will target nearby GOP Sens. Randy Hopper, Robert Cowles and Luther Olsen. Hopper has become something of a favorite among progressives, who have enjoyed telling and retelling the story of his alleged infidelity.

Here’s the ad:

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