President Visits to Raise Money, Excitement

President Barack Obama makes his first visit to Wisconsin in about eight months, when he holds a fundraiser and rally in Milwaukee Saturday.

State Republicans have been charting the amount of time since the president last set foot in Wisconsin. The GOP’s website clock currently tops 219 days and ticking, but the clock should stop Saturday when the president visits Milwaukee for a closed-door fundraiser with baseball great Hank Aaron, and a rally at the Milwaukee Summerfest grounds. The president’s lead over republican Mitt Romney in Wisconsin polls is growing, but Marquette University pollster Charles Franklin says visits like Saturday’s are not really designed to jack up the survey numbers, “So much as they do fundraising and fire up supporters.”

The visit also appears to be firing up the president’s critics. A Washington D.C. based group calling itself the Black Republican Political Action Committee (BRPAC) has launched a new cable TV ad in Wisconsin titled “Stop Barack Obama.” The commercial claims President Obama’s policies have had a devastating effect on blacks in America.