Just one week before voters head to the polls to cast their votes to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, conservatives seem to be pulling out all the stops in their attempts to defend Gov. Walker.

This week a spam text message was sent out to thousands of Wisconsinites attacking Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Walker’s Democratic challenger in the recall election, as a “union puppet.” Here’s a copy of the text message:

Here’s the full text of the message, in case you can’t read it off the image above:

FRM:WI@obamasaliar.com

SUBJ:Union Puppet

MSG:Tom Barrett is a Union Puppet who will give Union Thugs everything they want. Call & ask why 414-271-8050

Information I’ve received seems to point to the spam text message having been sent by ccAdvertising, a political phone and text-messaging vendor with a history of sending unsolicited messages. According to one report, the parent compant of ccAdvertising is actually FreeEats, a company that according to a report by Daniel Schulman of Mother Jones has operated under different names while engaging in similar voter suppression behaviors in other states across the country.

FreeEats is also known as Advantage Research, ccAdvertising, Data Research, Election Research, fec Research, fecads, Political Research, and Public Research. It has been accused of disguising or “spoofing” its caller IDs; Joseph has reportedly said his company has “thousands” of aliases.

Not surprisingly, FreeEats, one of the companies associated with ccAdvertising, has been fined for breaking anti-robo-calling laws in North Dakota, and a federal judge banned it from phoning Indiana voters under similar statutes.

If this recall election is all sewn up for Gov. Walker – as so many conservatives would have us believe – then why are many of those same conservatives resorting to the kinds of underhanded and dirty tricks I’d expect to find in an election in some third-world country?