UPDATE Sunday 4pm:For those interested, the Barrett for Governor web site is at http://www.barrett4wisconsin.com/ I expect it’s in the process of being expanded as we speak.

So at long last, the months of speculation are over and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett will be officially announcing his candidacy to become the next Governor of Wisconsin around noon today.

Mayor Tom Barrett announces his candidacy for Governor outside his Washington Heights home

First, it should be noted that he and his people have played the past few weeks very well. By stretching out the “am I in or not” meme as long as he has, it’s kept his name in the news across the State, and since it leaked on Thursday that he would announce today, he’s owned the news cycle. That will continue tomorrow as the first and biggest story the residents of Wisconsin will see as they start their week is that Tom Barrett is running.

The one advantage that the GOP front runner Scott Walker has is about a three month head start at building his campaign machine. I expect that the Barrett campaign will spin up pretty quickly though and be caught up with Walkers in a matter of a month or two. While Walker may technically have more money in his campaign account right now (1.1 million is what I last saw), Barrett already has about $900,000 in his own campaign account. The difference is more than a couple hundred thousand dollars. Walker has been tapping campaign donors for over a year to get that $1.1 million in the bank. Barrett has yet to do any fund raising. Expect the checks to start flowing hard and fast towards Barrett as relieved Democrats across the State look to direct their donations to the new front runner.

As for the dynamics of Milwaukee I’ll go back to what I wrote a few weeks ago on that subject and how of any Democratic candidate for Governor, Barrett is the worst scenario for the Walker campaign as it nullifies their “victory by making Milwaukee close” strategy.

The second factor? Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Mayor Barrett is a widely popular politician who has very little baggage and is generally seen as a “good guy” even by those who don’t like his politics. His entry into the race would instantly nullify the Walker “Milwaukee advantage” as Barrett would more than likely outperform previous Democrats like Jim Doyle in Milwaukee County. The narrow margin of a loss in Milwaukee County the Walker campaign had been banking on would turn into a massive margin of victory for someone like Barrett.

Third, Mayor Barrett was also a well liked Congressman who represented some of the Milwaukee suburbs that the Walker campaign had been counting on. In as much as the Walker campaign was counting on those big margins of victory in Wauwatosa and West Allis to offset the vote from the city of Milwaukee to propel his campaign to a win, a candidate Barrett would turn the tables on him and use the same strategy to equalize the race in the suburbs and make Milwaukee County even more of a Democratic stronghold than it has been previously.

Lastly, Barrett has good name ID outside of Milwaukee County helped in no small part by his heroic actions last August when he stepped in to stop a fight and was severely beaten himself while leaving the Wisconsin State Fair. This got a ton of national coverage and made a lot of people stand up and take notice of the Mayor of the largest city in the State.

Personally I’m glad the speculation is over because quite frankly, Wisconsin Democrats dodged a major bullet by not having a top tier candidate to face Walker or Neumann. So the stage for 2010 should be set and all the actors are now in place. I’m personally looking forward to enjoying the show.