Barrett launches grassroots campaign effort
Gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett is trying a new grass-roots campaign approach while banging the same drum, accusing incumbent Scott Walker of waging “ideological civil war.”
Barrett made a campaign stop Thursday in De Pere, a day before Green Bay hosts the 2012 Republican Party of Wisconsin state convention.
Walker’s fundraising efforts have been so successful — mostly from out-of-state donors — that his TV advertisements will outnumber Barrett’s 10 to 1, Barrett said. So, to draw a distinction between himself and Walker, Barrett is launching a “neighbor-to-neighbor” campaign. He visited small groups of supporters Thursday in neighborhoods in De Pere, Wauwatosa and Schofield.
In De Pere, about two dozen supporters sat in lawn chairs with Barrett in the side yard of the Gerry and Anne Mattern home on North Michigan Street.
Barrett’s comments mirrored those he’d made in a campaign stop in Green Bay earlier this month. He accused his Republican opponent of shirking his duties in Wisconsin while raising millions from donors from other states, where Walker’s supporters regard him as “a rock star,” Barrett said.
“He got a hero’s welcome in Oklahoma City, and people wrote him checks for $200,000,” Barrett said. “Do those people care what’s going on in De Pere?”
When Walker was first elected in 2010, he had a choice of trying to fulfill his campaign promise to create 250,000 jobs or to attack public sector workers’ rights, and he chose the latter, Barrett said.
