Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett appeared Wednesday morning on MSNBC, following his victory in the Democratic primary for governor in the state’s recall election. Host Chris Jansing asked Barrett whether he will get the support of labor leaders, who largely supported his opponent in the primary.
“I’m very confident that not only will the other candidates who ran for this office support me, but all of their supporters will, as well,” said Barrett. “So yes, I’m very confident that I will get their support. We’re looking forward to having a very, very unified front for the next 28 days, and hopefully far beyond that.”
He also responded to Walker’s $25 million fundraising, countering that it is largely fueled by very large donations from outside the state. Jansing then played an example of a Walker campaign ad, attacking Barrett for unemployment in Milwaukee.
“Certainly we’re going to continue to see those commercials that I call 30-second drive-by shootings. And they’re going to have a lot of money to do it. But we’re going to combat it,” said Barrett. “And what’s interesting is — probably most people don’t know that Scott Walker was the county executive of Milwaukee. So all of these sins that he has visited upon Milwaukee are sins that he was part of, for seven years while he was the county executive here in Milwaukee.
“But it’s really going to be about the economy, because under Scott Walker’s leadership, the state of Wisconsin has lost more jobs than any other state in this entire country. In fact, in the last year, Wisconsin is the only state that has lost jobs. And so that is very much an anchor around him, because he’s the one who said he was going to come in and create 250,000 jobs. Instead, he launched this ideological civil war that has divided this state now for 16 months. I will end the civil war in Wisconsin.”
