“This country does not succeed when only a few do well.”
~President Obama
This should be very concerning to Mitt Romney. President Obama’s largest crowd this year wasn’t just in a swing state – Wisconsin … home of Mitt Romney’s VP candidate Paul Ryan; his largest crowd YTD was in Milwaukee – the most important swing city in the state … in the rain. Unlike Madison, WI which is heavily liberal … Milwaukee is supposed to be Governor Scott Walker’s territory where Walker was Milwaukee county executive for 8 years before becoming Governor. Mitt Romney won’t be able to fill up a high school basketball arena let alone attract a crowd of 18,000 people in Milwaukee.
On hand were Green Bay Packers stars Jermichael Finley and Desmond Bishop and Hall of Famer – Hank Aaron to show their support for the President. In 2008 – Obama won Wisconsin by 14% which came as a HUGE shock because Wisconsin was the most closely contested state in 2004 where Bush barely lost. As part of that 14 point win – Obama won 70% of the vote in both Dane (Madison) and Milwaukee counties. Well it doesn’t appear the excitement or support has subsided any. Since Governor Scott Walker was elected and pushed through his anti-union agenda …. the state has been the most polarized and politicized state in the union for the past two years leading up to an unsuccessful recall attempt of the Governor this year. So the Wisconsin electorate knows where they stand and they are motivated to vote regardless of which party they support.
“We can’t move forward if we’ve got leaders who write off half the nation, calling them a bunch of victims who will never take responsibility for their lives. I don’t see a lot of victims here today. I see hardworking Wisconsinites… We don’t believe anybody is entitled to success, we don’t believe government should help folks who don’t try to help themselves. But we do believe in something called opportunity.”
~President Obama
Now – Republicans would like to argue that the fact President Obama even has to campaign in Wisconsin shows how successful their campaign is, but I wouldn’t exactly go that far. Wisconsin wasn’t even in the mix until Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his VP and since that time … polls have shown a closer race although it still appears out of reach for the Romney campaign. Obama is playing defense in a state that he still has significant leads in to ensure no further erosion or disenchantment of voters. The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows Obama with a 7 point lead in Wisconsin (source). Meanwhile – Mitt Romney has been fundraising to make up for his $20 million loan that he had to take in order to address the shortfall in cash his campaign had until after he was officially the nominee and was able to draw from his general election account.
The Associated Press points out HERE:
At the rally and at two fundraising events in the state, Obama resurrected the promise at his nominating convention to create 1 million new manufacturing jobs. Wisconsin is better off than many states with a 7.5 percent unemployment rate, has seen its manufacturing industry hard hit in recent years.
