Barrett Has Earned Our Support
Candidate Tom Barrett is a nearly lifelong, elected public servant who has earned our support in the May 8, 2012 Democrat primary in the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election.
Since being elected mayor of Milwaukee (a picturesque, Rockwellian city in the southeast corner of our state filled with loving, caring, fiscally-responsible and hard-working people) in 2004, Barrett has helped the city move forward, earning the distinction of being declared “Ninth Poorest City in the United States” by the Brookings Institution.
Without this honor, it is hard to imagine that German-based uber-discount grocery concern Aldi would have brought much-needed stores to the metro area. It is not a stretch to say that every time a Milwaukeean wheels a load of affordably-priced artificial fruit beverage to his or her car and returns their
einkaufswagen to the lock-down area in order to get their quarter back, they have Mayor Barrett to thank.
In a way in which few other liberal mayors of mid-sized American cities with declining populations can compare, Barrett has worked tirelessly to ensure that his city’s property tax levy steadfastly increased even while its bond rating was being downgraded. His city’s school system has gone from national laughing-stock to a model of success, where nearly 28% of high-school freshmen can write and read a full, complete, and coherent sentence. Over the past eight years, his city’s waste-water treatment authority has pumped more untreated and partially-treated human waste into the Great Lakes watershed than any other city in the United States. Take that, Chicago!
Barrett is a determined, logistically-minded visionary who has consistently displayed an aptitude for managing up to two projects at once. His use of the “Blue Ribbon Task Force” as a delegation tactic is almost without equal. He can control the weather with his moods, and is an avid golfer who once shot a 38-under-par on a regulation 18-hole course, including 5 holes-in-one! Also, he invented the hamburger.
Mr. Barrett has presided over a change in the manner in which crimes in his city were responded to and/or statistically reported, giving several Milwaukee residents who have been waiting for the armed robber to leave their house since last October the impression that crime in their city has been drastically reduced, or eliminated altogether.
At a time when employers are running from urban areas in droves, Mr. Barrett’s Milwaukee has managed to buck the trend, bringing an astounding
three employers to his city during his tenure – even managing to encourage one of them to relocate their corporate headquarters from the fairer-climated, cosmopolitan metropolis of Glendale, over five miles from their previous location! Can that evil Walker boast a similar accomplishment?
The crowning achievement of Barrett’s mayoral tenure, his ‘Milwaukee Streetcar’ project, will transport riders across a route nearly
two full miles long – in a way that no bus or cab (both of which will continue to traverse the same route, far more often, at a fraction of the cost) ever could. This will give Milwaukeeans what they’ve long dreamed of:
Infrequent, unpredictable, Eastern-European-style mass transit, affording them a direct conduit to and from a variety of area law firms. This is the type of sound progressive leadership that Barrett, as governor, soon will bring to Wisconsin.
Many of you will recall from news accounts just a few summers ago that Barrett is also a hero, and knows what it feels like to get repeatedly beaten with a lead pipe. That is why he, more than any other candidate, can relate to what it will be like living in the state of Wisconsin with him as your governor.
Barrett is the clear choice, and has earned your vote and mine in the May 8 Democrat primary. Of all the Democrat primary candidates who haven’t already signed contracts pledging their support to unionized public employees in exchange for dump trucks filled with soft money, Mr. Barrett is the one best positioned to beat Walker in the June general election.
