In the News

By: Bill Glauber, Mary Spicuzza and Craig Gilbert

Former President Barack Obama, a campaign closer for Democrats, brought the political heat to Milwaukee’s North Division High School Friday.

Imploring Democrats to vote in the Nov. 6 election and excoriating Republicans for policies that he said favor the rich, Obama gave a stout defense of his eight years in office and took plenty of shots at Republicans who have controlled all levers of power in Washington over the last two years.

In his most animated speech on the campaign trail this year, he accused Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans of lying about their health care record and their claims that they'll support protections for those who have pre-existing medical conditions.

Obama said there has always been spin in politics, but "what we have not seen before in our recent public life is politicians just blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly lying, making stuff up. Calling up down, calling black white."

Obama said of Walker's recent ad defending his record on pre-existing conditions: “Your governor has been running an ad during election time saying he is going to protect pre-existing conditions when he is literally doing the opposite. That is some kind of gall. That is some kind of chutzpah. But let’s also call it what it is. It is a lie.”

Walker responded in a tweet that PolitiFact gave Obama a national lie of the year for saying, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

"It takes some kind of gall for him to come into Wisconsin and lie again about health care and about pre-existing conditions," said Walker, who promised to call a special session of the Legislature to deal with pre-existing conditions should Obamacare be killed by the courts.

Obama said Republicans have “cut taxes for the rich and corporations,” stripped environmental rules and “ran up the deficit just like they did last time.”

He charged Republicans with purging voter rolls to keep people from voting and trying to “scare everyone else with whatever divisive social issues they can come up with, just like the last time.”

“They promised to take on corruption … they have gone to Washington and just plundered away,” he said. “In Washington they have racked up enough indictments to field a football team. Nobody in my administration got indicted.”

Obama headlined a rally for the entire state Democratic ticket, including state schools Superintendent Tony Evers, who is running for governor against Walker, and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who faces Republican Leah Vukmir. At several points, Obama mispronounced Evers' name, which rhymes with “weavers,” not “endeavors.”

It was nearly four years to the day of Obama's last rally at North Division when he came to Milwaukee to rev up support for a candidate for governor.

Obama couldn't get Mary Burke across the finish line first in 2014, as she lost to Walker.

On Friday, there were 3,500 people in the gymnasium and another 600 in an overflow room, according to a Milwaukee Fire Department official.

Obama was also joined by U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, who attended North Division, congressional candidates Randy Bryce and Dan Kohl, and other officials and candidates.

The visit came in the wake of the discovery of more than a dozen suspicious packages sent to Obama and others through the mail. The packages contained pipe bombs.

A bombing suspect was arrested and identified as Cesar Sayoc Jr.

Obama made no mention of the incident.

Obama arrived two days after President Donald Trump rallied thousands of Republicans at an airport in Mosinee, south of Wausau. Former Vice President Joe Biden will attend Democratic events Tuesday in Madison and Milwaukee.

Obama did not mention Trump's name, but said: "I'm hoping you think it's wrong to hear people spend years, months, vilifying people, questioning their patriotism, calling them enemies of the people, and then suddenly you're concerned about civility. Please."

Democrats are hoping that Obama's visit will boost turnout in Milwaukee during the midterm elections.

Turnout in Milwaukee dropped sharply from 2012, when Obama was on the ballot, to 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost to Trump.

Evers told the crowd: “We’re going to win this thing. We’re fired up and we’re going to take back Wisconsin because it is time for a change."

Evers said Walker has “waged war on working people and put special interests and his donors ahead of the people of Wisconsin.” He added Walker has been “against women,” and has “done everything he could to gut the Affordable Care Act and the pre-existing conditions that exist for 2.4 million people in Wisconsin.”

Baldwin said she recalled that as a member of the House she had an opportunity to be at the White House when Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law.

“I felt that a lot of work that I had engaged in for many, many years was being seen through,” Baldwin said, detailing her story of being a child with a pre-existing health condition.

“In that grand room in the White House as the president signed that law, I realized we had crossed an incredibly important milestone. That protection (on pre-existing conditions) was now in that law,” she said.

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