Again, fucking love having him back on the campaign trail:
Former President Barack Obama on Saturday filled North Division High School's gymnasium for the third time in eight years to combat headwinds facing Democrats this midterm cycle, warning voters of what he characterized as a democracy at risk by Republican candidates embracing efforts to overturn legitimate elections and planning to overhaul Wisconsin's election system.
Obama demanded voters in the state's largest city deliver a level of turnout that hasn't been seen since he was on the ticket in order to defeat Sen. Ron Johnson and Republican candidate for governor Tim Michels, casting both as wealthy and estranged from the realities of Milwaukee voters.
"He’s got more of a Clark Kent vibe than a Superman vibe but Tony is tough. He's singlehandedly keeping Republicans from driving the car off the road. He might be democracy's best hope in Wisconsin," Obama said of Evers, leveling criticism of Michels' plan to abolish the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission and put its election oversight under Republicans, and saying he is open to decertifying the 2020 election.
"If someone is openly obsessed with changing the last election he probably should not be in charge with overseeing this one coming up," Obama said. "We’ve seen throughout history what happens when we lose democracy."
His most forceful criticism was for Johnson's suggestion to make funding for Social Security subject to approval.
"Some of your parents are on Social Security. Some of your grandparents are on Social Security. You know why they have Social Security? Because they worked for it. They worked hard jobs for it. They have chapped hands for it. They have long hours and sore backs and bad knees to get that Social Security," Obama said.
"And if Ron Johnson does not understand that. If he understands giving tax breaks for private plans more than making sure seniors who worked all their lives are able to retire in dignity and respect, he’s not the person that’s thinking about you, and knows you and sees you and he should not be your senator from Wisconsin."
Obama argued his entrance to national politics may not have been possible against today's Republican Party, noting rural and conservative voters could disagree with him but with a respect that he characterized as at risk of disappearing within a party he accused of having two priorities of "own the libs and getting Donald Trump's approval."
"This current crop of Republican politicians are not interested in solving problems. They’re interested in making you angry. And finding someone to blame," he said. But at the same time, Obama said Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who's running against Johnson, faces similar attacks to those Republicans launched against him when he ran for president in 2008.
Obama went further:
FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK Obama traveled to Milwaukee on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 29, to campaign on behalf of another “Democrat with a funny name”: Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. It was an opportunity for Obama to take a swipe at former president Donald Trump, who dogged him throughout his presidency with racist dog whistles that falsely casted doubt on his U.S. citizenship. “Mandela, get ready to dig up that birth certificate,” Obama teased to massive applause.
“I know that there are some folks, probably — maybe not in this auditorium, but elsewhere in Wisconsin — who think…just because Mandela’s named Mandela, just because he’s a Democrat with a funny name, he must not be like you, he must not share your values,” Obama said from the stage of a high school gymnasium in Milwaukee. He referred to GOP attack ads “implying Mandela is dangerous and different,” the former president added.
“I mean, we’ve seen this,” Obama said. “It sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it?”
Obama jokingly referred to Trump’s “birtherism” conspiracy as “the good old days,” a time when Trump’s only interactions with the White House were his demands that Obama release his long form birth certificate. “Remember that that was the craziest thing he was saying?” Obama said, never mentioning Trump by name. “Now, it doesn’t even make the Top 10 list of crazy.”
Obama traveled to Wisconsin in advance of a high stakes midterm election in a state President Joe Biden won by only 20,000 votes two years ago. Barnes is facing incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), whom Obama lambasted for his alleged role in attempting to supply fake electors to then-vice president Mike Pence in an effort to undermine Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election results. “If that doesn’t elicit uniform outrage, what will?” Obama said. “What would it take?”
Barnes’ parallelism with Obama goes beyond the “funny name.” Barnes forged his own political path in Obama’s mold, beginning his career as a community organizer in Milwaukee for the same national network as the one Obama served on Chicago’s South Side. Those kindred beginnings and Barnes’ hastened rise through Wisconsin’s political ranks — a state legislator by 26, lieutenant governor by 32 — invited comparisons to the former president’s own meteoric rise to America’s highest office.
Wisconsin Democrats who took the stage on Saturday were eager to remind the crowd of those comparisons: A local Democratic organizer noted the state had the opportunity to “elect our first Black senator,” just as it had the country’ first Black president 14 years ago. Barnes mentioned coming home from a summer job and catching then-state senator Obama’s keynote speech during the 2004 Democratic National Convention. “It was quite literally a speech that changed my life,” he said.
The most important thing to remember is that Black Voter turnout, especially in Milwaukee, is key to Barnes winning:
Standing beside the pulpit at King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church on a crisp fall Sunday morning, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes was preaching to the choir — they were assembled behind him, clad in blue and gold robes.
“This community is always top of mind for me,” he reassured the mostly older congregants filling the pews, as he hit on issues he knew they care about: crime, jobs, inflation.
It’s a typical strategy for any Democrat who wants to win in battleground Wisconsin — go to Milwaukee, speak in Black churches, pose for pictures with the churchgoers. And it’s a share of the electorate that should be especially fertile ground for Barnes, who grew up on Milwaukee’s mostly Black north side and first dipped his toe in politics as an organizer and later state representative there.
As Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor, seeks to become Wisconsin’s first Black senator, his chances against two-term Sen. Ron Johnson may depend on how well he can connect with voters here who have not always turned out in big numbers.
“Our white population is split down the middle and minority voters will make the decision,” Reverend Greg Lewis, an influential organizer in Milwaukee’s Black community, said in an interview. “Whoever they vote for will win.”
Barnes knows most of the people at King Solomon are already in his corner, with some already turning in early votes for him. It’s not older, religious Black voters he needs to worry about mobilizing. It’s these congregants’ nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren that community organizers describe as a disaffected and disinterested generation.
“I’m asking you to help talk to some other people — some friends, some family, some neighbors. If we get five to 10 people out each, we can win this thing,” Barnes told the congregants.
For Barnes, whom polls show slightly behind Johnson in one of the handful of races that could shift Senate control, that means connecting with people like Joe Louis Gordon II.
Gordon, 32, met Barnes at a campaign event on Black maternal health in mid-October. As his girlfriend, Makoria Morrow, joined the discussion, Gordon sat to the side with their 2 1/2-month-old daughter and said he “didn’t know too much” about Barnes. He said he hadn’t voted since Barack Obama was running for president.
“Just like everyone else in the community, we don’t really care about voting or care about the race or anything like that because we feel like our voice is not going to get heard anyways,” he said.
After seeing Barnes in person, Gordon said he planned to vote for him.
“I just felt something different to come and just meet him and just to see that he actually is a genuine human being. He’s just like us. He could be my neighbor,” Gordon said.
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Health and Democracy are on the ballot next year and we need to keep Wisconsin Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with Mandela Barnes (D. WI) and his fellow Wisconsin Democrats campaigns:
Wisconsin Democratic Party
Minocqua Brewing Company SuperPAC
Tony Evers for Governor
Mandela Barnes for U.S. Senate
Brad Pfaff for Congress
Josh Kaul for Attorney General
Doug La Follete for Secretary of State
Aaron Richardson for Treasurer