Hundreds of people turned out for a Tea Party rally at Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis this week, where speakers urged the crowd to “take back America.”
Former Congressman Mark Neumann, a Republican candidate for governor, stood atop a picnic table and spoke to the attendees.
“I’m Mark Neumann and I’m a conservative candidate for governor in the state of Wisconsin,” Neumann told the crowd. “I’m running for office, folks, because I’ve had it right up to here with big government, and it’s time we state and our country back from the hands of the politicians. America was made great, folks, by people coming out of the private sector, serving their country for a period of time and then returning back to the private sector. I think it’s time we tell the career politicians to go home.”
Neumann’s Republican primary opponent, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, did not attend the rally because of a previous commitment to speak at the Mequon-Thiensville Chamber of Commerce and another speaking engagement that evening at the National Federation of Independent Businesses in La Crosse, according to Walker campaign spokeswoman Jill Bader. Bader said Walker supports the Tea Party, has spoken at previous Tea Party events and plans to attend future events held by the organization.
To view a WISN-Channel 12 video report about the Tea Party rally, click here.
Meanwhile, a liberal activist group, One Wisconsin Now, is asking citizens from across Wisconsin who are weary of the “anger, divisiveness and misinformation of the Republican-led Tea Party movement” can send a message on April 15 about “Why America Works” through a mobile billboard contest launched this week.
“Wisconsinites are tired of hearing Sarah Palin and the Tea Party tell them that they are the problem,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now executive director. “It’s time the hardworking people of Wisconsin have the chance to answer the Tea Party’s endless attacks on our public schools, our police and fire services and the public infrastructures that made the middle class.”
Submissions the group receives at www.onewisconsinnow.org/teapartymessage will be featured on a mobile billboard that will greet the Tea Party when it comes to the State Capitol in Madison on April 15.
– BizTimes Milwaukee
