Gov. Scott Walker spent this past weekend campaigning in Florida for FrontlineWisconsin.com, a national online fundraising effort to support the Republican state senators up for recall.
During his tour on Friday, Walker made an appearance at Newsmax headquarters, a conservative news company in West Palm Beach, Fla. In an interview with Newsmax.TV, Walker announced
FrontlineWisconsin.com's creation, a site where citizens from across the country can contribute up to $1,000 to support the eight Republican senators eligible for recall.
The donations will help the eight senators get the ""resources they need to get their message out that they're the ones protecting the middle class,"" Walker said. The senators are not going to do it if they are outspent by the ""big government union bosses from Washington,"" Walker said.
When asked about state unions' assertion of the right to collectively bargain, Walker said ""this is not about a right. Rights are something we get from the Constitution, inherently from God, our creator.""
Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now, a progressive advocacy group, described Walker's actions as ""abominable.""
""It's one thing to sell out the middle class of Wisconsin in order to reward his corporate donors, but it's a whole other thing to travel the country to raise even more corporate money,"" Ross said.
Mike McCabe, executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a non-partisan watch-dog group, said even though this is not the first time a governor has gone outside the state to raise campaign money, it still is an offensive practice.
""He's supposed to be governor of Wisconsin and these out-of-state donors aren't his constituents and shouldn't have influence over what government does here,"" McCabe said in an e-mail.
—Samy Moskol
