When President Obama told workers Monday at ZBB Energy Corp. that he’s “fighting on all fronts” to get the economy back on track, he could have been talking about his party’s dicey political fortunes as well.
“The worst mistake we could make is to go back to doing what we were doing that got us into the mess that we were in,” Obama said, referring to the economic meltdown of 2008. “We can’t turn back.”
Making stops at the high-tech energy firm in Menomonee Falls and later at an election fund-raiser in downtown Milwaukee, Obama said Republicans were counting on voter “amnesia” – that people will forget who was in charge when the economy unraveled.
The president’s visit here was part of his biggest campaign fund-raising trip this year – aimed in large part at helping his party win or keep governorships in three states vital to his re-elections prospects in 2012: Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. The area visit was the first stop on a five-state, three-day swing to California, Washington state, Ohio and Florida.
At ZBB Energy, a 30-employee firm that makes high-tech systems to store renewable energy, Obama delivered a 12-minute speech to an audience of about 70.
“Companies like this are showing us how manufacturing can come back right here in the United States of America, right back here to Wisconsin,” said Obama. “We’ve been fighting on all fronts – inch by inch, foot by foot, mile by mile – to get this country moving forward again, and going after every single job we can create right here in the United States of America.”
The president cited the company as an example of two things: the benefits of the stimulus package, which Republicans have assailed as waste, and the potential of green jobs to help revitalize U.S. manufacturing.
ZBB obtained a $1.3 million loan through the state as a result of the stimulus package. The loan is being used to increase the firm’s manufacturing capacity.
Company CEO Eric Apfelbach, a Doyle supporter who is on the board of the Wisconsin Technology Council, said in an interview that his firm is poised to grow, thanks to an “exploding” market for his products: routers and storage systems designed to house renewable energy such as solar and wind and integrate it with more traditional types of energy.
“There are folks in Washington right now who think we should abandon our efforts to support clean energy,” Obama said. “They’ve made the political calculation that it’s better to stand on the sidelines than work as a team to help American businesses and American workers. And my answer to people who have been playing politics the past year and a half is, they should come to this plant. They should go to any of the dozen new battery factories, or the new electrical vehicle manufacturers, or the new wind turbine makers, or the solar plants that are popping up all over this country, and they should have to explain why they think these clean energy jobs are better off being made in Germany or China or Spain, instead of right here in the United States.”
At the fund-raiser later in the day for the Democratic Party and its candidate for governor, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Obama invoked the well-publicized beating Barrett suffered when he came to the aid of a woman near the Wisconsin State Fair last summer.
“That is some serious customer service from this mayor right here,” Obama said at the U.S. Cellular Arena. “That’s the kind of act you don’t hear about every day. . . . That’s a mark of real character. That’s a person who will fight for you each and every day.”
Coattails or anchor?
Republicans used Obama’s visit to rally their own troops.
GOP candidate for governor Scott Walker held a campaign event and launched a TV ad titled “Yes, We Can,” that uses footage of Obama while skewering the $810 million Milwaukee-to-Madison high speed rail plan, a plan supported by Barrett and current Gov. Jim Doyle and that Republicans have vowed to kill.
Speaking to the Journal Sentinel editorial board at roughly the same time as the Obama fund-raiser, Ron Johnson, the Oshkosh businessman expected to face Feingold this fall in the U.S. Senate contest, had a different take on government’s role in job creation.
“I do not believe that government has the capability of producing long-term sustainable jobs, and I think the evidence of the stimulus bill kind of bears that out,” Johnson said.
GOP chair Reince Priebus contended that Obama’s presence was harmful to the candidates he came to help.
“That’s what Obama’s visits and support really have been – the kiss of death,” Priebus said in a call with reporters, referring to the president’s anemic poll numbers. “Obama’s coattails are more like an anchor.”
While some Democrats in more conservative states appear to be distancing themselves from the president, the party’s two major statewide candidates in Wisconsin were very much present Monday. One was Barrett, the other Sen. Russ Feingold, facing a fierce re-election fight against Johnson, the likely GOP nominee.
“I will stand with the president of the United States anywhere, anytime, no hesitation. I’m proud of what this president has tried to do,” Feingold said in an interview earlier this month. Feingold appeared with Obama at ZBB Energy, along with Gov. Jim Doyle and Rep. Gwen Moore, and attended the fund-raiser as well.
At the fund-raiser, Obama derided the GOP, telling Democrats: “Don’t believe in, ‘No we can’t.’ I believe in ‘Yes we can.’ ”
Quoting GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell as saying recently that he wished Republicans had been more successful in obstructing the Democrats’ agenda, Obama said: “Obstruct more? Is that even possible?”
Obama spoke for about 30 minutes at the fund-raiser, Barrett much more briefly.
“If you are looking for an ideologue in this state, it’s not me,” Barrett said.
The Barrett campaign said over 1,300 tickets were sold at $250 each, which works out to $325,000 for the campaign and the state party.