Wisconsin Protests: Labor Protesters Call On Obama To Join Them In Madison

MADISON, WIS. -- President Obama has expressed more support for the protests over Gov. Scott Walker's (R) controversial budget proposal than perhaps any other national political figure, calling what he's doing an "assault on unions."

But protesters in Madison, filling up the Wisconsin state Capitol, would like to see him do more: Come out and join them.

"I heard Obama went to Portland, Ore. today. I wish he would have stopped here," said George Nygaard, a resident of LaCrosse who came out to the Capitol on Friday. "We would probably have had 100,000 people here today if he would have."

Every single person The Huffington Post interviewed in the Capitol named Obama as their top choice to come out to the rallies.

Karen and Lynn, two women who were taking a momentary break sitting on a staircase in the crowded Capitol, said they had come from Milwaukee to protest Walker's plan. They said not only would Obama bring energy to the movement, but they'd also like to see Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Lisa Bitto, a Milwaukee public school teacher, said an appearance by the president would be in line with his emphasis on education. "He's putting all this money into education and expects the best for his children and our children, and he has to understand that we can't work for less, and we can't get sick and have no health insurance to cover us," said Bitto. "And when our children get sick and lose their BadgerCare, what's going to happen to them? What's going to happen to the system? What's going to happen to our future?"

"He owes it to us," added Kathie Free, a retired Milwaukee public school social worker. "Obama was not put into office just by the big money. He was put into office by millions of poor and middle-class people who walk the neighborhoods, talking to neighbors, getting the votes, and that's how Obama got in, and he has to start remember how he got in. He'd better start working for the middle class and poor people."

Former Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold visited the protests today, marching with local firefighters and listening to some of the speeches during the noon rally held outside the capitol. When asked whether other politicians should be out in Madison, Feingold told The Huffington Post, "I can't imagine somebody who has supported labor and has the support of working people in the state wouldn't want to at least appear at some point. ... I know people are busy, but to me it was gratifying to see everyone working this hard against something that's really terribly wrong. It's very inspiring."

Comments

[elizabeth gerteiny]

02:44 PM on 03/02/2011

A fitting follow-up to Franklin Roosevelt's Social Security and Lyndon Johnson's Medicare was in the chequered history of Collective Bargaining its signing into law in 1983 by Governor Dick Celeste.

Republican determination to stamp out any vestiges of those Democrats and their social reforms has finally come to a head in Madison where powerful demonstrations are countering the efforts of Republican governor, Scott Walker, in the pay of billionnaires Charles and David Koch and others of their ilk, who will apparently stop at nothing to push the governor's devastating and misplaced budget cuts (euphemistic for union suppression) and eliminate Collective Bargaining which, if effected, will in domino style, weaken nationally social and public services and programs and public education and further diminish whatever control remains to the middle and working classes, over their economic lives.

President Obama has made recent statements clearly affirming his general displeasure with discriminatory actions against the unionized, but will forceful specifics be articulated soon on the steps of Wisconsin's capitol?

It all began in Cairo.

The revolutions have begun
And Madison is number one.
Unions are what it's all about
And GOPers choose to rout

Celeste, Franklin and LBJ,
A Midwest governor in the pay
Of billionaires who won't let up;
So will the president speak up---

(For he has promises to keep---
We know his sympathies run deep)
Or by his lights, think he must stay
A cool hand Luke, above the fray?

Elizabeth Gerteiny
author, THE PRESIDENT OF WAR
www.bushandcompany.org

[sayars1]

09:14 PM on 02/25/2011

What about in 2007 in South Carolina when Obama speaking of unions being denied collective bargening said “I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I'll will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America.”

Where are you Mr. President ?

[escobar]

02:44 PM on 02/21/2011

They waste their time with the President.
Of course they can try beggiing at his door but the only
people he has been stren with since his election has been the
voters who put him in office.
He as allowed to win to prevent the same sort of thing we see in the
mid-east from happening here.

[Happylady]

01:47 PM on 02/21/2011

This is sooooo tragic! There is a lot of blame to go around.

#1 I blame every union worker that VOTED FOR WALKER.

#2 I blame every democrat that DID NOT VOTE

#3 I blame the Democratic party for NOT INFORMING THE VOTERS about the differences
between both parties in clear kitchen table language.

Democrats (including the President) can be too polite at times and frankly your average Joe
doesn't get it.

I hope rank and file Democrats get it now. REPUBLICANS ARE OUT TO DESTROY YOU.
So wake up, learn the FACTS and vote, vote, vote

[rosiebond007]

11:38 PM on 02/20/2011

Can't drag Obama into this. The State of WI has to settle this on their own terms.

[drwtsn]

02:28 AM on 02/21/2011

Yes, I think it is best for Obama to stay away. Without him it seems like a grassroots effort aimed at fairness and equality. If he came it would seem political.

[t iessa]

11:13 PM on 02/20/2011

The protestors want Obama to weigh in? Really? Have they forgotten that when a school board in Rhode Island wanted to fire all of the teachers in a struggling school Obama supported the action even though the teachers had not been evaluated?

[nypoet22]

03:28 AM on 02/21/2011

i certainly haven't forgotten; the Central Falls situation still feels like a betrayal. the students themselves walked out in protest against the maltreatment of their teachers. do their opinions not matter to the president either?

[buckbanter44]

09:21 PM on 02/20/2011

Just like over 1,000 exemptions already granted, Wisconsin should call on Obama for an exemption from Obamacare. Or have they already?

[B Silk]

12:24 AM on 02/21/2011

Thank god for Obamacare!!!!!!

[CornellDublier]

08:17 PM on 02/20/2011

Madison Saturday was a beautiful day and the sun shown on what real democracy looks like. Tea Baggers were there in their very small minds and numbers as the streets filled with progressiv e thinking people. Although the KOCH Brothers and cohorts tried their hardest to disrupt the flow of the people and democracy with their payed for activist walking against the flow no one was paying them any attention. Heck even on the side of the Capital where the TPs held their very small rally half of the people at their rally were union supporters carrying signs supporting Unions. Their speakers were drowned out by the chants of "KILL THE BILL", WHATS DISGUSTING ? UNION BUSTING!", "RECALL SCOTT WALKER!", TELL ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE? THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE! "POWER TO THE PEOPLE" After a while all the TP's could do was stand on the outside of the flow and watch in awe at the sheer strength of real Democracy in action. It was indeed a Beautiful Day!

[B Silk]

12:24 AM on 02/21/2011

Thank you for the report!

[CornellDublier]

08:08 PM on 02/20/2011

Freedom is at risk!

[Tom Payned]

07:13 PM on 02/20/2011

The empty suit of Wall St. will attend meetings with the Chamber of Commerce, have secret deals cut with Big Pharma, but he won't support the middle class, unions and students who got him past the primaries.

If you look at his budget proposal, he's not much different from WI governor.

If he really cared about unions and middle class workers, he wouldn't have folded like an empty suit when it came to BagDad Bush's tax cuts. Or health care, or Gitmo, or not investigating BagDad's corrupt administration. I could go on, but what's the point.

Just as RhamNO let it be known what the left could do with itself, Obama feels the same way because he knows we have no where else to go.

Once again, the election with a sitting president will between the ev_ils of two lessers as Nadar used to say.

Bush: The emperor had no clothes
Obama: The suit is empty.

Of course, that's just my opinion but I supported the guy with time & money

[raul415]

05:03 PM on 02/20/2011

I think our side (the liberal side) sometimes loses sight of the larger picture. President Obama can not inject himself into every situation that arises. The GOP are criticizing him for for saying "President Obama said it looks like Republican Gov. Scott Walker is mounting "an assault" on public employee unions." can you imagine what would happen if he showed up at a WI rally?

The larger picture is that Presidents are leaders of the entire country, whether we like it or not.

If Bush were in office and he went to WI to support the Gov. liberal's hair would be on fire.

I think the Dem who are on the run have the right idea and if the people of WI have buyer's remorse they can recall the son of a gun.

[Eric Flanagan]

02:47 PM on 02/20/2011

Obama is probably at the All-Star game sitting next to Lloyd Blankfein; he doesn't care. I gave up on Barack 20 times already.

[MadeandBakedintheUSA]

02:35 PM on 02/20/2011

@GOVWalker- a DROPOUT or IBM CEO who creates JOBS in 181 countries in our GLOBAL WORLD and says TEAPARTY DESTROYING AMERICA http://bit.ly/f6giaq

#WATSON where is GOV WALKER?