Hey Matt Rothschild here host to the Wisconsin Ford Podcast all across the Civic Media
Radio Network and at civicmedia.us for the next several episodes of the Wisconsin Ford
Podcast.
I'm going to be interviewing Democratic candidates for governor.
This is me now is Brett Halsey who represented the state legislature from Middleton from 2011
to 2015 and before that served on the Dane County Board for 14 years, it's chunk time.
That's paid to society I thought.
That's too many meetings for me Brett.
Welcome to the Wisconsin Ford Podcast.
Great to be here.
It's nice to see it's been a long time.
You ran for governor in 2014 and lost in that primary to Mary Burke though that whole
thing didn't end too well.
You didn't get a ton of votes then.
51,300 man.
That's not insignificant but I think percentage wise it was under 20 close to 17 if I'm correct.
I did spend $7,044.
Well it was good dollar for vote percentage.
My attorney says that's the best in US history.
But that's coming from an attorney.
I haven't double checked that.
Probably better than anyone else's that's for sure.
You're running again.
Why?
I am running because of my children, my grandchildren.
My granddaughter started school on the west side of Madison and my old neighborhood first
of September and then all of the studies came out about how our kids are struggling and
all of our schools because of the cuts put in place by Walker Tiffany.
I don't know if you've ever been to two rivers but I pronounce it Walker Tiffany because
the cuts put in place to our first of all disrespect for our teachers and staff and
public servants.
The cuts to our schools and the cuts to basically the fabric of the Wisconsin idea were put
in place by Walker Tiffany in 2010.
They started with Act 10, attacking retirement for workers, health care and worker representation
and I debated that for 62 hours in the assembly.
I want to make a better Wisconsin for my grandkids, my kids, my family and the others 5.9 million
people in Wisconsin.
You talk about the disrespect to teachers.
I remember during the recall of Scott Walker that evening, the evening, the Walker won the
recall, not by a lot, he won it and there was a teacher who was interviewed here at the
concourse hotel just down the street and she said, I don't know why they hate us so much.
Why do they hate teachers so much?
Why do they hate public sector workers so much and that was Scott Walker's whole deal.
I mean he did divide and conquer.
Well and I think he had issues with teachers at Marquette that perhaps thought he was not
the best student that he could be.
But my mother was a teacher, a public school teacher in Oklahoma for over 40 years.
She was a gay school teacher which was very difficult.
But she taught an international baccalaureate high school which is kind of advanced placement
on steroids.
I tried to follow in her footsteps.
I taught at a school called Cross Academy down there and my first year I taught physics,
biology or science, physical science, your book and journalism, encode soccer and try,
I created a triathlon team for kids.
So I first realized and I have a master's in science education.
So I tried to be a teacher down there but I survived that first year and then they gave
me chemistry and biology and journalism, I taught journalism to, and computers.
So the first thing we need to do is respect teachers because I don't know about you but
everything I've learned came from teachers that we've had.
And what do we do about restoring funding to public education?
Well I sent you the check I think for a 2.1 billion dollars.
That is all the money that Walker Tiffany took away from our schools and our workers.
And I was just at an event up in the Fox Valley and I had a chance to update that for inflation.
So I handed out, I think about 40,000 of those checks the last time.
It's made out to the people of Wisconsin, the teachers and students.
So adjusted for inflation that would be $3 billion.
We have a $4.6 billion surplus.
And after we're done here, I'm going to go up the legislature and talk to, I've been
trying to get in to see Robin Voss and Greta Newbauer.
She and I both went to Middlebury College in Vermont and see if we can get both sides of
the aisle to pay back what they took from us.
I go all over the state and people tell me.
I've been to about 20 counties in the last four weeks in my 95 cutless Supreme, which
is an upgrade from the 87 cabriolay last time.
It is American made so I'm going for that UAW vote.
But and people come up to me on the street all the time saying they have that check on
their, on their refrigerator and I want to deliver on my promise.
I'm not sure Robin Voss is going to open his door to you today.
I was when I was in the legislature, he invited everyone to go have beer with him after
work on Friday.
I was the only Democrat that showed up.
And while he and I, he shut our debate down after 62 hours at six o'clock in the morning,
because probably he couldn't stand hearing me anymore telling him that if he was a true
conservative and a true Republican like Teddy Roosevelt, he wouldn't be attacking workers
like this.
So, but I at least showed up and, of course, my Democratic colleagues thought I was
selling out.
But one of the things Fred Risser points out in his book and everybody should read his
book, by the way, is that it, government works better when we all work together and
can sit down and work stuff out.
What about funding for the UAW system?
That's another big issue.
It's a huge issue.
I don't have that check right in front of me, but I know I've got a big number for them.
One of the problems with UW, and I have a sailboat down at the Union, so I get, I have
a front row seat, and when I was, I have homeless people in my house.
One of my crew chief, whose wife just got out of the hospital with back surgery needed
to be in shelter, so he and she were sleeping in my bed this fall.
I was sleeping on my sailboat down at the Union in the Moring field where I'm supposed
to be, but I wake up, I used to work on farms, I wake up every morning at five o'clock,
and also I'm old, so I don't need to sleep anymore.
And I would pan the front of the Union and look at all of the lights that were turned
on.
I know UW lots of researchers say they care about climate change, but the brightest lights
there, I'm an energy consultant, been doing it since 1978, and my parents told us to turn
the lights off.
I don't know about your parents, but UW can save millions and millions of dollars by optimizing
their own operation to stop wasteful spending like this all the way from the UW Alumni
Center, you know, to all the way to Luminology.
So I will get them more money, but I will also, my goal of my positive energy plan is to
make every government building in the state of Wisconsin, all the way state down to schools
net zero by 2030, and I have a plan to do that.
You mentioned you had homeless people in your house.
How often do you have homeless people sleeping over?
Right now, well, the two people, I have a rental property on Ridgeway, which is by one
of the closest houses to the flight path of the F-35 fighters, by the way, and we could
talk about that later, but upstairs, the two upstairs people, you'll see in that press
release I sent you, they were living in their car before they moved in with me.
In my house, the city of Madison says, I can house a maximum of five people.
I have one veteran who has PTSD, and she's on disability there.
So I can have four homeless people in my house, that's my capacity.
I would argue with the city of Madison that with winter coming, we need to put, we need
to start with homeless vets.
And I would say to people out there, I can get you a screened homeless veteran from the
VA, and they have a allowance of 700 a month to pay.
So if anybody has a spare bedroom, there's about 100 unhoused people in Wisconsin about
in Madison, about 18 of them are veterans.
So these veterans are screened, and they also get support services.
So no American veteran, well, first of all, nobody should be homeless in America, the
richest country in the history of the world.
So.
You've been highlighting this issue of homelessness, you kicked off your campaign in front
of an organization that helps people who are out of time.
The beacon, they do a great job.
And by the way, they're not involved in my campaign and can make no endorsements because
they're a 501c3.
Sure.
But that was just a way for you, I imagine, to draw attention to what you think is really
important issue.
Otherwise, you would have kicked your campaign off at a hotel.
Right.
Right.
Or the front of the Capitol, the journal sent them, said I did it in front of the Capitol,
but they only had nine errors in their story.
So.
But yeah, I mean, after there have been points of my life where I have been homeless.
When I was, unfortunately, getting divorced from my ex-wife, we poor woman put up with
me for 20 years.
That's, you know, her dad was paid to society.
But I gave my, her and my family my entire state representative salary.
And I was living on my per diem, which was between, as I recall, four or 500 a month.
So I have, I was living in a van down by the river, and I deserved it as Chris Farley
said.
But then I got the sailboat, and that's a lot, you know, better place to live down at
the Memorial Union than a van down by the river.
But.
Well, how do we make, how do we solve the problem of homelessness, much, you, you have something
I saw where you said, don't give them money, but do other things for people who are homeless.
Yeah.
Walking down here, I saw two gentlemen, dude and Liam.
So what I do is I hire homeless people.
First of all, I'm a general contractor and carpenter.
And I have a hard time finding workers, you know, people to do my, I do small projects.
I'm working on an 1870 restoration right now on Henry Dones, the first African American
home owned in Madison.
And but I, I'm, so I, I, first of all, I give them a job.
I start them at 15 an hour.
If they show up to work and are reliable, I'll bump that to 20 an hour.
Then I, my other business model is I can, I can, I give them home.
I give them roof over their head, especially with winter coming.
And then I'm trying to get them into apprentice programs where an apprentice, my, Dennis, the
guy who lives upstairs, he's on the video that I sent you has IT skills.
So he can get, and there's a union he can get at apprentice programs will pay them 30
to $40,000 a year.
And the idea is launching them on a trajectory of having a job, having a place over the
head.
As I spoke meeting last night, I got the spare food, you know, I take that, I feed folks.
And back to Maslow's pyramid, everybody in society can't move up the pyramid till
they have food, clothing, and shelter.
So that was from an individual level.
What you're doing from a systemic level or, you know, from a governmental level.
If you're governor, how do you solve the problem homelessness?
In Madison, we can solve it tomorrow.
We have a lot of vacant government buildings downtown, Jeff, too, is an example.
These are slated to be torn down.
My goal is to get all the homeless people off the street by the first day of winter.
I've got about a month to do that.
But I left a note for Governor Evers.
If we can open up the first floor of Jeff, too, I worked with FEMA after the 93 floods
in Katrina.
That's back by the way, when we had a FEMA, those, I worked with President Clinton and Vice
President Goran James Lee Whitt to move 12,000 homes and businesses out of flood plains
after the 93 floods.
That flood killed about 80 people, it cost $18 billion.
But what we do after a natural disaster like that is we move people into a gym.
And we can put, you know, basically you have a sleeping bag, a cot, and so I'm trying
to get the Y to open their east side gym to that.
And I would put a plea out, if anyone down there has a vacant space, we especially need
a homeless center at the base of state street close to library mall because that's a mile
and a half walk to the beacon.
And there's a collection of people down there that need a place to get warm, have coffee,
eat, go to the bathroom.
I mean, it's, as being homeless, you know, the UW shuts their bathrooms down.
They have a shower down there by hoofers that people could use to shower.
And so provide those basic services.
If the city will allow us, we'd like to, you know, use it as an overnight shelter.
A lot of people like being in that, you know, everybody wants to be on state street.
But so that's just, and what I, my business model is, I want to make this so it's sustainable.
As we've seen with the cuts to snap and the cuts to the county budget, government is
slow, inefficient, and unreliable right now.
And I'm as a small business person, I want to be fast, efficient, and trustworthy.
Sicken with the general housing subject, rent is impossibly high right now.
Mortgage is high.
It's almost impossible for a young person to even contemplate, you know, buying a house
because it costs so much, if your governor, what do you do about the housing crisis here?
Well, what I have done is I bought a nine years ago, I think, I bought Ray Peterson.
I remember he was an infamous landlord who had 1.2 million in code violations.
I bought the last house from him as a 1849 house on Milwaukee Street.
And I fixed that up.
I took me three years to get it up to code, but I grew up working on farms.
I'm a contractor, carpenter.
And I kept the, there was a blind lady and her caregiver in the first place.
I had to increase her rent a little bit, but I provided, and then I did section eight affordable housing upstairs.
If I had had that place now, I could put five homeless veterans in their upstairs.
It was a four bedroom.
I could get $700 a month from them.
So I would be making, as a landlord, 3,500 a month, as opposed to the 2,400 I was making,
just renting it a fair market value.
So again, I'm talking to landlords out there, guys.
We have a way we can make more money and have a sustainable program that's, you know,
it's hard when they shut the government down, but, you know, when I'm a governor, of course,
that's not going to happen in Wisconsin.
Well, let's talk about how you react to, what's your reaction to what Trump is doing to this country, first of all?
I don't know if anybody's been watching the Revolutionary War special Ken Burns on PBS.
If you haven't, I think every each one of us should.
If you read the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson, who's one of my heroes,
I respect everything he did other than some of his slave dating, and you'd have no worry about me doing that.
But I don't own slaves, so that's a, but if you read the Declaration of Independence,
the long train of abuses, and I've had a team of lawyers looking at that, very closely follows
what King Trump is doing to America, and it's from, you know, the ice raids, the illegal ice raids.
And by the way, I am going to send a letter to Christy Nome warning them that in the state like
Wisconsin that has the castle doctrine or a defender ground doctrines, those agents who are
unidentified can be shot by the landowner without, with impunity. So it's probably, and those are
a lot of states, if you look around. So again, we don't want, I believe, you know, I'm a Christian,
I believe, and thou shalt not kill, but we want to protect those ice agents, and they should not
be doing what they're doing in states. I think there's 40 of them with a castle doctrine.
So, so just be clear, you're not encouraging homeowners to shoot an ice agent if they'll come
down their driveway. Absolutely not. But I'm warning ice agents that in these states, they could,
if, and, and escape with impunity, especially if they're not identifying themselves, which they
aren't, they have no marking identification, and they have no warrants. So these are illegal
search and seizures going back to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. This is what
the British were doing in America. And in one of the reasons we swore off our allegiance to
King George. And I think, according to polls, people are swearing off their allegiance to King
Donald as well. So what should the government Wisconsin do with when ice is operating, you know,
in the walk here, wherever it is? If they are operating illegally and breaking any Wisconsin laws,
they will be charged as such. And I believe there's a handful of a host of laws they're breaking,
including illegal search and seizure. They don't have valid warrants. And so we will ask Wisconsin
law enforcement officials to enforce our laws, which we can in Wisconsin and have them charge
and sent to prison if need be. What about the Wisconsin National Guard? I mean, the governor is
responsible for the National Guard, but here you have Trump going over the heads of the governors,
driving, you know, nationalizing the National Guard, putting him in the streets, not only
of the state where they are, shipping them off to Portland, Oregon. You know, how should the
governor Wisconsin do with that? The governor is the commander-in-chief of the National Guard.
My understanding of the federal laws, President Trump can only take charge of those guards in a
national emergency. Unfortunately, he is the one who's creating the national emergency.
I was just looking at the murder rates. The murder rates in American cities are some of the lowest
they've been in history. The last spike in murder rates, by the way, was during Trump's first
administration. I don't think he wants to point that out, but there is no national emergency.
There are challenges in all urban cities, but one of my opponents, executive Crowley,
pointed out the other day that murder rates are way down in Milwaukee. And I think we want to
continue focusing on investing in Milwaukee, Madison, our big cities. I know murder rates are
down here in Madison as well. So that's not like there isn't crime, but I was just running the
numbers yesterday on the snap soda sugar ban. Obesity kills 16 times more people in America
than murders do. So as governor, I need to focus on things that are hurting the most people.
I mean, I'm sure cigarettes do a lot too. They only kill 1,000 people a day. And they killed my
father, my grandfather, and my sister, a pancreatic cancer, a 52. And one of the things I want to do
is internalize the full cost of cigarettes, which I think when I ran the numbers with about $3 billion
and make a pack of cigarettes pay its own way. And by the way, I have a solution to that.
I grew up working on our farm. And I started chewing tobacco when I was 14 years old. That's what
you did when you're a farmer in Oklahoma. But I take these nicotine patches. And when the homeless
people or anybody asks me for a cigarette, I hand them a patch because not only does it give you
the nicotine without the deadly tar, it's not going to rot your lungs, your teeth, your mouth.
And I've lost 35 pounds in three months, you know, because it is a stimulus.
Yeah, I mean, people don't realize that cigarettes kill about 350,000 Americans every year.
Right. Car crashes kill about 40,000 alcohol kills about 100,000. Right. That's a lot.
Yeah. And that's 1,000 people a day. And that's second hand smoke is another 1,000 people a week.
That's 50,000 people, which is about the number of people that died in the Vietnam war.
You are making a comparison to those who are murdered. I'm wondering what your criminal justice
policy would be? I believe we need to fairly enforce the laws that we have. And one of the things
working with homeless people is I see the laws are unfairly enforced upon the people in the lowest
economic part of it. I think the number is if you're homeless, you're seven times more likely
to be arrested. If you're African, maybe I think African America is seven times homeless is 11 times.
And they're often defended by overworked and underpaid public defenders. So I believe our criminal
justice system needs to catch real criminals and provide them justice. An example of that I had
to evict a gentleman from my rental unit who was a threatened me with a sword. He was dealing
drugs, I believe. And he was convicted of beating his, abusing his girlfriend and another woman.
I started the criminal eviction last November. It took me until August 5th to get him out of my
rental property. So I need, I support tenants rights. I've been a tenant. I've been a landlord.
We need laws that allow us to get these criminals out of, he got probation parole. I understand
he didn't show up from his sentencing. He is now wandering the street someplace. People like him
need to be in jail. By the way, his sword was about as long as my 28 ounce hammer when he threatened me.
And I think he would have lost that fight. But not everybody, these are the kind of people
that need to be in jail. We have a lot of people in jail right now with drug offenses, nonviolent
offenses, and maybe didn't get the best representation. So I want to look at each one of those cases very
carefully on probation and parole and see can I get them out on the street, can I give them a job,
can I put them to work? A lot of them are illiterate. We need education programs. A lot of them
have disabilities. A lot of them have mental health issues. You know, we need to cause the root cure
of crime. And I worked on that with Kathleen Falk and others on the county board. I want to do
that as governor as well. You know what about health care in general? What's the solution to the
health care issue? So my dad was a family physician. He's a, he considered himself a
country doctor. He was in Norman, Oklahoma. When we moved there, there were 30,000 people there.
And he provided health care to following the Hippocratic oath. There was, which is first of all,
you do no harm. And second of all, you help everyone whether they can pay or not. We had one,
one of his clients who paid us with a mule. And being the oldest son, it was my job to ride and
break the mule. So it took me an hour to get saddle on him. And the first thing the mule did was
head right for the lowest branch to get me off. This mule head in its defense had been abused.
It was blind in one eye. Somebody hit it with a two by four. So it was a, it had a rough baby mule
hood. So, but I did the old, I don't know if you remember the Tom mixed thing where you,
you go down in the saddle and he didn't get me on the first time. But then he headed for the
Blackberry Bramble. And that's at the point that I decided to roll off because I didn't want to be
rolled in Blackberry. And it took me two weeks to catch that mule and get the saddle off of him.
And then we called up the, he called up the client that own, that owed him and said, you know,
you can come get your mule. Our debt is paid. So, but the bigger point is, is we have, again,
the most expensive healthcare system in the world, roughly twice as much as Canada last I looked.
And we have the sickest people in the industrialized world. We literally rate last, I think
one thirty second or thirty third. And I'll, I wouldn't call them civilized, but I'm not sure
we're civilized countries. So we have a great badger care program here. I think we can, I'm
fortunate enough to be on Medicare. I'm 66 years old. But we need to close that gap between
badger care and Medicare. I was, when I was running my business, the Affordable Care Act made it so
I could say in business. I know Ron Johnson doesn't believe in it, but you know, he made his money
the old fashioned way. He married it. Yeah. So, which is nice work if you can get it. But I,
I still haven't found my sugar mommy yet. But, but I started my business. I got laid off of
this year's club after 18 years in the basement with $100 and a, and a TV tray, a laptop,
which I just celebrated 20 years. But the thing that helped me get that long as a small business
person and 80% of the jobs in America and Wisconsin or small business people was the Affordable
Care Act. Health care was killing me. And when the health, and I don't think we've done a good
job, I say, before Affordable Care Act went and passed, shopping for health care was the wild west.
You get all these things and it was apples and oranges. With the Affordable Care Act,
it allows you to compare, you know, three plans to get the best one. And it cut my funding
for my family significantly. I don't have the exact numbers I can look them up. No, that's right.
But it also did, if you have pre-existing conditions like I do, you were just out of luck as they
said. Right. And it covered your kids up to 26. So, my kids, just my daughter just turned 27.
She's acting in her first play in New York. Congratulations.
So it's in person place. She was pocketing mid summers nights dream, but that was online. So
so my son's 31. He has a good job with health insurance. But we need to cover those kids right
out of college. And like you said, just because you have diabetes, you know, I probably have more
mental health issues than I could list here, you know, but it's like you should get be covered.
Right. And that's the fundamental goal is everyone can see their appropriate health care
professional for the problem they have, get medicine they can afford and the treatment they
can afford without going bankrupt. And health care is one of the largest sources of bankruptcy
in America. We can do that. We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. And all we have
to do is look to Canada, Costa Rica, even Cuba has better systems. So my plan would be to have a
Wisconsin expand badger care to, you know, we can do both the, we can raise the income.
There's actually Scott Walker at some of the stuff I sent you tried to kick badger people off
of badger care kids. We stopped them from doing that because it was illegal. But we can expand badger
care. That's a good starting point. Then on medicine, there's a lot of free medicine programs out
there that people don't know about the drug companies have. We need to have that organized so that
people can get the low cost free medicine if they can. My dad actually published a book on it
back in the days they published books. And so we can provide medicine. Then with all these
closing rural hospitals, my work for Wisconsin plan will allow us to put a physician's assistance
and LPNs. In those, they can do 80% of the health care providing that a doctor can, including
LPNs can prescribe medicine and deal with most of our problems. And then they have a physician,
they can tell a help with to end, you know, we can, we can get people to Madison or where
Marshfield, Green Bay, wherever they, wherever they need the care. So we can do that much more
cost effectively. And if those LPNs and PAs stay in Wisconsin for five years, I'll pay for
$40,000 about two years of their education. And that goes for everybody. If you serve in a
underserved area with a critical profession, I will forgive basically two years of your college
or your tech training. A lot of people can be doing this with tech training, which is much more
cost effective than high red. You mentioned you had mental health issues. Do you want to talk
about that? Absolutely. What are you dealing with? I, you know, my father would come home drunk.
I mean, he took care of half of the police force in Norman, Oklahoma. So if, when they caught me
to rat racing, you know, the call would go home before I got home. So I was prepared to take my
licks, you know, when I got home. And he, he did not spare the, he didn't spare the right. He
didn't spare the belt, let's say. But I was dealing with an abusive alcoholic. One of his fun
things to do at this pool was the whole me and my brother underwater and see which one of us could
last the longest. But when I got my naval academy appointment, I wanted to be either a Navy seal,
aircraft fighter pilot, or Marine Corps recon leader, or all the above. So I, you know, I can swim
underneath the pool and back many times. He practiced the Friedrich Nietzsche School of Parenting.
That's which is not destroyous, makes us strong. And, you know, I, at the time, I didn't appreciate
that. He used to wrestle us on the ground, hold us down and choke holes and see if we could get
out of it. And I finally had to break three of his ribs to tell him not to teach him not to do
that because he taught me you don't have to whip every bully. You just got to whip the biggest
one. And after that, he quit beating on me and my mom and my brother the way he was. So it was not
an easy upbringing. But he also was chairman of the National Wildlife Federation outdoor life
conservation see here. He was, you know, he was the living embodiment of Aldo Leopold in Oklahoma.
And he set me on a course. My goal in life was to be an environmental superhero. And I'm still
working on that. But it's like, I have to decide between the cape and the no cape, though. That's a,
but so I don't, you know, he was a good man and a mean drunk. So I've gone to a lot of
alanon meetings. I've gotten, you know, hours of, of, but when he, he disowned and disinhered
me at his memorial service because he would regularly call up and ask me why I wasn't in the U.S.
Senate. And I tried to explain to him that herb coal was in the U.S. Senate. And he had a little
more money than I did. But so now I'm perhaps fulfilling his dream for me. But, you know,
it was, it was been a bit of a rough road. But now that I'm, you know, on the campaign trail,
I'm happy as a clamp. Well, let's talk about that a little more. I mean, all the other
candidate, almost all the other candidates have a lot more money than you do. They're not herb
coal, but they're able to access a lot of money. Right. And they've got bigger staffs and all
that. So you got to be considered a long shot. And so I wonder, what's in it for you? Is it a
lark or are you trying to raise issues that no one's going to raise, you know, what's driving you?
So first of all, back to what I'm doing it, I'm doing it for my kids, for my grandkids.
I would hand you a business card, but I'm out of them. But what it says is, how can I help you?
I'm, my plan is to have my, last time I heard homeless people to work on my campaign,
one of whom misled me and was on papers, the Democratic Party challenged me going into the
count. And I had eight votes at eight signatures to spare. So they wanted to knock out.
They wanted to knock me out. They wanted to give Mary Berk a free run. And I, I don't believe in
free runs. Well, I believe in democracy, man. I don't know about you. But yeah, the Democratic
Party wouldn't let me speak of the convention. I did make up some Chinese party hats,
because that I, I don't know if you know, but I do so as well. So I, I make my own camping equipment.
But I, and my mom taught me to sew. My grandma actually taught me so in a treadle sewing machine. But
I, I ran against Mary Berk. I went to hear her speak. And that's the thing that convinced me I'd
had to run then, because she needed spring training, you know, as do, you know, the badgers and
the burrs. And that's one reason primaries are important. Right. People at bats get, you know,
give them the experience they need. I'm always a contested primary for that reason and for democracy
reason, give people choices. The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire. And I've, I've been,
I just met Missy at the homeless conference. She's, she's affordable. I've only been in public service.
I was an energy conservation advocate in the Carter administration in 1978 and Alaska. I've only
been at this for 40 plus five plus years. And I, as Ronald Reagan said, will not make the, the,
to paraphrase them. I will not make my opponents youth and, and a lack of knowledge and issue in
this campaign. But on any issue, I probably have experienced it. And if I don't, I do my homework.
So, but let's get down to numbers. And I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll give you my campaign plan, Matt,
for you. So in 2014, I got 51,300 votes. And the question is, how many votes will I get in
2026? I taught six, everything from six grade math, the college physics. And I helped run
President Clinton's, I'm vice president, score presidential campaign in the war room with James
Carman. So I, it's not my first rodeo. So the question is question mark. So I spent, according to
Sun, or, or a data, 70,000, 7,000, 44 dollars when I ran before. Again, I don't believe in wasting
people's money. I have the St. Vinnie's tag on my shirt here, just so you know that I'm thrifty.
Again, I was an eagle scout. I'm not cheap. I'm thrifty. So the question is, you know, how much
am I going to spend this time? And I'm willing to spend, you know, three times that. Let's, let's
spend $21,000. I've got that in the bank and ready to go. So you do the math. And I have to, I
can't do all this in my head anymore. I apologize. So, so 51. That's going to be about 150,000.
300 equals. Yeah. Yeah. Rough numbers times 21. So let's just go 150,000. So,
and it appears to me that because of the August 11th primary, there's going to be about four. And
again, the Republicans set the August 11th primary then. And I voted against it to be when people
are on vacation and students about a school, they want to reduce democracy. So 400,000
divided in there. There's still seven candidates. I know it's, it's early in the day. It's about
11 o'clock. We seem to get a new one. Maybe more. There may be more. But the average candidate is going
to get 55,000, you know, and but you get my opponents are smarter than the average bear, but they all
can't get more than that. So, and again, I'm the only one who's really run a contest is that I went
to all counties in Wisconsin on my 87 cabriolet. So let's say I get 150,000 at 21,000 votes. But
the secret weapon is my car last time was the Volkswagen cabriolet. And I can show you a picture of
that. I drove that all over the state. I bought it with my campaign money. I said I would use it
in parades. And, you know, I'll use it in any parade they don't kick me out of. And I sold that
for $2,500 to Buzz Nordine. He used to be the president of first federal bank right downstairs.
And I bought the new 95 cullis supreme for $2,800 off marketplace. Florida car, no rust. And I
wish send you a picture of it. But, you know, and of course the American made cullis supreme is
deployed to get the UAW. You know, and the union vote. So that car is roughly twice the
the value of the original car. So if I multiply that 150,000, which is probably enough to win a
seven-way primary anyway, I get 300,000 votes. But remember last time I won Franklin, Wisconsin.
I was raised a Republican. My first campaign was Barry Goldwater when I was five. I shook Richard
Nixon's hand in 1968. My dad was the big Republican no-clama. And then Ronald Reagan turned against
conservation, hunting and fishing in the environment and tried to take the conserve out of conservative.
That's how I became a Democrat. So, and my grandmother, I carry a coin in my pocket of Franklin
Roosevelt. She had a picture of him up on the wall. Us, we are the people who stayed in Oklahoma.
The quitters went to California. And Will Rogers said they increased the IQ of both places.
But here's Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite governor, president. And there's Franklin Roosevelt.
So I found out last night I was at my ice boat. I mean, he used to be a big ice boater on the
Hudson back when they had ice there. I did not know that. That's neat. But we're just about out of time.
I want to ask you to tell any listener if they want to support your campaign,
I think they can do that. All they need to remember is don't fret vote for Brett.org.
And I, like I said, I'm going to fund this myself. I worked, I helped manage president
Clinton's campaign. I don't, I don't know anybody who run, I beaten popular Republican
incumbents in rural districts with women in Oklahoma. I don't know anybody that runs a better
campaign than me. But I am what I want is people's help. If you want to work with me to build a
better Wisconsin, you can make your own yard sign. I'm not, I'm not going to kill any more trees
to save the environment than I have to. I got the yard signs in Appleton and Racine and Kenosha.
So just make your own yard sign and put it in your window. And you can go to my website voteforbrett.org.
We're going to be asking people for $20. I'm not going to limit my campaign because I'm going to
access money I have to charity. But and I believe we can work together, Democrats, Republicans,
and Independents to build a better Wisconsin for my grandkids and your kids and hopefully you got
grandkids coming. So I only have two that I know. So but just remember don't fret vote for Brett.
Well, I appreciate you giving us this time on the Wisconsin Ford podcast. It's been nice
getting back in touch with you. Yeah, and thanks for your great work at the Progressive and
we want to make Wisconsin a progressive state again. So yeah, we sure do. Good luck.
Well, that's going to have to be it for this episode of the Wisconsin Ford podcast on the Civic Media
Radio Network. I'm Matt Rothschild. I want to thank you for listening. I also want to thank my
engineer and producer Don Lee who's always great to work with. And I want to thank Sage Wilde of
Civic Media for giving me this platform. I'll be back in just a day or two with another
Democratic candidate for governor. So stay tuned for that.
