Self-Proclaimed Outsider Asks for Cash From DC Insiders
MADISON – Although he has yet to visit every county in Wisconsin, multimillionaire Ron Johnson will make his second secret fundraising trip to Washington DC tomorrow. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is scheduled to hold a fundraiser for him at the NRSC headquarters.
Johnson talks a lot about his disdain for “career politicians” in Washington when he’s out on the campaign trail in Wisconsin:
“I think the problem we have in this country right now and in Washington is we have to many career and professional politicians.”
[Brookfield Chamber of Commerce Debate, 6/21/10]
“We can bring America back, but first we need to boot professional politicians out of Washington.”
[Ron Johnson “Real World” TV Ad, 6/9/10]
Yet Johnson continues to make fundraising trips to Washington DC to collect campaign cash from the very same people he wants to “boot” from office.
“For a self proclaimed outsider, Ron Johnson is certainly taking a politics-as-usual approach to his campaign – saying one thing in Wisconsin and then doing another,” said Mike Tate, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “He complains about Washington, complains about what he calls ‘career politicians,’ yet is all too eager to cozy up to the very same insiders in DC that he tries to score political points off in Wisconsin. And the people he’s raising money off of in Washington, are the very same people who got us into this economic mess to begin with – by supporting deregulation, supporting bailouts for Wall Street and then, like Johnson, opposing benefits for the unemployed.”
Johnson opposed benefits for the unemployed and says he would now cut off benefits to those people who are still out of work. A Washington Post report identified Johnson as having joined the ranks of extremist Sharron Angle – a Tea Party candidate in Nevada – by saying, “When you give, when you continue to extend unemployment benefits, people really don’t have the incentive to go take other jobs, you know, they’ll just wait the system out until their benefits run out.” [Washington Post, 7/20/10]
