Gov. Walker Hiding Details of Latest Ad

MADISON, Wis. — The latest television ad from the floundering campaign of Gov. Scott Walker purports to feature “real people” who allegedly got their jobs via the trickle-down economic policies of the Walker administration. The ad provides no identifying information about these individuals, and the Walker campaign has refused to provide additional information in response to media inquiries. According to One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross, Walker’s broken promise on jobs and his campaign’s track record of using paid actors and outsourced clip art in ads makes questions of about the veracity of the latest ad well founded.

“Career politician Scott Walker broke his promise on jobs and has a track record of doing or saying whatever it takes to win an election,” said Ross. “If his campaign doesn’t have anything to hide, why does this latest ad not identify the people speaking? And why is he refusing to provide additional details about the veracity of their stories in response to questions from the media?”

Ross noted that Walker was busted for attempting to pass off paid actors as Milwaukee County residents in a television ad he ran in his 2008 race for County Executive. The Walker campaign initially claimed the individuals in the ad were “real people”, but under media questioning they were forced to later admit that some of the people featured in the ad were not area residents but were in fact paid actors. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3/24/2008]

More recently, Republicans and the Walker campaign have had a number of embarrassing gaffes over their use of stock photos, including featuring a photo of a Russian coal miner on a billboard and multiple examples of passing off video clips of scenes by videographers from around the world as though they were in Wisconsin.

“Gov. Walker broke his promise to us to create 250,000 jobs and now — because of his record of cronyism, corruption and incompetence — Wisconsin is last in the Midwest on jobs. He’s done nothing to earn the trust of the people of Wisconsin, and his campaign’s inexplicable secrecy and refusal to answer legitimate questions about this ad only raises more red flags,” concluded Ross.