ELECTIONS

Scott Walker says he's running a positive campaign and defends ad against Tony Evers on prisons

Bill Glauber

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A day after Tony Evers charged that Republican Gov. Scott Walker was taking the race into the gutter, Walker declared that he's running "an extremely positive campaign" and defended a blistering ad against his Democratic rival.

Walker indicated that most of the negative attacks in the race have been launched against him.

"I think if you turn on the TV or you listen to the radio or you look at other advertisements, you'll see that almost every ad directed at me is a negative one," Walker said during a stop at a Metro Market in Milwaukee. "You'll see that the ads we talk about are the ads talking about our plan to keep Wisconsin working for generations to come."

Walker said that "literally a couple, less than a handful" of his ads have talked about Evers' "record, his plans, which we think are legitimate issues to use his own words or his own record to point out the differences."

On Wednesday, Walker's campaign released an ad that hit Evers over his support for cutting the prison population by half, which the ad called "a dangerous plan" that could result in the release of "felons who’ve committed rape, assault, robbery and even kidnapping."

Evers has said he would not release violent offenders.

"That’s a lie. I never said that," Evers told reporters. "We will not release violent criminals."

"We’re not going to get in the gutter with Scott Walker," Evers said.

POLITIFACT: Fact checking the candidates for governor

Walker said the ad was accurate and cited a fact check from The Associated Press on Wisconsin's prison population.

"The Associated Press fact check clearly shows that today if you reduce the prison population by 50 percent you will be letting thousands of violent criminals out onto the streets," Walker said. "My ad points that out. Those are just the facts. The Associated Press has documented, The Associated Press fact check said Walker is right on prison population.

"That's because today in this state two-thirds of the inmates in the state's prison system are in for violent offenses," Walker added. "If Tony Evers' plan were to go through, the one that he publicly said he supported, that would let thousands of violent criminals out. ... That's not being negative. That's just telling the truth. And so either Tony Evers did not know what was in the plan or he's not telling you the truth. Either way, that's disturbing to me."

Evers has said he supports eventually reducing the state's prison population of about 23,500 and would consider allowing the release of inmates for good behavior, creating or expanding court diversion programs and treating 17-year-old offenders as juveniles instead of adults.

Evers has not put a time frame on reaching that goal and has said that he would not release violent offenders, as Walker's ad claims.

Republicans contend Evers has committed to halving the prison population in four years because of an answer he gave at a candidate forum about a plan by the religious group MICAH that would do that.

At the forum, the questioner noted the plan would cut the population in half but did not give the time frame. Evers said he "absolutely" supported the idea but also called it a "goal." At other times during the Democratic primary, Evers said he didn't have a timeline for reducing the population.