Joe Biden campaigns for Tammy Baldwin, Tony Evers: 'We're in a battle for America's soul'
Former vice president and potential presidential contender Joe Biden urged students in Madison and workers in Milwaukee Tuesday to vote for candidates of character in what he called a "battle for America's soul."
With the countdown to the Nov. 6 midterm election, Biden returned to Wisconsin to encourage voters to re-elect U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and to unseat Gov. Scott Walker by electing state schools Superintendent Tony Evers.
In the morning, Biden took a somber tone before a crowd of at least 1,000 mostly University of Wisconsin-Madison students recalling the national environment when he graduated college in 1968 — the same year Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated.
"I walked across that stage determined," Biden said about receiving his diploma. "I was going to help change things because we had had enough. My sense is that's where you guys are."
Biden told the crowd they could channel their anger over policies implemented and rhetoric espoused by President Donald Trump with their vote. He said if voters of their age had voted at the same rate as voters in their 40s, the 2016 election would have seen about 5 million more votes.
"The American people are so much stronger, so much more decent, so much more ready to change the tone. It's within your power," Biden said. "We can and will overcome this moment. We can do it together."
Biden is the latest in a string of heavy-hitting Democrats to visit Wisconsin to help boost Democratic turnout, following former President Barack Obama who drew thousands to a Milwaukee high school Friday.
Trump held a rally last week in Mosinee for Walker and Leah Vukmir, who is challenging Baldwin. Vice President Mike Pence will campaign for Walker on Saturday in Hudson.
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Biden visited the state in the last few days of the 2016 election, when Russ Feingold lost a second time to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the first Democrat running in a presidential election to lose in Wisconsin since 1984.
State Democrats are hoping Biden's visit results in a different outcome this time around.
Biden told the crowd on UW-Madison's campus that public officials should be of good character, and said Baldwin and Evers fit the bill.
"No one has done more for Wisconsin students and for education than Tony Evers has," Biden said. In Milwaukee, Biden called Evers "a thoroughly decent man."
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Biden, who has toyed with the idea of running for president in 2020, used much of his 40 minutes on stage in Madison to lament the example being set by Trump in matters of foreign policy and rhetoric he characterized as damaging to people of color and as inciting violence against Democrats and reporters.
"It really is bigger than politics ... we're in a battle for America's soul," Biden said. "Americans already know who Donald Trump is. The question is, 'Who are we?' "
In the afternoon, Biden addressed several hundred people at Laborers' Local 113 in Milwaukee.
"It's good to be in labor's house — the house that built the middle class," Biden said.
Biden reflected on the current contentious political climate and the traumatic events of recent days, including the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
"The only people who can destroy America are Americans," he said. "We are so much better, so much better than the way this country is at the last 18 months."
Biden said, "We can't continue to dumb down the way we talk to each other, the way we tweet, the way we use the internet."
Biden said the U.S. doesn't lead the world by the example of its power but "by the power of its example. And look at us. The rest of the world follows us."
"I never thought being authentic was necessary. I thought it was what we were," he said.
Walker and Republicans criticized Democrats for welcoming Biden to the state, tying Evers with Biden to plagiarism.
Evers' Department of Public Instruction staff in a recent state budget request, and in past requests, plagiarized several portions of the plan from various Internet sources, including Wikipedia.
Walker tied Evers to Biden, who was accused of plagiarism in law school and of copying portions of a speech he gave during the 1988 presidential campaign.
"Irony: Joe Biden, who had to drop out of the presidential race because of a plagiarism scandal, is in for Tony Evers who has his own plagiarism scandal," Walker tweeted Tuesday.
In Milwaukee, Walker said he thinks there are “a lot of students in the state that deserve an answer from Tony Evers about why they are held to a higher standard than Tony Evers.”
“To bring in a guy who literally had the biggest plagiarism scandal in American political history, it’s just remarkable, the irony, and remarkable, how tone deaf they are," Walker said.
Campaigning will pick up in the coming days.
On Thursday, Walker and Vukmir will be joined by House Speaker Paul Ryan on a bus tour. Separately, Vukmir will campaign with Kellyanne Conway, counselor to Trump.
Democrats will also crisscross the state. Evers and Barnes begin their bus tour Wednesday while Baldwin also continues her road trip.