President Bill Clinton rocked 4,000 Milwaukeeans in a capacity crowd Friday afternoon, adding Wisconsin as the 29th state he has campaigned in this election season, after rocking Tucson last night with 8,000 in attendance. He was obviously thrilled to be back on the campaign trail, describing it as an "astonishing experience." Looking fit and healthy, he took the stage from Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, after being introduced by the Governor's sons, Gus and Gabe. Extending thanks to the state's politicians for their support, President Clinton extended special thanks to AFSCME's International President Gerald McEntee, who backed him early on in his race for governor, when he "was running 5th out of 6 candidates" – and, quipped Bill, "Hilary and Chelsea were still undecided."

But then President Clinton turned serious, noting that across the country people know that there is something "profoundly amiss in our national life. That basically we’re not relating to each other as we ought to, and our national government is not working." He pointed out that many Republicans are confused, bewildered and dismayed at the direction that a small segment of the party has lead them, governing "by assertion and attack" so it's "not fair to blame all Republicans." Indeed, he acknowledged, "We all are a little red and blue."

"This is not your grandfather's Republican Party. It is the narrowest, most extreme, most ideological strip of the Republican Party that has run both the White House and the Congress for six years. And they basically favor the concentration of wealth and power as opposed to equal opportunity and empowerment. They favor special interest politics over the common good. And they favor ideological division over evidence and argument."

President Clinton spoke about the drastic differences between Governor Doyle and his Republican challenger, Congressman Mark Green and asked, “Why in the wide world would Wisconsin want to import the radical Washington politics to a civil place?"

He described the difference between a political philosophy, where one subscribes to certain values and then reads, discusses and learns more about that philosophy and how it's applied to real life situations, and that of being an ideologue: when "you already have the answers." And he continued that Democrats don't think of America as an "empire" as do some Republican party elites, who consider Democrats to be "trapped in a reality-based world."

"They refer to people like us as lesser political mortals because we are trapped in the reality-based world . . . Well, I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent my whole childhood trying to get into the reality-based world. I like it here. I think we should stay right here."

And deal with reality, he did!

Taking Bush to task for turning the surplus he left behind to a deficit, President Clinton explained that money to finance all that debt must be borrowed from other countries, like China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and even Mexico. So, in some cases we are borrowing money for our debt from countries with much lower annual per capita incomes. "Wouldn't it be better for those countries to use that money for their own citizens than to finance our debt?" he asked. And that debt, he noted, would mean our children and grandchildren will be paying interest, let alone prinicipal, for years to come on debts we incurred.

Certainly gives a new definition to the phrase: "Paying it forward!"

On Iraq, President Clinton praised our troops, saying we can all be proud of those who served, including a friend's son who received a Bronze Star in the Battle of Fallujah and described himself as "the only liberal Democrat Jewish Marine captain" there. But he also berated the Bush administration's policy as creating more terrorists than they have killed or captured, wryly noting: "Stop and think is not the same as cut and run!"

And he listed more reality checks, too: $9 Billion of Iraqi funding missing without a trace; that the number of Washington lobbyists has doubled in 4 years; a seniors' drug benefit that "Einstein couldn't understand" with a donut hole to pass profits to the drug companies; and the Abramoff deal when the White House initially said officials, including Karl Rove, had no contacts with Abramoff – later a congressional report disclosed 485 contacts".

“Why would you replace a governor that raised the minimum wage with someone who preferred to raise his pay instead of the minimum wage?” Clinton asked, referring to Doyle's Republican challenger, Congressman Mark Green, a regular Bush agenda supporter.

Clinton also praised Governor Jim Doyle for balancing the budget in Wisconsin (after inheriting a $3.2 billion dollar deficit from his Republican predecessor, Tommy Thompson) while still funding education and social programs, holding it up as an example Washington should follow.

“If you have the right priorities, you can get rid of the deficit and invest in education. That’s what Jim Doyle did here in Wisconsin,” Clinton said.

Despite all the failings of the past six years, President Clinton chided those Republicans who claim to voters: "You still have to vote for us! The Democrats will tax you to death! There will terrorists on every corner! And immigrants, too!"

President Clinton ended with "we're better than this," and remarked that Republicans "know the wheels are runoff." He asked that we Democrats not "give up on anybody." Just what you'd expect someone to say from a place called Hope.