BUTLER, Wis. – A former lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, declared her candidacy for governor in the November 2022 election. Anticipating that Democratic Governor Tony Evers will seek re-election, Kleefisch said she would be a strong governor and called him weak. Kleefisch spent eight years as lieutenant governor under Republican Scott Walker Her announcement of her candidacy for governor was at an event at Western States Envelope factory in Butler northwest of Milwaukee in Republican-stronghold Waukesha County. In a campaign video, she vowed that unlike Evers, she would back police and fight special interests. Capitalzing on her 2010 cancer surgery to attack Evers, she said: “They literally cut out half my guts. Even with half my guts, I still have twice as much guts as Tony Evers.” Kleefisch is the best-known Republican to announce her candidacy. Others who have filed candidacy paperwork:
> Adam Fischer, a Marshfield Common Council member.
> James Kellen, press operator at CSI Media in Delavan.
> Leonard Larson Jr., a Menomonie truck driver.
> John Macco, a state representative from Green Bay.
> Bill McCoshen, a longtime lobbyist in Madison,
> Kevin Nicholson, a former Marine unsuccessful for the U.S. Senate in 2018.
> Jonathan Wichmann, a digital marketing executive in Milwaukee.
The Republican primary is next August 9.
56-point platform
Among Kleefisch campaign promises:
> Sign election reforms to discourage absentee voting.
> Restrict access to abortion.
> Prohibit federal gun-control initiatives.
> Hire 1,000 more police officers.
> Ban sanctuary cities.
> Deploy the Wisconsin National Guard to secure the U.S. southern border.
> Expand the private school choice program e.
> Ban banning the teaching of critical race theory.
Kleefisch. If elected, she would become Wisconsin’s first woman governor. She is 46.
Kleefisch profile
Kleefisch won the Miss Ohio Teen USA title in 1994. She worked as a television reporter in Illinois and then T WISN in Milwaukee. At the station she met her future husband, former State Representative Joel Kleefisch. She first run for office as lieutenant governor in 2010 and won a five-candidate GOP primary. Less than two weeks before the primary she was diagnosed with colon cancer. The tumor removed. Kleefisch’s tenue in Scott Walker’s eight-year renure, including surviving a 2012 recall election. She was a key in Walker’s heralded deal to use state subsidies to lure Taiwan electronics manufacturer Foxconn and to the Racine and create 50,000 jobs. Walker was conned, and the plans shriveled. In previous campaigns, Kleefisch was known to misspeak. At one point she said there was “no consensus that people have caused climate change.” Sometimes she was surreal. On aa Christian radio program she asserted that extending domestic partner benefits to gay state employees could lead to approving marriage to dogs or furniture. Later she apologized for a “poor choice of words.” During the 2018 campaign, Kleefisch repeatedly claimed that a rival candiiate, Mandela Barnes, didn’t stand butknelt during the national anthem at the state fair. It wasn’t true. Again Kleefisch found herself apologizing. After the 2018 election and Walker’s loss of the governorship, Kleefish found work in Washington as executive director of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission. A year ago, Kleefisch formed a conservative policy group, the 1848 Project, “to work with policy experts to draft evidence- based solutions to the problems.”