To get talent, Wis doesn't need a marketing campaign. It needs to remove Walker and WisGOP

Wisconsin’s “Economic Development” slush fund organization thinks they have a plan to counteract the state’s brain drain and low population growth. The strategy involves throwing taxpayer dollars to our south to do it.

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. launched the $1 million marketing campaign Monday — the first of its kind in state history — with a series of ads contrasting cramped subway cars and apartments in Chicago with cheaper rent and faster commute times in Wisconsin.

“The choice is yours,” states one ad featuring paddlers on Lake Monona with Monona Terrace gleaming in the background. “In Wisconsin, the average commute is less than 22 minutes, so you can spend less time traversing the rails and more time in the sun exploring our 15,000 lakes. Wisconsin. It’s more you.”…

The ad campaign, which runs through June 30, targets 21- to 35-year-olds with idyllic scenes from 15 locations around the state, including Madison, McFarland, Monona, Milwaukee, the Milwaukee suburbs, Green Bay, Appleton, Portage, Nekoosa, Wausau and the Ashwaubenon forest. (1 of 1): 0:17

It includes advertising on social media and other websites, posters in health clubs, coasters in downtown Chicago bars, and ads on the interior and exterior of Chicago Transit Authority trains. WEDC also has redesigned its InWisconsin.com website to provide job, housing and lifestyle resources for those looking to move to Wisconsin.

That sounds nice, but there’s a problem. What WEDC says is so good about Wisconsin is being taken apart by the GOPs that are running this state.

To prove this point, on the same day that WEDC rolls out this $1 million campaign talking up Wisconsin’s scenery and higher quality of life, this bill advanced in the GOP-run State Legislature.

A Wisconsin Senate committee voted along party lines Tuesday to advance a bill that would eliminate all of Wisconsin’s state air pollution regulations.

Under the proposal, the state Department of Natural Resources would have the option to reintroduce those regulations. All existing federal regulations would continue.

"All we're asking is that our scientists at the DNR just take a look at all the things that they regulate above and beyond the EPA, and make sure that it still makes sense," said Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, one of the bill’s sponsors. "If it does, we'll regulate it. If it doesn't, based upon what the scientists say, we won't."…

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute support the bill. The American Lung Association, the Sierra Club and the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters oppose the plan.

Yeah, I’m sure a group of Donald Trump/ Scott Pruitt appointees will go heavy against polluting corporations in Wisconsin. C’mon, they’ll look the other way just like they did last week when it came to Foxconn filling wetlands in SE Wisconsin.

And also on the same day that WEDC launches a campaign, to encourage people to come to Madison for its quality of life, Governor “Divide and Conquer” has this to say about the city whose metro area has added the most jobs and people to the state in his tenure.

The last thing we need is more Madison in our lives. @Paulsoglin is the latest extreme liberal who wants to take our state backward -- just like he did in Madison, where businesses have left and murders have gone up. We want to go forward.

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) January 10, 2018

This is also the same Governor who ran against Tom Barrett in 2012 saying “We don’t want the rest of the state to look like Milwaukee,” with the race-baiting connotations clearly intended. Does Governor Dropout realize that the millennials that you are trying to impress have the Google, and can see what you have done and said about the two cities they are most likely to want to come to?

And this fact isn't helping to bring anyone with talent and options to the state, either.



I’ve got an odd concept. Instead of Republicans who play divisive political games and try to stir up resentful rubes in dead-end dying towns, maybe we should elect public officials who are concerned with having ALL Wisconsin communities get better, and promotes the entire state.

And instead of giving lip service to quality of life in our ads, maybe we should pass policies that expand on our (shrinking) advantages in natural scenery and public education, and work to improve our public transit and infrastructure instead of defunding it. And maybe our companies should pay competitive wages on a scale of bigger metro areas like Chicago and the Twin Cities, instead of us having the lowest manufacturing wages in the Midwest?

Scott Walker and the Republicans would rather mess up the good things that we have (or had) in this state in favor of more ALEC-written crap from campaign contributors. And it’s especially foolish to think that the people we want to attract to come to the state won’t see through the empty words of WEDC if they do 5 minutes of research, and realize this is a state that will be in decline as long as WisGOP is in control.

So if WEDC is serious about getting people to come here for their careers and settle down here, I have a simple answer. Return Wisconsin to the progressive, beautiful and fun state that we had before 2011. You know, the time before Scott Walker and the corrosive slime that accompanied him decided to disassemble everything that made people want “Escape to Wisconsin”?

And as an extra perk, we won’t have to waste $1 million in taxpayer dollars on ads that won’t work on anyone with an IQ above bug level.