With the primaries six months away, gubernatorial candidates are jockeying for a position in the upcoming elections. Four Democratic candidates will face a heated primary on Sept. 10, and as they face the challenge of defining themselves, only one has begun running TV ads.
UW-Madison sophomore Steve Schwartz, who works for the campaign of Democratic candidate state Rep. Gary George, Milwaukee, said George ran his first television ad March 7 in Milwaukee. Schwartz said the campaign team has many more media plans in store.
\[The campaign team has] a lot of different plans, but budget is always a problem with Gary George,"" Schwartz said. ""He comes from not the richest district and he's never had the most funding.""
George's staff also recently produced billboards that were displayed in 14 different cities across the state. However, a mistake led the advertising agency to print ""George Gary for Governor"" on each of the signs.
""[The mistake] ended up being pretty good because he got a lot of extra publicity for that,"" Schwartz said.
The three other candidates for the Democratic nomination have not yet run ads, but plan on doing so in the near future.
Other Democratic candidates, state Attorney General Jim Doyle and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, will be running ads closer to the election, according to their campaigns.
""It's still very early in the primary campaign; the election's not until September,"" said Doyle's spokesperson Thad Nation. ""We'll have an aggressive media strategy to get out and get our message about who Jim Doyle is and what his vision for the state is. We'll run it statewide. We'll run it strong.""
Falks' campaign ads will be paid for by money supplied by her ""ordinary"" supporters, according to her spokesperson Scot Ross.
""The money Kathleen has raised and continues to raise from ordinary folks, ordinary people, all around Wisconsin is going to give her the resources to have a significant statewide presence on TV, radio, newspaper; it's going to show her experience and her vision for the future of Wisconsin,"" Ross said.
Brigid O'Brien, spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, D-Milwaukee, said Barrett's campaign team is currently putting together its media plans and hasn't formulated final preparations for advertisement releases yet.
After the Sept. 10 primary elections, the winner will challenge the Republican candidate, Gov. Scott McCallum. As the primary election approaches, the candidates will face an aggressive yet fair fight, according to Nation.
""[The candidates] have all signed a 'clean campaign pledge' that Jim Doyle proposed last June at the Democratic state convention, so we're going to try to keep this campaign on the issues,"" Nation said.
