Mandela Barnes: 'I'm not running for the Senate to join the Squad or any group of lawmakers'
Bill Glauber
OSHKOSH - From the outset of the general election campaign, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes has been hit with a barrage of negative ads by Republicans.
The messages portray him as holding views outside of the political mainstream, tying him to the progressive lawmakers dubbed 'the Squad' that includes U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Barnes' response? "Put it like this," he told the Journal Sentinel Thursday. "I’m not running for the Senate to join the Squad or any group of lawmakers.
"We are doing the work that needs to be done, talking about the issues that Ron Johnson consistently ignores. And we knew out of the gate that they would make up lies and say what they wanted to say."
Barnes and his campaign are trying to focus on kitchen-table issues while keeping the pressure on Johnson, the Oshkosh Republican running for a third Senate term.
And they're also trying to steer clear of any controversy.
Take President Joe Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt.
Other Democratic Senate candidates running in swing states were cool to the proposal, including Tim Ryan in Ohio, who criticized the idea.
Barnes' campaign issued a carefully crafted statement that said, "Barnes supports common sense proposals to lower costs, including some student loan relief and a middle class tax cut."
Barnes spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel added: "The Lt. Governor knows the (Biden) plan will help Wisconsinites but thinks it should have also included support for technical education. We need a middle class tax cut so people can keep more of what they earn regardless of if they go to college."
Barnes has also sought to defuse some criticism he has faced and which Republicans have raised in TV ads. Barnes has said he is not part of the Abolish ICE movement, even though he once posed with a T-shirt with that slogan.
Barnes said he is "for comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship for dreamers and their families."
Barnes also favors eliminating cash bail nationwide. The federal justice system does not use cash bail as a condition of a defendant's pre-trial release.
"It's about keeping people safe," Barnes said. "Under my plan, dangerous criminals don't get to buy their way out of jail."
There is one issue that Barnes and Democrats are leaning in to: Social Security.
And it was Johnson who gave them the opening.
The senator has repeatedly weighed into the subject in recent weeks, first saying that Social Security and Medicare should be part of annual budget talks, instead of mandatory spending.
Then, during a campaign appearance in Rice Lake, Johnson said that Social Security "was set up improperly" and would have been better invested in the stock market.
Johnson has said he wants to preserve America's signature social insurance program, as well as Medicare.
During an appearance at the Winnebago County Democratic office in downtown Oshkosh, Barnes hit Johnson hard on the subject.
"It's clear Ron Johnson doesn't share our values," Barnes said. "He doesn't think that our seniors deserve the benefits that they paid into their entire lives their entire careers."
Barnes said he would "go to the mat to defend Social Security and Medicare" and accused Johnson of putting the two programs "on the chopping block."
Johnson campaign spokesman Alec Zimmerman was critical of Barnes' stance.
“Leave it to a career politician like Mandela Barnes to bury his head in the sand and ignore a politically difficult problem," Zimmerman said. "The reality is Social Security will be depleted by 2035 but Barnes has no plan to protect Seniors, just empty scare tactics and hollow election-year rhetoric.”