Neumann pays visit to Democratic Convention

One of the Republican candidates for governor crashed the party at the Democratic state convention over the weekend.

Republican Mark Neumann served two terms in Congress in the 1990s, but he's worked hard this campaign to craft an image as a political outsider. So the reception he got from supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett outside the convention may have been exactly what he was looking for.

About 50 of them swarmed around Neumann as soon as he set foot on convention center's driveway. He says “politics in America is a great exchange of ideas, and that's what it should be about."

Neumann took questions not only from members of the press but also from Democratic activists. He answered most of them, although he declined to give specifics on where he'd cut the budget as governor. With TV cameras rolling, Neumann also gave them his campaign pitch for lower taxes. He says while he respects everyone around him, “they cannot afford Tom Barrett to be our next Governor."

Neumann staged a different scene at the Republican convention a few weeks ago, bussing in supporters without credentials to suggest that they were being banned from the GOP convention.

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