It's a day of making up for lost time for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Her surrogates, Bill and Chelsea Clinton, arrived in the Badger State days before she did. So, too, did her TV ads criticizing Sen. Barack Obama's health care policy and asking why her Democratic rival won't debate her in the state. "Why won't Barack Obama debate these differences?" the announcer says in the ad. "Wisconsin deserves better." But when Clinton finally did set foot in the state, she was forced to cancel three rallies yesterday because of inclement weather. She's packing in four events today, stopping at St. Norbert College in De Pere, near Green Bay; at the Wausau Labor Temple in Wausau; then in Eau Claire, in the northwestern part of Wisconsin; and finally in Madison, the state capital. Some 1,200 showed up here at De Pere, the campaign said, though Clinton's staffers had to organize the crowd to make the space appear more packed. "Hey, folks, there are at least 15 more seats here on the side, if you want to move from the back," a staffer told the crowd.
Escorted by Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton -- the first woman to hold that job -- Clinton talked about her economic policies. Earlier in the day, aides passed around a 12-page glossy brochure entitled "Hillary Clinton's Economic Blueprint for the 21st Century." It's detailed and heavily-bulleted, with plans such as "creating at least 5 million new green collar jobs by transitioning from a carbon-based economy to a green energy-efficient economy" and "ending tax breaks for companies that shop jobs overseas and investing those resources in the innovative potential of our own economy." Clinton's been striking economic populist tones in stops in Texas and Ohio, but the campaign was such in a rush to release the brochure that typos were inevitable. On the second page, the brochure read: "Oil prices recently hit $100 a barrel, and consumers are feeling the increased cost at the pump and in their energy bills. Gas is over $3.00 a barrel... " They meant to say $3.00 a gallon, and corrected the mistake when they e-mailed the brochure to reporters later. "The middle class is the backbone of America," Clinton said in her speech. "It's time to take care of the middle class again."