“Take a look at the lack of leadership. Take a look at the lack of security,” the Republican senator said during a campaign stop. “There is one word on Wisconsinites’ minds — security. They are looking for some security. They’re hungry for leadership.
“They’re not finding security. They’re realizing after six-and-a-half years of President Obama and these liberal or progressive policies that their job security has been reduced, their income security has been reduced, their retirement security, their healthcare security.
“Look at Paris, look at ISIS, our national security has been reduced. So what this country needs, this state needs, is individuals who understand what made this country great.”
Johnson was in the Fox Valley Friday to receive the endorsement from Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin in his race against former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.
After the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, Johnson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, told Gannett Wisconsin Media that the U.S. should invade the Islamic State caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
“It’s high time that we make a commitment in the world that Islamic terrorists have got to be wiped off the face of the planet,” he said. “Because if we don’t, every day that ISIS survives, every day that they are not overtly losing, they are perceived as winners and perceived as winning and they’ll continue to inspire adherents to this barbarity.”
At the ABC endorsement event Friday, Johnson also said not enough lawmakers in Washington have worked in the private sector, so “they don’t understand how hard it is” to grow a business.
Johnson was the owner of PACUR Inc., a plastic sheet manufacturer out of Oshkosh, before winning a U.S. Senate seat in 2010.
ABC is a national trade association of construction workers that touts a “merit shop form of construction” with both unionized and non-unionized workers. The Wisconsin chapter is the largest ABC chapter in the country and represents 800 construction firms in Wisconsin.
The announcement occurred at the construction site of a new 17,000-square-foot warehouse for Interstate Batteries near the Fox River Mall.