This campaign is built around a simple idea: We Deserve a Better Legislature. I’ve felt that way for a very long time, and I believe you do, too.

We deserve to have legislators who are dedicated to the issues that matter. Instead, we get games, gimmicks and gridlock. This website will help you decipher the games, see through the gimmicks, and take action to end years of gridlock.

We’ve made it easy for you to sign up online to be a volunteer or donate to my campaign. And you can read where I hope to see you in area parades, festivals and receptions.

You’ll be able to get a quick read of my positions on various legislative issues. You can also see how a good education, generous opportunities, hard work, and generous helpings of love, luck and patience led me to this ability to run for office in November.

We work hard in western Wisconsin, and we deserve effective leadership on issues that matter most to Wisconsin families. With your help, we’ll get it on November 7th.

(Eau Claire – October 3, 2006) – State Senate candidate Pat Kreitlow formally called on Sen. Dave Zien to acknowledge a lie that he told in his latest campaign commercial. Kreitlow made the challenge Tuesday evening during a multi-race candidate forum in Eau Claire. Kreitlow said he wants Sen. Zien to publicly explain why he has resorted to such a desperate attempt to hold onto his job.

“Dave Zien cannot defend his own record and his lack of leadership on health care and middle class property tax relief,” said Kreitlow. “For years, we have had to tolerate Dave Zien’s half-truths, exaggerations, wild claims and distortions. Now that those aren’t enough to protect his job, he’s gone one step further… to the embarrassment of telling outright lies. These are not accidental and mistaken interpretations. These are the “Hey, Dave, your chaps are on fire” kind of lies,” said Kreitlow.

Zien’s most blatant lie says Kreitlow “changed his mind” on the benefits of Health Savings Accounts, which allow workers to shelter pre-tax income for use to pay health care bills at a later date. Kreitlow has written extensively on health care issues on his website. Kreitlow has always said that while HSA’s can be used efficiently by consumers fortunate enough to have extra income to place in them, they should not be a substitute for a comprehensive health care solution that helps provide more coverage to working families. In fact, HSA’s alone only benefit the healthy and the wealthy, while everyone else’s costs continue to soar.

“I knew Dave Zien would try to use my writings as a smokescreen against his own poor record. I just never thought he’d look right into the camera and lie about the words he cherry-picked from my blog,” Kreitlow said. “His whole emphasis on a simple blog entry really leads us into examining his failed leadership in a state where half a million people have no health care coverage and business face soaring health care costs that hold back job creation.”

“Here in the Chippewa Valley we value honesty and trust from our elected leaders more than they do in the corridors of the Capitol or the skyscrapers of the Milwaukee lobbyists. In lying about my position, Dave Zien has not lived up to those higher standards. He has, instead, lived down to our expectations of him… which have sunk throughout his 18 years in politics. We deserve better.”