Announcement: All Canvassers Back in Wisconsin & Lit Funded

Audio added of the fired up crown at Tommy Thompson speech, when the legendary 4x Governor and best known Presidential Cabinet Director of HHS tells a conservative gathering John Pudner is “probably the best brain power on elections in the country.”

https://www.youtube.com/@FFCWisconsin will feature audio of these speeches. If looking for national, non-Wisconsin news from our partners click on https://freedomandfamilyaction.com/. 

This weekend we had the chance to spend time with two Wisconsin legends of conservative Catholicism (Cardinal Burke) and politics (Gov. Thompson) from the past 50 years:

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke is pictured with Pudner after a two-hour Mass celebrating the La Crosse Shrine’s 18th anniversary, with more than 1,000 people packing the church. It has become a favorite destination for the tens of thousands of “Trads” (traditional conservative Catholics) Cardinal Burke drew to this diocese in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District following his appointment by Pope John Paul II in 1994 and through his decades of clarifying traditional Church teachings, particularly at times when statements by Pope Francis left many American Catholics confused on issues like marriage. 

While this Mass had nothing to do with our voter outreach, it occurred in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, where Wisconsin Faith and Freedom reached 117,000 voters at their churches and homes in 2024 with the pictured comparison piece featuring the same two candidates planning to rematch in November.

Four-time Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson more than honored our President, Pudner, when he introduced him to a Dane County crowd Saturday as “probably the best political brain in the country.” While Thompson rightly referred to our canvassing teams winning elections all over the country, his more-than-kind introduction happened to come on the weekend that our entire team of field directors returned home to Wisconsin for the 94-day sprint to Election Day.

Pudner and WIFFC Executive Director Kelly Herrell crisscrossed the state this weekend, logging 1,200 miles between them and meeting up only at the pictured event in Johnson Creek with Wisconsin Assembly Champion of Women’s Sports Barbara Dittrich and Christian singer and Pastor Gene Schmidt, who donated sales of his popular CD to Wisconsin Faith and Freedom.

The following is a very lightly edited version of portions of the introductions by Mike Herl, who will host an exclusive event interviewing Pudner in Dane County in September, and the much-too-kind introduction of Pudner by four-time Governor Tommy Thompson.

Tommy Thompson (having just been introduced by Mike Herl): I’m speaking all over the state for candidates. I don’t need to do that because I’m not running, even though I wanted to.(laughter from crowd)

John, stand up. John Pudner is my friend, and he probably has the best brainpower on elections in the country. John Pudner wins elections all over the country. He’s got an organization, (Wisconsin Faith and Freedom), that I’m fully behind and supporting. He is getting people out to knock on doors for candidates all over the United States, and I want to thank him. (though the canvassers had just all arrived back in Wisconsin).

If you’d like to help him, please do, and sign up.

John, I’m not gonna knock on doors for you! (laughter from audience) But I will get you some people to help. Great job. I’m not knocking because I am speaking for these great candidates all over the state.

I don’t really believe what’s going on in our state, in our country, and in this world. We are the bastion of freedom. We’re standing between America, our republic, versus socialism, and it’s as simple as that. And we’re either going to win, or we’re gonna live under something that you and I don’t want. That’s why I’m out here today in the rain, like you, because I believe in America.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine John (points to another John in the crowd, not Pudner) here getting beat up? Gets beat up by some thugs.

Today’s liberal would say, “Oh no, we don’t call the police. We call the social worker.” The social worker is gonna go, “Oh, John, they beat you up? Oh, too bad. Did you say anything wrong to make them beat you up?” And you say, “There were six of them, only one of me.” And the social worker says, “But were you nice to them?” Well then, you probably don’t even need this social worker.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, this election is all about that. It’s all about whether or not we’re going to have social workers or policemen; whether we’re going to obey the Constitution or not; whether or not we’re going to support the executive branch of government and the Supreme Court, or whether we’re not.

So, ladies and gentlemen, may the road always rise to meet you, and may the wind always be at your back. And may the sun shine warm upon your forehead. Until we meet again, may God walk with you. God love you.

God love Wisconsin, help us, and God love the great United States of America. (applause)

Mike Herl: That was Tommy Thompson, and he is the greatest cheerleader for Wisconsin you’ll ever find.

We just had a train of cars coming in, so I think a lot of people waited until the rain stopped. God bless you for coming out early and getting a seat.

At this time, I’m going to bring up Mr. John Pudner.

You heard all the great words that Tommy Thompson had to say about him. He’s with Wisconsin Faith and Freedom, and he is going to explain what he’s up to these days, and possibly make an announcement. So please welcome John Pudner. (applause)

John Pudner: (Holding up the 2024 candidate comparison piece featuring Congressman Derrick Van Orden vs. Rebecca Cooke on one side and Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris on the other, with bilingual copies in Spanish and English.)

I cannot wait to get home tonight and tell my wife that Tommy Thompson introduced ME. She will probably worry I’m going senile and ask if I meant that I got to introduce Tommy Thompson. And I’ll have to insist, “No, really, Tommy Thompson introduced ME,” and she won’t believe it.

We do have a big first-time announcement. Some of you saw me leading off the Trump 2024 surrogate bus tour (while also offering to speak at any Democratic events that year) to launch our effort distributing 402,000 of these side-by-side comparison pieces at churches and homes.

I’m happy to announce that, just yesterday—this is a first-time announcement—we got funding to print 150,000 of these, so I will have them available for those who want them immediately after the primary. They go in churches as well as homes, and in addition to printing them, yesterday we also got funding to pay for door-to-door canvassers to get 30,000 of them to targeted homes, and we think we’ll do more.

And let me say something. I know when you’re a volunteer—and I’ve volunteered and knocked on doors since I was 12 years old—sometimes you ask why some people are paid for it. Let me explain that these paid canvassers are committed conservatives who walk and knock on doors for 10 hours a day, and it can be thankless work. They get to thousands of doors, but we need you to help us get the rest out through your networks and churches.

And because Governor Thompson mentioned we do stuff all over the country, I want to make a second announcement: every canvasser we have is back in Wisconsin today to work through this campaign cycle. We ran canvassing in some Southern primary states (including Alabama, where the primary is complete, and Tennessee, where we just finished canvassing). We keep them canvassing between Wisconsin efforts, like these next three months, so they don’t go off and take other jobs outside conservative grassroots work. Every canvasser who was out of state reconvened this weekend in western Wisconsin to organize how we will distribute these during the final 94 days of the election.

They will work tirelessly, but we also need you to sign up today to take some and get them to your friends, your workplace, your church, and your neighborhood once we print them after the primary.

The same canvassers who knocked doors throughout Wisconsin in 2024—and returned to help turn out conservatives in northern Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District in the only area where conservative turnout improved dramatically during the Spring 2025 election—are now back in Wisconsin mapping where they will knock doors during the final 94 days before Election Day. Wisconsin workers are often sent across the country for temporary projects before returning home. Michels Corporation, for example, sends hundreds of Wisconsinites to help build projects such as New York City’s subway system and President Trump’s pipeline from Canada before they return to their families in Wisconsin. Our Wisconsin-based canvassers operate the same way. As Governor Tommy Thompson noted earlier, we canvass all over the country whenever there is not an active Wisconsin project.

Our canvassers had a little joke in 2024 about if someone at the door starts by saying they hate Trump. Canvassers would hold up this comparison piece and jokingly say, “Oh, I hate him too, and this literature shows you that this election is about whether you want a candidate who would allow fentanyl to flow through an open border, and men who identify as women to play against your daughters in sports. Or if there are 67 genders.”

You need to meet the person where they are. And after reviewing all the issues, many voters said, “Oh well, I may hate him but I see …”

And let’s at least give credit to the Democrat frontrunner. She’s telling us up front what she’s for. Normally that’s not the case, but we’ll help document it. So this is the tool we’re going to give you. If anyone wants to get these, we have to print them right after the primary.

And the last thing I do want to mention here is we do a bilingual version of this too.

And actually, give a lot of credit. A lot of conservative Spanish speakers don’t want it just in Spanish—they want it in English, too. We particularly focused on Catholic Spanish-speaking churches in 2024, whether outside after a Mass or in an evangelical church. If you have Spanish-speaking friends, please ask us for a bilingual version too.

In 2020, Donald Trump received 49,000 votes from Spanish-speaking Wisconsinites. In 2024, after we reached all those churches—and I’m not saying it was just us because we just give information and don’t tell people how to vote—he received 85,000 votes from Spanish-speaking Wisconsinites. That’s 36,000 more votes. You take those away, that’s a 7,000-vote loss in the state.

So, obviously we’re talking about millions of votes overall, but if you have a particular niche at church or Spanish-speaking friends, ask us for these too. We have them both.

Just please help us pass these out. It can really turn out the vote and educate your friends, your family, and your church members. Don’t assume they’ll show up. They have to be motivated, see what’s on the line, and actually get to the polls in November.

So thank you. Wisconsin Faith and Freedom’s sign-up sheet is over here.

Applause