Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, is one of two announced Democrats running against Gov. Scott Walker in a potential recall election.

Vinehout, 53, spent 10 years as a dairy farmer and 10 years teaching health administration to college students, before being elected to public office in 2006 and re-elected in 2010.

The Badger Herald sat down with Vinehout to discuss her gubernatorial aspirations.

The Badger Herald: You have got a bit of an irregular story behind you. Do you want to tell us how a dairy farmer of 10 years finds her way into the Wisconsin Senate?

Kathleen Vinehout: My work on federal and state dairy policy with the farmer’s unions eventually brought me to the Capitol. After giving testimony one day, some of the senators came up to me after a hearing and said I should run for the Senate.

I went back home and started to do the math on my district. I realized the current incumbent Republican had won because Democrats had voted Republican in the district. I could see how to get the votes and win, and that’s when I seriously explored running for Senate in 2006.

BH: You mentioned your work with unions and your work as a professor. What do you think about the state’s largest teacher union already endorsing Kathleen Falk in the race?

KV: I think it’s a mixed blessing for both candidates. The blessing for Falk is she has the endorsement, but the downside for her is she has a lot of people who are angry with her.

The upside for me is others become interested in my campaign because they see me as the grassroots or populist campaign. The downside is the loss of independent expenditures that come with the endorsement, like the outside money that won’t be going to the campaign but money that will go to direct mail and ads.

BH: While we are on the issue of elections, if you ask any politician about money and politics, they will say it is horrible, but then nothing gets done about it. What would you do to ensure more fair elections in Wisconsin?

KV: First of all, the redistricting needs to be done by an independent agency like the Legislative Council. It actually would be easy to make that happen.

The council already has the computer programs that help the local government draw their lines in order to make them compliant with the federal government. All you have to do is set the law, and let them do it.

Another bill we’ve been trying to pass for years is a disclosure law. It takes the veil off of the people saying the nasty things so we can look behind the shadow groups and see where the money is coming from.

BH: If you were to be elected, what would be some of your main goals?

KV: First, we need to heal the divide in the state. We need to set a tone of respect while we debate the differences. We need to stop pitting public versus private and business versus labor. Build that common ground and a fresh start.

Right now, we have a budget that is a big mess. Colleges are in much worse shape. Tech colleges are going to get worse. There’s a whole lot that needs to be repaired. What I want to see is a bill come forward to repair the damage that has been done to our education’s infrastructure.

BH: Do you believe the education cuts over the last year were a necessary thing for tough economic times, or were they something that could have been avoided?

KV: No, no, we should not have cut education. It provides the wisdom of the workers to enter the workplace. It’s that engine that drives job creation. The last thing we should have done is cut education, not the first thing. We didn’t just cut it. Our cuts to K-12 were second highest per capita in the country. It wasn’t just a little whack, but a really big one.