After spending much of 2015 in small towns in Iowa and New Hampshire, Gov. Scott Walker is planning a different sort of tour in 2016, featuring scores of invite-only listening sessions in spots across Wisconsin. Credit: Rick Wood

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Madison— After spending much of 2015 in small towns in Iowa and New Hampshire, Gov. Scott Walker is planning a different sort of tour in 2016, featuring scores of invite-only listening sessions in spots such as Osseo, Ashwaubenon and Kewaunee.

The listening tour across Wisconsin follows a year that saw an unsuccessful presidential campaign by Walker and an erosion of his approval rating among state voters. The listening tour, which has already made seven stops, including one in Milwaukee, represents a recommitting by the governor to his official role and a fresh sign that he may run for a third term in 2018.

In the lengthy sessions with audiences of 20 to 30 people, the Republican governor is asking invitees what they want the state to look like 20 years from now.

"I call it our 2020 Vision Project," Walker said in his "state of the state" address Tuesday. "The idea is to bring together a diverse mix of people in small group settings all across the state. I want to hear from you about what makes Wisconsin great, where we want our state to be in the next two decades, and how we should measure success."

In response to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel request, Walker's office released the list of invitees to the events so far, the notes taken during the sessions and the feedback afterward from attendees, which was largely positive.

The invite list showed a mix of veterans, farmers, local officials, pastors and business owners, with some Walker donors among them and a few people who had signed the petition to recall the governor. During the state's 2011 and 2012 recall elections over Walker's repeal of most collective bargaining for public workers, it was common for protesters to show up at the governor's events.

On Dec. 17, Walker visited Prairie du Chien, telling the local newspaper, the Courier Press, that his office is planning "100 of these across the state next year."

One of those in the Prairie du Chien audience was Mike Lieurance, commander at the American Legion Post in Lancaster and a County Board member.

The discussion touched on issues from caring for veterans and dementia sufferers to keeping roads in good repair, Lieurance said. There were discussions of allowing local high school students to spend time at machining and welding businesses to let them explore those professions.

"It was two hours, and I wished it could have gone a little longer because there was a good discussion," he said, adding he didn't see the talk as overly partisan. "I never got the feeling that I was getting twisted one way or the other."

A political independent, Lieurance said he voted against Walker in his first 2010 election but then voted for him during the 2012 recall because he opposed that use of the recall.

Lieurance, who didn't favor Walker's run for president, said the meetings could help the governor reconnect with Wisconsinites.

Like Lieurance, many attendees wrote afterward in feedback that they wanted to keep talking even after the two-hour meeting was over about topics such as keeping taxes low and bettering the lives and learning of poor students in Milwaukee.

One thing the meetings may not do is convince Democrats, who have questioned why the governor's meetings with citizens in government buildings such as the city halls in Prairie du Chien and Osseo aren't open to anyone from the public who wants to attend.

Russ Feingold, a former Democratic U.S. senator running in a rematch against GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, said he benefited as a senator from his practice of visiting all 72 Wisconsin counties at least once a year. Those meetings made him aware of a range of issues, from the threat from blue-green algae in Wisconsin waterways to the value of increasing mileage reimbursements for retirees who wanted to do more volunteering.

Feingold made those listening sessions open to the public, and that wasn't always pleasant during the emotional debates over President Barack Obama's health care law in 2010. Many opponents showed up to criticize Feingold for supporting that law, but Feingold said the broader feedback of an open meeting was worth it.

Otherwise, Feingold said, "you're going to have a pre-selection process and you're not going to get the full picture."

Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick gave a different view, saying politics didn't play a role in the invites.

"As we've said, we are working with wide-ranging groups of people to coordinate these events. This includes working with local and elected officials, as well as community leaders," Patrick said.

GOP lawmakers such as Reps. Gary Tauchen of Bonduel and John Nygren of Marinette helped identify people to invite to the meetings.

Nygren, for instance, helped set up a meeting in Ashwaubenon on Jan. 15 that dealt with issues of substance abuse and prevention and that brought together police, addiction counselors and health professionals. Nygren, whose daughter Cassie has struggled with heroin addiction, has worked extensively on fighting drug abuse.

Nygren said he was pleased with how the session went.

"It's not a typical staged political event," Nygren said.

In a Dec. 10 visit to the Seymour Public Library, Walker spoke to insurance agents, a school superintendent, sheriff's deputy and several retirees.

One of the two dozen people in attendance was Rhonda Strebel, a Shawano city council member and the executive director of the Rural Health Initiative, which checks farmers for conditions such as high blood pressure.

Strebel said the meeting focused more on the good things happening in Wisconsin and a strategic vision for the future than on more immediate issues that attendees saw in their community and their specific agendas.