Katherine Lymn, and Madeleine Behr

Post Crescent

APPLETON - Former President Bill Clinton, making a campaign stop here on behalf of his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, took a swipe at GOP front-runner Donald Trump for wanting to build a wall on the country’s southern border.

“Building a wall is a bad idea,” he told a crowd of 650 Friday morning at Lawrence University in downtown Appleton.

“We can do this," he said in reference to creating a stronger middle class, "but we can’t do this until we tear down (economic) barriers.”

The remark brought the biggest cheer from the crowd during Clinton’s 50-minute stump speech for Hillary. The event at Lawrence was the first time a former president had visited the campus, said Rick Peterson, an LU spokesman.

Related: Guide to candidate events in Wisconsin

Related: Clinton in good company as Lawrence visitor

The former two-term president rolled through downtown Appleton, stopping at Copper Rock Coffee to chat with customers before making his way to Lawrence's nearby Warch Campus Center.

Hillary Clinton has been campaigning in Milwaukee and Green Bay ahead of Tuesday's Wisconsin primary. She will be making stops in Madison and Eau Claire on Saturday.

Her husband did the honors in Appleton. The Warch Campus Center, overlooking the Fox River, filled up quickly with supporters after the doors opened at 9:30 a.m.

A recent Marquette University poll showed Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in a statistical tie for Tuesday's Democratic primary election. Among likely voters in the primary, Sanders led with 49 percent to Clinton's 45 percent, with 6 percent undecided. The difference between the candidates falls within the poll's margin of error of 6.3 percentage points.

During his speech, Bill Clinton also hit Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for making cuts to the University of Wisconsin System budget and for implementing voter ID requirements at the polls.

His talk to the crowd of mostly college students was policy-heavy, touching on Hillary Clinton's ideas to reform Wall Street, to lower the cost of college and diversify the country's energy usage, which he said would bring jobs by creating new wind and solar energy infrastructure.

Clinton also mentioned his wife's early work before politics, where she went undercover for a civil rights advocate to investigate segregation in Alabama schools in the 1970s.

"That was gutsy for 40 years ago," he said.

Clinton spoke highly of his wife, saying she is the only candidate with both strong ideas and relevant experience.

"Experience is a dry, old term that old people like and young people don't," he joked.

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, who introduced Clinton at the campus event, told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin he was not concerned about poll numbers showing Clinton behind with young people in Wisconsin.

The Marquette Law School poll showed Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders with 83 percent of support from Democrats ages 18 to 29 in Wisconsin.

"As a senator, I’m really interested in getting things done," Franken said. "I’m not going to break down poll demographics.”

Ahead of Clinton's talk, State Rep. Amanda Stuck (D-Appleton) spoke of her first time seeing Clinton when he campaigned in Wisconsin in the 1990s.

Stuck talked about visiting a fourth grade classroom for the first time as legislator earlier this year and getting this question from a female student: “Can girls be president?”

“Come November, I hope no little fourth-grade girl has to ask me that question," she said.

For 58-year-old Suzi Perlewitz — one of a few baby boomers arriving early — getting in line by 6:30 a.m. for the 10:30 a.m. appearance was a must to see Clinton up close. She said she saw Hillary Clinton at her Green Bay campaign stop earlier in the week, and proudly displayed her "selfie" with the candidate.

Friday, though, was about Bill.

"I got to vote for him twice," she said.

Lawrence University students Abbi North, Natalie Ortega-Wells and Becca Tapia got in line about 7:30 a.m. They said LU professors encouraged students to come to the event. The majority of students by Friday had been to one campaign event or another, North said. Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders was at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, and Republican Donald Trump was across the street at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel on Wednesday.

"A lot of people have gone to Sanders," North said. "But this is on our campus."

Madeleine Behr: 920-996-7226 or mbehr@postcrescent.com.Katherine Lymn: 920-996-7232 or klymn@postcrescent.com