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Gov. Scott Walker offered an ambiguous answer when asked about the state's minimum wage at Friday's debate.

“I want jobs that pay two or three times the minimum wage,” Walker said, adding, “The way you do that is not by (setting) an arbitrary amount by the state.”

Does that mean the first-term Republican governor opposes a minimum wage on principle?

During Tuesday's meeting with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Editorial Board, Walker was asked to clarify his position. He didn't hesitate.

“I'm not going to repeal it,” Walker said. “But I don't think it serves a purpose because we're debating then about what the lowest levels are at. I want people to make, like I said the other night, two or three times that.”

Walker said he wants to help people get the skills they need to find careers that pay many times the current minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour.

“The jobs I focus on, the programs we put in place, the training we put in place is not for people to get minimum wage jobs,” he said.

Liberal groups and labor organizations immediately went on the attack, tearing into the governor for saying he doesn’t think the minimum wage “serves a purpose.”

First out of the box was American Bridge — a Democratic Super PAC — which had video of the quote posted before the Editorial Board had concluded.

Then Walker came under fire from his campaign foe, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke. She has said she wants to raise the minimum wage in three stages to $10.10 an hour.

“Well, I disagree with it entirely,” Burke told Journal Sentinel reporter Bill Glauber in response to Walker’s comment earlier in the day. “It's important that people who are working fulltime are able to support themselves without government assistance. That's just sort of common sense.”

She said that reducing the number of people on the public dole would reduce the state budget and improve the economy, adding that many business owners she knows supporting increasing the minimum wage.

“I want to make sure people are able to have the pride of having a full-time job and supporting themselves,” Burke said.

A number of liberal websites — such as Talking Points Memo, Huffington Post and Think Progress — jumped on Walker’s comment.

Finally, a top labor official tried to take the governor to task.

“For nearly a century, American workers have relied on minimum wage protections,” said Stephanie Bloomingdale, secretary-treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “Now is not the time to take away these important laws,” she continued. “Now is the time to raise the minimum wage so that people who get up and go to work every day can have a decent standard of living.”

This is the second remark from the debate for which Walker has come under strong criticism.

In the first, the governor said, “We don’t have a jobs problem in this state. We have a work problem.”

Burke and other Democrats ripped the statement, suggesting he is ignoring the fact that Wisconsin trails other states in job growth.

Walker countered in a 30-second ad earlier this week.

He has said the statement at the debate concerned the so-called “skills gap,” the notion that good jobs in the state aren’t being filled because of a lack of trained workers.

“Mary Burke is distorting my comments on jobs,” Walker said in the commercial. “It’s no wonder. The tax-and-spend policies she supports drove out good-paying manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin.”

The two candidates for the state’s top office will square off again Friday, sparking a second round of debate — and TV ads — over what is meant and said.