Presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Missouri, campaigned in Wisconsin over the weekend. The legislator held a fundraiser and question-and-answer session in Milwaukee on Saturday.

Gephardt labeled President Bush a failure on foreign policy and the economy. Speaking to campaign contributors at a reception, Gephardt added that he is the most qualified of the nine Democrats running for president to turn the country around.

“We have an economy that is losing jobs at an alarming rate,” Gephardt said. “This president is failing America and America’s workers. He’s lost 3.2 million jobs in just two and a half years. In Wisconsin, you’ve lost over 50,000 jobs, many of them in manufacturing.”

However, Gephardt’s concerns for Wisconsin jobs received criticism from his presidential opponent Howard Dean’s campaign.

Dean for America’s Wisconsin State Coordinator Mike Tate issued a statement attacking Gephardt for his $500-a-plate fundraiser, which he said limited the people able to hear him speak on the issues.

Tate compared Gephardt’s fundraising luncheon to Dean’s visit to Madison on Oct. 5, where Dean spoke to thousands of students at the University of Wisconsin and collected donated food and money for striking workers at Tyson Foods, Inc. factories in Jefferson County.

“Gov. Dean is a proven leader; he governs and gets results because he doesn’t waste time with talk. And he is already working to help the people of Wisconsin,” Tate said.

Gephardt’s stop in the state followed an event in Michigan en route to Iowa, where he spoke on trade and the global economy.

Although Gephardt supported the president after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the former House leader from Missouri sharply criticized Bush for his failure to win the support of the international community in waging a war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“He’s arrogant. He’s a cowboy. He does not work with other leaders around the world. I would. We need a president who will,” Gephardt said. “This is a failure of diplomacy, a failure of foreign policy.”

Wisconsin’s senior House Democrat, David Obey, and state Assembly Minority Leader Jim Kreuser, D-Kenosha, joined Gephardt at the news conference. Both have endorsed Gephardt for president.

In a poll conducted by the on-line news service wispolitics.com in late September, Gephardt placed fourth among Democratic candidates with 11 percent of the likely Democratic voters saying they supported him. The poll also found that about one-third of Democrats in the state are still undecided.

This month three Democratic candidates, including former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and President Bush have visited Wisconsin. Plans are also in the works for a campaign visit to Madison by retired North American Treaty Organization commander and Democratic candidate Wesley Clark at the end of the month.

Since Wisconsin moved its primary to Feb. 2004 it has become a key state for presidential campaigns.