Tom Barrett in The Atlantic

On Crime: My police department arrests felons instead of hiring them

The ad in question, being aired by Walker's campaign, opens with the blurred face of a 2-year- old who died after being hospitalized for child abuse. "But Tom Barrett's police department didn't consider it a violent crime," the narrator intones, going on to conclude that Barrett "isn't telling the truth."

The Milwaukee police department failed to correctly report many violent crimes, making the city's crime statistics look better than they actually were. But Barrett contends that the ad's emotionally charged imagery all but accuses him of killing a small child.