Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says Gov. Scott Walker could have avoided next week's recall election if only he had focused on jobs as he promised, and not gone after his political opponents.

The Democratic mayor appeared on CNN on Sunday morning. He told anchor Candy Crowley that he believes recall elections should be rare, but that Wisconsin is facing a rare instance.

He says Walker didn't campaign at all about his intentions to attack workers. Barrett says the governor had already extracted concessions from public workers, but then he went further and tried to permanently disarm them. Presumably he was referring to Walker having stripped collective bargaining rights from most public workers.

Crowley says she invited Walker to appear on her show but was told his schedule was too tight.