Nusbaum joins Howard Dean campaign By Sarah Riley News-Chronicle When former Brown County Executive Nancy Nusbaum first heard an interview with Howard Dean a year and a half ago, she knew she liked him. Since then, her support of the Democratic presidential candidate only has grown stronger. She believed in his platform so much she decided become a campaign organizer for this part of the state. "I always knew I had a predisposition to him," Nusbaum said. "What really struck me at the time was his position on healthcare." Nusbaum, the former county executive and De Pere mayor, now travels the state in her position as executive director of the Wisconsin Department of Justice Office of Crime Victim Services. She splits her time between Madison and her home here, and mostly will limit her campaign activities to the weekends, she said. She will organize the campaign for the 8th Congressional District, which includes 10 counties from the state's northern border to Outagamie County. Nusbaum, a member of the elections reform group Common Cause, said she was impressed by the buzz the campaign has generated and the individual - instead of corporate - contributors to the campaign. "I'm so impressed by the grassroots nature," she said. She said Sen. Russ Feingold had already shown that a major office can be won without taking huge corporate contributions and the time is right for a presidential candidate to do it. "Howard Dean might be the first person to do that on the national level," she said. The Dean campiagn claims to have 10,000 active supporters in the state. She said she heard through campaign officials that Dean was "very much looking forward to coming to Northeast Wisconsin." She didn't know whether he plans to attend the Democratic Party's Bye Bye Bush Bash on Jan. 30. The state's primary is on Feb. 17.