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SACRAMENTO-

Republican Governor candidate Neel Kashkari says his time spent posing as a homeless man in Fresno last month was an admitted attempt to get publicity for his campaign for governor.

Kashkari appeared at the River City Food Bank saying Governor Jerry Brown was “hiding” from the jobless and business climate issues.

The millionaire Wall Street financier and former Treasury Department official says he survived a week in Fresno on $40 dollars while trying to find a job.  A YouTube video posted by his campaign showed him sleeping on the streets and asking employers for work.  He was unsuccessful.

Kashkari said at a press availability that his goal was to get the press to confront Governor Brown on issues he was ignoring.

“It was a way to bring all of you here and to force Jerry Brown to have a discussion on these issues because if we just let him go, he’s just going to hide,” Kashkari said.

Gary Stevens and his family were at the food bank to collect groceries they need to survive on his minimum wage job.  He was impressed with Kashkari’s efforts.

“Knowing that he would sleep on a park bench, I don’t know of any other rich person that would,” Stevens said.

Food Bank client Michael Cook, who was a Jerry Brown supporter, has switched his support.

“He wants to experience it first hand, just to kind of see, because if you don’t know what the situation is out there, then it’s hard to make a difference,” said Cook.

But while Kashkari may have won some points among the poor and homeless, his solutions are straight out of the Republican playbook of helping business prosper rather than providing short-term aid to the needy.

“It’s reigning in regulations so our businesses can grow and hire, it’s tapping into oil and gas and it’s bringing manufacturing back,” said Kashkari.

Kashkari says drastic creative tactics are needed to bring issues that Brown is ignoring to the forefront.  His homeless video garnered national attention, the kind of publicity that could help his campaign.  The latest polls show Brown has a 20 percent lead.

That means Brown won’t feel the urgency to engage Kashkari on the challenger’s terms.