Posted on 07/17/2015 5:06:42 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
EVERY four years, when presidential primary season rolls around, Republican voters long to find a new Ronald Reagan. This year a striking number of conservatives wonder if Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin might fit that bill—in such numbers that Mr Walker shot into the top ranks of a crowded Republican field, as soon as he made his White House run official on July 13th.
Activists are not on a literal-minded quest: their new Reagan need not look dashing on a horse, or flash a film-star smile. That is lucky for Mr Walker, a Sunday-schoolish preacher’s son whose own supporters, at his campaign launch, hailed him as an “Everyman”, and—in a moment of high Midwestern praise—“like a Boy Scout”. Republican primary voters mean something more specific when they sigh for Reagan. They long to believe that they can win national elections without being asked to compromise on conservative principles. They think the key is finding a new Great Communicator, with the knack of making self-reliance and low taxes sound better than free stuff from the government.
At Mr Walker’s campaign launch, held in Waukesha, a rock-ribbed Republican suburb of Milwaukee, the word “Reaganesque” saw heavy use. Activists called their governor a masterful advocate for limited government, traditional family values and thrift. They all cited the largest political fight of his career: his move to restrict the powers and funding of public-sector unions, prompting Democrats and leftist allies to mount furious counter-protests and finally to call a special election to sack him in 2012, which Mr Walker won easily. Supporters contrasted this with Mitt Romney’s failure to win Wisconsin in the presidential election five months later. Disastrously, Mr Romney had appealed to moderates, explained a retired teacher at the rally: “You have to stick to your views and draw people to you.”
Vying to stand out in a Republican field that currently numbers 15 presidential hopefuls, Mr Walker presents himself as Reagan’s true heir. He calls himself a reforming governor with a record of both fighting and winning, drawing a contrast with his rivals from the Senate, who—in his telling—fight Barack Obama in Congress but cannot stop him, and his fellow governors, who know how to win elections but seem unwilling to fight. In his 40-minute announcement speech, delivered from memory, he listed such conservative achievements as his battles with the unions, curbs on abortion, looser gun laws, a total of $2 billion in tax cuts and the imposition of drug tests for welfare recipients. If such reforms can work in a Democratic-voting “blue” state like Wisconsin, they can work anywhere in America, he declared.
Mr Walker certainly has a Reagan-like talent for humanising policy debates. In a section denouncing Mr Obama’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran, he told a story about tying ribbons round trees as a child during the American Embassy siege in Tehran. He then informed the crowd, to delighted cheers, that a former hostage from Wisconsin who was freed “on President Reagan’s first day in office”, was among them at the rally.
That folksy style combined with a hard conservative edge has served Mr Walker well in such early primary campaign states as Iowa, where he leads opinion polls. Yet Mr Walker is selective in his memories of Reagan. It was not just wordplay when Reagan was called a “happy warrior”. Reagan did not just love America as a patriot, he liked it, viewing Americans with a boundless optimism. True, Reagan attacked welfare cheats and big government. But he also told Republicans that even as they reformed America, they could not “leave anyone behind,” notes Arthur Brooks in “The Conservative Heart”, a new book. Mr Brooks, who runs the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, argues that Reagan is misremembered when modern conservatives recall only what he was against, from high taxes to red tape. (Mr Brooks does not say, but might have, that Reagan was also perfectly willing to compromise when he saw a greater good, regularly enraging the doctrinaire right). In his book Mr Brooks cites Reagan’s speech to the Republican National Convention in 1980, in which the future president talks of caring for the needy and stimulating new opportunities for the jobless, “particularly in the inner cities.”
On the stump Mr Walker essentially ignores inner-city voters, younger voters or non-whites: growing blocks with whom Republicans fare poorly. In his 2016 announcement, he did not even touch on immigration. Too often, he sounded like a scold. “Work, that’s what we stand for,” he declared at one point. He flatly asserted that in America opportunity is equal for all, with final outcomes up to each individual—as if worklessness is a choice. His audience, many of them grey-haired pensioners, lapped it up.
The 80s revival
There is a logic to Mr Walker’s approach. At the age of 47, he has spent his whole political career in what amounts to a demographic time-warp. Mr Walker may love to talk of winning in a left-wing state, but in fact Wisconsin is only reliably Democratic once every four years, when a presidential election brings out hundreds of thousands of additional voters, many of them blacks from Milwaukee. In governor’s elections, electorates are consistently smaller, less urban and more conservative. In 2014 Mr Walker won re-election as governor of Wisconsin with 56% of the white vote, in an 88% white electorate (he won just one-in-ten black votes). In a neat coincidence, Reagan won the 1980 presidential election with 56% of the nationwide white vote in an 88% white electorate. The problem for Republicans is that America as a whole no longer looks like Wisconsin: in 2012 whites were less than three-quarters of the national electorate.
Scott Walker is a formidable addition to the Republican field. He is better placed to unite such party constituencies as evangelical Christians, blue-collar conservatives and business bosses than any other candidate. But until he has more to say to the America of 2016, how can he call himself Reagan’s heir?
“You start in Iowa and lock up conservatives, because if you don’t do that, none of the rest matters,” said one longtime Walker adviser, who requested anonymity to discuss campaign strategy. “It’s much easier to move from being a conservative to being a middle-of-the-road moderate later on.”
There is only one man who comes even close to have the philosophy of Ronald Reagan and it sure the hell isn’t Scott.
Here, you forgot to put the link to the piece you’re going around FR posting in an attempt to hurt Walker. I’ve quoted [the unnamed source] at more length and added another story by the same writer [where actual, named people are quoted], in the same publication.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-election/scott-walker-presidential-campaign-20150712
....”You start in Iowa and lock up conservatives, because if you don’t do that, none of the rest matters,” said one longtime Walker adviser, who requested anonymity to discuss campaign strategy. “It’s much easier to move from being a conservative to being a middle-of-the-road moderate later on.”
The adviser added: “In Iowa, you see the beginnings of that. He’s capturing that conservative wing first and foremost, and then moving from Iowa to the other states and bringing other voters into the fold.”
The rationale for Walker’s candidacy has always been his unique ability to bridge the Republican divide, appealing to both the conservative and moderate wings of the party while also presenting himself as the type of wholesome, aw-shucks everyman who appeals across party lines.
It worked in Wisconsin. But everything is more difficult, and more scrutinized, on the national stage. Can Scott Walker continue to have it both ways? We’re about to find out.”
“...Relatability is an increasingly rare commodity for politicians. But Walker, pacing the stage without notes Monday, with his light-blue shirt buttoned down and his sleeves rolled up, has proven in Wisconsin that he has it in spades.
“He’s a Midwestern, all-American boy. And that’s what we need right now—not somebody from the East Coast or the West Coast,” said Debi Gillingham, a 60-year-old retired mail carrier from nearby Franklin. “We need someone who understands us.”
“He’s honest. We can trust him. He’s a common man,” said Glenda Rose, a 52-year-old Waukesha native who owns a cleaning business.
Shawn Wagner, Rose’s lifelong friend and fellow Waukesha native, interjected: “He’s one of us.”
These are the voters Walker has wooed in Wisconsin over the past two decades—first as a state representative, then as Milwaukee County executive, and finally as governor. And they are similar—demographically and ideologically—to the voters he’ll be courting next door in Iowa.
No, Reagan Did Not Offer An Amnesty By Lawless Executive Order
Were taxes lower when Reagan left office?
Why don’t you tell us.
What is your point?
Did you EVEN read this piece?
Thanks for posting that whole link (sorry but I’ll have to ‘cherry pick’ again) but I’m sick and tired of any politician equating themselves as ANOTHER Ronald Reagan. In the link was...’...while also presenting himself AS’...
This is the problem I have with a lot candidates who HAVE TO present themselves AS, when BEING themselves would rule out their chances of ever being a serious contender.
I may have missed the times when Ronald Reagan rode into campaign stops atop his horse in full cowboy gear to ‘appear as’, he didn’t have to.
There are way too many republican politicians who are trying to morph into his rock solid beliefs and claim as their own.
Did he dress in the ‘Harley Mode’ as Governor, if not, then he’s just being disingenuous.
Walker isn't portraying himself as another Reagan, the author of this article just claims that's what he's doing.
Where is there a Walker quote or a named person in that?
He certainly was channeling Regan in his announcement speech the other day.
[I’m sick and tired of any politician equating themselves as ANOTHER Ronald Reagan]
That statement was my own that expresses my own anger which leads me to doubt ANY politician who claim to be something that their not.
In Scott Walkers case, I would have much greater respect for him if he got the hell off his Harley, take off the Harley gear he using on the campaign trail and just be the same as he was as an effective and successful Governor.
He’s off the Harley almost all the time.
You seem to be looking for things to criticize.
He’s didn’t just decide to ride a Harley.
And Walker did a good 40 minutes with Hannity after his announcement.
http://conservatives4palin.com/2015/07/gov-scott-walker-%E2%80%A2-one-on-one-%E2%80%A2-hannity.html
He's had his own bike for about 8 years. What's your problem?
[What’s your problem?]
I don’t have one. I just don’t wear blinders to narrow my vision, I think it’s great he has a nice ride to get around but when he has to use it and his clothing accessories as a prop to use to convince us he’s just a ‘every day man’, he devolves into pandering.
He has a great history as Governor...he should use THAT.
He does!
You’re the one who seems to want to pigeon hole him.
Let’s celebrate not just tear down.
[Let’s celebrate not just tear down.]
I DO celebrate his courageous history as Governor but, I guess, he feels that he has to connect to the moderates and democrat -lites for votes.
It’s just a disappointment for me.
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