Posted on 03/19/2015 7:45:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Sometimes the most inside-baseball political stories tell you something essential about a presidential candidate. That's what happened this week to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who apparently wants to win the Iowa caucuses so badly that he's willing to torch his staff and his reputation to do it.
The Walker campaign recently announced that it had hired Liz Mair, a highly regarded Republican consultant. Mair has also played pundit at times, and is generally more pro-gay rights and pro-immigration than the average Republican. But that's typical of Republican consultants in general. It is assumed that policy is set by the candidates themselves, not by the people advising them on their social media accounts.
However, Mair's hiring was subject to an unusual amount of scrutiny. Muckrakers on the right pointed out that Mair supported "amnesty" for immigrants who had entered the country illegally, or something like it. The Des Moines Register ran an article highlighting some sharp remarks Mair had made about Iowa's distorting influence on national politics, with its first-in-the-nation status forcing candidates to embrace Iowa's agricultural subsidies and a federal mandate that requires fuel-inefficient ethanol to be mixed with all gasoline. And finally, Jeff Kauffman, Iowa's GOP chairman, suggested to The New York Times that Walker should give Mair "her walking papers."
Mair was gone. Officially, she resigned.
Forcing Mair out was like amputating your finger to deal with a paper cut. Instead of having a problem with a few Iowans and a writer at Breitbart.com, Walker has now baffled his admirers across the right. Mair's resignation signaled that Walker's team either didn't do its homework before hiring Mair, or that it was too spineless to defend her. It is hard to believe the former, since Mair consulted for Walker before during his 2012 recall.
Walker's unwillingness to defend his own hire will give other consultants and policy experts jitters before joining the team. It totally undercuts his reputation as a tough-minded fighter who stands on principle. And it may contribute to an alternate interpretation of Walker as a 'fraidy cat. Earlier this month, Walker caved to Iowa ethanol interests by reversing his position on the federal mandate.
The problem, in other words, wasn't the tweets of a single staffer, but the way Iowa's parochial concerns act like kryptonite on Walker's convictions and reputation. He can certainly recover from this, but if Walker thinks his path to the nomination runs through Iowa, he needs to figure out how to win that state's caucuses without turning into Tom Vilsack before he arrives in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Walker's approach also contrasts badly with Jeb Bush's. Bush has been hiring policy brains and strategic brawn from across the right and center-right. He recently hired the social conservative legal activist Jordan Sekulow. Jordan is the son of Jay Sekulow, a pioneer in forming the modern right's commitment to religious liberty issues at home. The hire was not well-received in the media. It was described as a "lurch to the right." A number of stories bringing up Jordan Sekulow's support for anti-gay rights laws in Africa popped up across the media.
Did Bush panic and throw Sekulow under the bus? Nope. He assumes, correctly, that adults won't confuse the positions of one of his hires with his own. And as it happens, having people who disagree with you on staff is incredibly useful.
If you were a top expert, a policy-thinker, or a consultant, which candidate would you want to work for? The guy who tosses his people out on the say-so of an Iowa Republican whose name he had just learned, or Jeb Bush, who doesn't give a jus exclusivæ to his enemies?
How would Walker handle a tough Supreme Court nomination battle against a united Democratic Senate, if he folds instantly after some whinging from a right-wing muckraker? Until this week, Walker supporters could have pointed to his white-knuckle fight with Wisconsin's public-sector unions. Now his critics can point to the way he cowers before a few rotting corn stalks.
Sarah Palin isn’t running.
Who in the &%$# said she was?
Just thought you might still be having delusions that she might.
I reject the author’s premise.
Go peddle your old, stinky fish somewhere else. It’s 2015, not 2010.
The silliness of the blogspasm on the “Mair/Walker affair” is... amusing.
Forcing Mair out was like amputating your finger to deal with a paper cut. Instead of having a problem with a few Iowans and a writer at Breitbart.com, Walker has now baffled his admirers across the right. Mair’s resignation signaled that Walker’s team either didn’t do its homework before hiring Mair, or that it was too spineless to defend her. It is hard to believe the former, since Mair consulted for Walker before during his 2012 recall.
That’s the meat of it right there.
By not defending the hire they look like they got caught with their hand in the amnesty jar.
Go peddle your old, stinky fish somewhere else. It’s 2015, not 2010.
_________________________________________________
It sure is, and thanks to the idiots who stayed home in 2012, we’re witnessing the final destruction of our nation by a known Marxist. With “patriots” like you, we’ll be stuck with Jeb as our nominee, and Hillary or Elisabeth Warren as our President.
We will know who is our best choice for presidential candidate in 2016 by watching who the MSM is heaping the most scorn upon.
It has always been so...
They will let us know who they fear.
I like Scott Walker’s election track record...he’s not perfect, who the hell is?
Freepers appreciate all the fine posts you put up 2DV ... please ignore anyone posting stupid comments to you.
Don’t blame us for this mess...blame the GOP. They got us into it by shoving “moderates” like Dole, McCain and Romney down our throats...LOSERS, everyone of them.
And now that we’re in this mess...they do absolutely NOTHING.
Ya think Walker found it amusing too?
The article is putrid punditry, written no doubt by union-loving goons convinced Walker’s success against them was a matter of luck.
They did...And it's stuck there...
Perhaps Walker doesn't have his finger on the pulse of the nation but rather the pulse of the media, or Washington...
The internet is a wonderful thing...Maybe Walker is just finding that out...
The twit tweeted insulting tweets about Iowans. Not exactly a brilliant strategy for someone serving politicians.
Pressure built; she resigned.
And now The Week calls Walker weak....as they push for Bush.
>>The internet is a wonderful thing...Maybe Walker is just finding that out...<<
Oh, yeah, he’s just a babe in the woods...no experience at nothin’...’cept taking the unions to school...cutting Planned Parenthood clinics in WI....introducing a widespread voucher program in his current budget...cutting the UW professoriate budget (we all love them, right?)...answering a half dozen gotcha questions without managing to create a single memorable “gotcha” soundbite....and now, just finding out about the internet...Riiight...
Meanwhile, the subject of this story, whose idiotic tweets had generated about 4,000 unfavorable comments along the lines of...”I thought I could support Walker, but now....” has unceremoniously resigned, as she should, having learned her lesson: don’t drink and tweet. (made that last part up, but it would explain her dilemma, assuming she’s a professional.)
Well it confused the issue. He evolves into the Cahmber of Commerce “path to citizenship, they should stay if they want to work here” view, then not just a couple weeks ago changes his mind after catching criticism from conservatives, and then two weeks later hires pro-amnesty Mair to run his communications for his campaign - not a small hire.
And we have idiots here who blame conservatives for “bashing Walker” when ALL OF THIS has been self-inflicted.
I guess.
It’s an insight into the narcissistic nature of the blogosphere and social media.
Reminds me of the “I’m eating a ham sandwich meme”.
I know several people who have been appointed to jobs by Walker. The final question all of them got was, “Have you done anything we haven’t talked about that could embarrass the governor or his administration?”
If she wasn’t up front about those tweets, she would be gone for not being forthright during the vetting process.
...and we all tend to forget that the endless John Doe investigation of Walker began when he asked for an investigation because he suspected someone in his administration was embezzling funds meant for veterans.
Walker will clean house when someone fails him.
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