Posted on 04/24/2015 7:19:44 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
In this election, the mainstream media — always subconsciously eager to remain the palace eunuchs in the Democrats’ Forbidden City — will back Hillary or whomever the Democrats nominate. Should a Republican win the White House, the shrill cries over the miniscule “sequestration” cuts to domestic spending in 2013 will be but a mild preview of what’s to come. The Obama legacy and these challenges are why many Republicans want to nominate an experienced governor to run — preferably one with a revolutionary flair and serious political skill.
Jeb Bush announced his exploratory PAC in mid-December, and led most Republican polls for the next month. In late January, Scott Walker wowed the audience at the Iowa Freedom Summit, and rivaled or surpassed Bush in polls for the two months that followed. This month, Marco Rubio declared his candidacy; two brand new polls now show him on top.
Is this a high-speed version of the 2012 primary season, in which nearly every dog had his day, but then got unceremoniously packed off to the pound? Are Bush and Walker toast?
Nope: there’s something to admire in each of the major Republican candidates, but the two more prominent governors are still likely to be the frontrunners. Furthermore, Walker has an edge when you consider how Republican voters see the world today. Their concern is that President Obama has not merely adopted harmful policies that any Republican can reverse, but that he has put big government and American retreat on autopilot.
They have a point. Economically, there are long-term consequences to making policy based on views like Obama’s assertion that, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” and Hillary Clinton’s admonition that, “don’t let anyone tell that, ah, you know, it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.” The consequences include a workforce participation rate that has declined during the Obama era to only 63 percent — the lowest since Jimmy Carter was president. Federal debt now tops $18 trillion, income tax rates are higher than any time since the Carter era, and the economy is being kept barely afloat by a drunken-sailor monetary expansion whose ultimate consequences are unknown but likely perilous. None of this will be remedied easily.
At home and abroad, the security picture is equally bad. The next president will face a faltering war against ISIS, radical Islam on an unchecked rampage, and newly confident adversaries like Iran, Russia, and China in expansionist moods. Confronting these threats will require effective tools of statecraft and allies willing to cooperate. But Obama has hollowed out the military and destroyed our traditional allies’ confidence in us — problems that will take more than just soothing words to fix.
Socially, Obama has undermined the bedrock of our culture. Americans worked hard to make their country the greatest multicultural society since ancient Rome, largely by getting better at ignoring skin color and gender and instead judging people by the content of their character. But this president, who was supposed to usher in a “post-racial” America, has instigated the most racially obsessed period in decades. Thinly evidenced accusations that racism and sexism pervade our society have become an addictive weapon for liberals. Far from being a passing trend, our next generation is being indoctrinated at universities with the view that our nation is corrupt and evil, and that victimhood trumps merit. Today’s liberals are already planting the seeds of tomorrow’s liberals. Democrats and even some Republicans hope to swell their ranks further still with millions of illegal aliens.
Why is Scott Walker better suited than other Republicans not simply to oppose, but actually reverse these trends? Three reasons:
First, Walker is undeniably effective. In his first term alone, he enacted laws that reduced government spending, cut property and income taxes, turned a budget deficit into a surplus, required a supermajority for any future income or sales tax increase, recognized law-abiding citizens’ right to carry concealed weapons, required a photo ID to vote, and reformed state government.
Second, Walker knows how to interrupt the cycles that liberals use to perpetuate the growth of government. In 2011, he signed legislation that limited government employees’ unsustainable benefits and union privileges. The move balanced the budget and stopped forced payroll deductions that unions used to lobby for ever-bigger government. This year, Walker extended reforms to the private sector by signing right-to-work legislation that prevents forced unionism. He has also sought reform at state universities that provide an academic elite with cushy lifetime jobs while saddling students with crushing debt and decreasingly useful degrees.
Third, Walker is temperamentally suited to win office and force real change. It’s one thing to be a conservative politician in a conservative state. But Walker has achieved massive reform in a state that historically was a stronghold of the other party. His 2011 fight to disempower the government unions caused perhaps the biggest political freak out so far this century. Walker stood his ground with quiet confidence and effective, disciplined communications. How many senior-level officials in today’s GOP would have done the same?
Those personal traits also enabled Walker to prevail in three gubernatorial elections, including a recall election in which the unions and national Democrats threw everything they had at him. Voters see in Walker a calm authenticity and an alternative to the hackneyed rhetoric and identity politics of recent years. He is disciplined and appeals to more than just Republicans.
In this election, the mainstream media — always subconsciously eager to remain the palace eunuchs in the Democrats’ Forbidden City — will back Hillary or whomever the Democrats nominate. Should a Republican win the White House, the shrill cries over the miniscule “sequestration” cuts to domestic spending in 2013 will be but a mild preview of what’s to come. The Obama legacy and these challenges are why many Republicans want to nominate an experienced governor to run — preferably one with a revolutionary flair and serious political skill.
Put simply, if you want to win a revolution, wouldn’t it be handy to have a leader who has already won one? Scott Walker did — deep in what used to be liberal territory.
Nice to have someone who isn’t an Ivy Leaguer. Cruz is the only acceptable one in that category.
We could do a hell of a lot worse and ever since Ronald Reagan left the white house on January 20, 1989, we have.
Walker/Cruz or Cruz/Walker. Either one is fine with me.
Walker is my guy.
Agreed!
Walker is a Rubio clone. He’ll say things while he’s campaigning that he’ll “grow” on as soon as he takes office.
Walker has some significant baggage that will certainly prevent his election if not his nomination.
First, he is tied in very tightly with the GOPe (Priebus, Ryan, and Rove). The GOP has a terrible image among voters (much worse than Hillary and the Democrats). Walker’s association with the GOP will come back to haunt him.
Second, Walker’s Wisconsin record is tarnishing. Wisconsin ranks 35th in job creation since 2011. He is not terribly popular in his state (unlike Ted Cruz in Texas). Walker has been a very controversial governor, and he is even unlikely to win his own state against Hillary! It is usually a given in strategic electoral politics that a candidate will win her/his own state. Starting behind the eight ball in one’s own state is stupid.
Third, Walker has stumbled whenever he has spoken extemporaneously on topics he is not familiar with - monetary policy and foreign policy to name a couple.
Fourth, Walker has been absent on the great issues of the day for conservatives. He was silent when Ted Cruz was fighting Obamacare, he is squishy (at best) on amnesty, and he is not vigorously fighting homosexual marriage.
Walker is not going to generate the necessary enthusiasm among disaffected conservatives to defeat Hillary.
Still the likely nominee? Walker has never been the "likely nominee". Just one of several candidates who have a good shot at it.
That’s my bumper sticker.
Another positive on Walker is that he’s recently begun to question legal immigration. Walker ought to build on that, call for an immigration shutdown and appeal to blue collar voters, such as those in his part of the country who sat out the last election.
Obama's pitted the races against each other... it'll never go back to where it was... In the long run it might be a good for the country. Forced politeness isn't all it's cracked up to be.
What Republican are you backing?
You seem terribly uninformed about Scott Walker, I'll go so far as to say that you are purposefully campaigning against him.
In the future prove links to your cherry-picked and out of context "points."
Walker has battled and beaten this kind of campaigning before. Right now he is in the midst of the battle over Wisconsin's 2-year budget, and it is normal for his numbers to drop.
Re Obamacare? Have you seen, reviewed, the proposed 2015-17 Wisconsin state budget? I didn't think so.
Btw, Scott Walker didn't expand medicare (said it was the usual bait and switch and the state would end up with the bill in the end) and he (Wis) is one of the states signed on to Abbott's Obamacare lawsuit.
It's one thing to talk about it, it is quite another thing to have to deal with it (and under constant assault from unions, a recall election and a John Doe anal exam). He won 3 elections in 4 years.
Go support your candidate.
Bookmarking your comment as reference; perfectly stated I would like to use it just as you wrote it in the future if you don’t mind, Walker is not near ready for POTUS, maybe in another 8 years, but in times such as these we need a leader who knows how to STAND in any direction 360degrees a man whose compass is straight and sure, not just against an enemy here and there but against all who want to destroy our Constitutional Free Republic. That man is IMO... CRUZ 2016!
And I forgot my manners.
Welcome to FR.
In a Walker Administration, I would like to see positions for:
Sarah Palin-—Sheriff Joe Arpaio-—Ben Carson & many others. Someone help me fill in more blanks.
Trey Gowdy as AG.
1. Rove hates Walker.
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/02/karl-rove-bashes-scott-walkers-refusal
He’s obviously in tight with Ryan — in the sense he’s from the same state and has to work to message tightly. But Ryan assumed office in 1999, more than a decade before Walker, so Ryan is hardly a product of Walker. Priebus is also from Wisconsin, so is a natural Walker ally: but he’s hardly in the Mccain-Bush-McConnell-Cornyn-Hastert camp.
2. Wisconsin has a stable population, uninflated by hordes of immigrants. So there haven’t been the sort of huge numbers of low-paying jobs that have gone to the states invaded by immigrants. And its unemployment was never nearly as bad as other states’. But its unempoyment rate is great: 4.5%.
3. I can’t rebut a mere assertion without example.
4. The singular GOP-e vs the grassroots issue is immigration. And Walker’s current position on immigration — one he admits has shifted to the right since being elected — is the best of any candidate. Hell, Ted Crus is pushing to give Obama Fast-Track authority to subject immigration to a NAFTA or even EU-like authority.
I like Ted Cruz. I would be thrilled if he won. But I hate this circular firing squad that conservatives made in 2008, 2012, and are making again now in 2016.
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