Posted on 11/20/2013 1:44:18 PM PST by SoConPubbie
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is urging Republicans to keep a strict focus on the pocketbook concerns of voters in coming elections — and avoid social issues that have been the party’s Achilles’s heel in some recent campaigns.
Walker, a potential presidential candidate in 2016, also told The Hill the GOP can shed its reputation as the “party of no” only if it offers creative alternatives to Democratic policies they oppose, like ObamaCare.
“For us politically, it doesn’t make sense for us not to be focused on the fiscal and economic issues,” he said in a Monday interview.
“The left wants us to get off of economic and fiscal issues because they know in my state, and across America, that’s where Republicans have the edge.”
Walker, one of several Republican governors eyeing a White House campaign, argued Republicans “have a convincing case to make” to younger, more libertarian-leaning voters on fiscal issues if they can avoid alienating them on other matters.
Asked about gay marriage, an issue that is currently dividing the GOP, Walker said: “I don’t talk about it at all. I don’t talk about anything but fiscal and economic issues in the state.”
Walker, who is promoting a new book, Unintimidated, wouldn’t promise to serve a full second term as governor if reelected in 2014.
He said it “would be nice” to have a full four-year term to target his legislative goals, without all the “commotion” of the recall election he faced in 2012 amid a nasty fight with Wisconsin’s public sector unions.
But Walker pointedly refused to rule out a 2016 White House run.
“It’s flattering for people to mention some other office, and who knows what the future will hold, but I’m focused on my current office,” he said.
Walker said his ideal candidate for 2016 would be a governor “outside Washington who has a proven record for reform.”
One of the chief problems for the GOP in the 2012 election, Walker said, is that Republicans failed to articulate a positive vision for voters to embrace.
He ripped Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, for failing to explain what he’d do as president.
“Right after my recall I was asked, literally the next day, could Mitt Romney carry Wisconsin? And I said absolutely, if he shows the ‘R’ next to his name stands not just for Republican but for reformer,” Walker said.
“My frustration was feeling the Romney camp was advising their candidate that all they needed to do was focus their attention on how bad things were under Barack Obama, that that would be enough. The Obama campaign, because [Republicans] didn’t fill that void, was able to make the ‘R’ next to his name stand for rich guy.”
“The last election, the reason social issues came up was because there was a void,” Walker added, referring to Democrats’ charges that Romney and Republicans were waging a “war on women.”
“The lesson after last November … wasn’t that Republicans need to change our positions, to magically be more moderate to win elections. The lesson was we have to focus on the things we care about and lead on those, and those are fiscal and economic issues.”
Walker sought to downplay his own efforts to curtail abortion rights in the state.
He’s signed bills into law to cut state funding for Planned Parenthood, tighten requirements for abortion providers and require women seeking abortions to first get ultrasounds.
“I signed hundreds of bills the last couple years. There’s literally a handful that relate to that issue,” he said.
“I’m still pro-life. Not having a highly controversial organization like Planned Parenthood take state taxpayer funds, instead relying on counties, gets some activists worked up, but taxpayers say, ‘What’s the big deal there?’ ”
Walker also declined to discuss an ongoing John Doe investigation in the state into whether his campaign and outside conservative groups broke any campaign laws during Wisconsin’s recall election.
“There’s no reason for me to comment on it. There’s only two ways — if someone’s been directly involved, they legally can’t comment on it, and if they haven’t been involved, they don’t know what’s going on,” he said.
Walker had kind words for both New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and his friend, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
“Paul Ryan’s one of those unique leaders in there that, even though he’s in Congress, has some chief executive in him,” he said.
When asked about Christie, Walker defended the New Jersey governor from right-wing critics who question his conservative credentials.
“I think Chris Christie is a conservative. I don’t buy that he’s a moderate. There’s an issue or two, but that’s true for everyone,” said Walker, who compliments Christie several times in his new book.
“Chris, like me, took on the unions, took on the teachers union; he passed pension reform. Most of the grief he gets politically comes more from his embrace of the president around when Hurricane Sandy hit. He’s a pretty outspoken conservative.”
Walker has been critical of last month’s federal government shutdown, which was engineered by the House GOP with encouragement from Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Mike Lee (Utah).
He said his reforms to Medicaid in the state — moving many on Wisconsin’s rolls into the private insurance market by giving them vouchers — was an example of thinking outside the box and coming up with the type of solution not found in Washington.
“The lesson learned with that is we shouldn’t be the party of no, of austerity. We should be the party of reform. … The larger point is, we have to offer a viable alternative to ObamaCare,” Walker said.
Well let’s all say “yes” to a world powered by magic crystals, where pixie dust is money, ham trees in every back yard, and skittle-crapping unicorns flying over rainbows fill the sky.
Now who could vote “no” to that?
It ain’t the Republicans who are the party of NO growth, NO jobs, NO hope, NO healthcare NO hope etc...
Now Cruz is coming out with his own healthcare “plan”.
When are these guys going to realize that the conservative way is to keep government OUT of healthcare, not to engage in a urinating contest over who can screw it up worse?
I don’t trust any Republican to come up with the ultimate solution for healthcare any more than I do the Democrats.
It’s a free market issue. Not the business of government, if you’re a conservative, that is.
As a citizen of WI - I recognize that Gov. Walker is totally unshaken by leftist media. He’s a great governor for our state. He has a comptroller’s logical mind - he is fast with the delivery of economic facts, knows numbers and can achieve results. He has been the very opposite of the poor management under union-controlled Democrats, bureaucrats and teachers. The country’s problems are deeper than that, the citizenry’s problems are deeper than that. The Middle Class is genuinely trapped and being eaten up by both those in high places as well as low. As a debater, Walker appears to be flawless. He is an ally and bridge builder (even though the left sees him as exclusively a lightning rod) - even so, he’s not someone the R party is going to push, we know who that will be already. No candidate will ever be endorsed that challenges the establishment.
Exactly.
Walker shouldn’t be using democrat talking points. The republican party is not the party of no.
Does Walker think the GOP must always offer alternatives to bad Dim policies and legislation? Sometimes the best alternative is to do nothing. Or, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Maybe we need effective spokesmen who can explain why bad Dim policies are bad, and why doing nothing is often the best policy.
There are times for the GOP to offer legislation, but I'm not impressed with any politician whose starting poing is that we must offer alternatives to all Dim proposals.
Like Christie, maybe Walker's best course is to continue as the governor of his state.
Well, so much for Scott Walker.
For the nation to survive, the Republicans must become the party of “HELL NO!!!”
Exactly. What part of the word “no” do they not understand?
Cruz said that he would release a bill to empower Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines, creating a "true national market." Insurance can only be purchased intra-state at present.Before you reflexively post something negative about Senator Cruz, please do some research.
"In the coming weeks, I intend to layout a plan to provide exactly that, a plan to repeal Obamacare altogether and at the same time expand options for five million-plus people, who have lost their health insurance and 300 million people across this country to expand their options to have affordable, personal, portable health care," Cruz said.
It ain’t the Republicans who are the party of NO growth, NO jobs, NO hope, NO healthcare NO hope etc...
FRiend, you left out a few. No budget, no negotiations, no rule of law, etc., etc. The real party of No are the Dems.
Walker should be strongly objecting the "party of no" designation, which is just a derogatory tag placed on the GOP by the 'Rats and their lackeys in the media. What the heck is wrong with saying NO to just about the whole Obama agenda if that agenda obviously destroys the principles on which the country has prospered more than any in the world for over 200 years?
As to Obamacare, Walker undoubtedly knows that the GOP in Congress has already put forth "creative alternatives," ideas like high deductible health insurance plans with tax-deductible medical savings accounts, permitting the purchase of health insurance across state lines, portability of health insurance policies from job to job, more flexibility for the health insurance policy holder in choosing plans, and meaningful medical malpractice tort reforms to reduce costs. Republicans are capable of explaining that introducing more health insurance plan choices available to the citizen is by far a superior concept to the unworkable top-down statist control of health care marketplace with rationing, exemplified by Obamacare, and will provide greater access to quality health care with lesser inflationary pressures on costs.
Perhaps Walker, a neophyte coming to Washington, was intimidated by talking to the left-leaning "The Hill" and was trying to avoid ruffling their feathers, like too many Republicans have been doing in DC for decades. Hopefully, Walker will get more feisty with leftist media if he wants to show he is a legitimate contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.
I thought we already were that party...
Walker on the GOP
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
He’s losing his bonafides rather quickly.
Lol - maybe a bit too much.
I really started paying attention when 9/11 happened. I couldn’t believe how it affected me - I cried for days for you guys.
Thanks justiceseeker93. I like Walker, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat, but my feeling is, we need him right where he is in order to transform the party’s political fortune in his state. That will bear good results at the state and federal level going forward. He’s young enough to seek the office of POTUS for a long time yet.
What Walker is doing is not being typecast as an angry, fire-breathing right-winger. We need to get the libertarian voters folks into the GOP fold, they're about as important to the base as social conservatives are. And Republicans, although they should never try to run as "moderates" to appeal to people who won't vote for them anyway, have got to sell conservatism in language that appeals to everybody. This is what Walker is doing, rejecting the Left's premises and talking about results.
Yeah, let's talk about it. You reduce the size of government and cut taxes, everything else will take care of itself.
I always found it a little sad when the trees in my yard lost all their leaves on the same day. I think that’s an apt analogy here.
Governor Walker is a conservative. But he appears to be bendable at a time when we’re tired of bending.
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