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.
>>Wake up!<<
Huh...what?...oh, thanks...nodding off for a bit there.
Now, what are you talking about?.....Washington-centric nattering political pundits.....huh?
No, I meant Walker. I’d be surprised if anybody on his team, including Walker himself, expected to rocket to the front on following his Iowa speech....course Rush didn’t hurt him any....
Sorry, didn’t mean for an innocent comment to upset you so....
I’m starting to think the RATS, with the exception of zero and VJ expected Mittens to win, along with everybody else.
The fact that he didn’t has driven them to ruin.
And more ruin to come.
So did mittens throw the elections with his ‘failure’ of Orca, or was that just the cover story?
And if we can survive the next two years, staying home might even have sent the right message, provided we nominate a conservative this time around. Of course, as people keep pointing out, staying home presented risks too. After all, we might actually not survive the next two years, although I’m optimistic that we will, and that we’ll come out stronger than ever.
We are good at dividing more conservative voters in Primaries. GOPe is smart, they back only ONE candidate.
Mitt Vs (Newt+Ricky+Cain+Bachmann) in 2012
McCain vs (Huckabee+Giuliani+Duncan Hunter+Paul) in 2008
Dole Vs (Buchanan+Forbes+Phil Gramm+Alan Keys) in 1996
There are not enough conservative republican voters in the country to anoint multiple conservatives over ONE RINO backed by GOPe.
The GOPe will not change. What needs to change is the other more conservative candidates get rid of ego’s, become unselfish, make some deals and get behind one conservative candidate who seems most electable in general.
In 2016, watch my words....GOPe will back only ONE candidate..Jeb Bush. In their minds he is the most electable. GOPe considers Tea Partiers extreme.
Please read post #64.
Please read post #64.
To be honest, looking at your list of conservative challengers, until this year it’s been pretty slim pickings. I do think this time around will be a different story, however....plenty of good choices from the get go. Of course, you might say that’s the problem?
Probably isn't even a Republican, just like many of these "Republican" consultants.
that we’ll come out stronger than ever.
They have to feel the full pain before they learn to reject it.
First, I like Walker. I like what I’ve seen of his willingness to fight.
Second, I’m concerned that he hired someone soft on immigration. I already observe that its not his issue. He himself isn’t a true-believer on the subject. He has waffled a bit.
As for his consultant, I do notice that he could have defended her and simply said, she is good at what she does, and she doesn’t set policy, I do.
At the same time, I’ve seen his courage under fire on issues where he is invested.
So I’m still willing to consider him as Cruz’s running mate. I still think they’d make a good team.
Michelle Brenda sounds scared.
Glad he dumped her. The fight over her would have been all MSM would have talked about. Made a mistake, fixed it and moved on. Good move.
Muckrakers on the right, no bias there.
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.
Sound familiar? Folks here trash those they do not like because they have been seen within 3 miles of someone who has opinions that they do not like. Then, they re-trash the person if he puts more distance between themselves and the bad influence.
lol
I suppose then he was also a Gutless Wonder when he asked the WI D.A. to look into Kevin Kavanaugh’s actions, which kickstarted the whole multi-year John Doe probe off and running.
I wonder why the author didn’t mention his lack of spine back then?
Never underestimate the perfidy of the left. I wonder if this woman was a Trojan horse. I saw this happen several times in the Army where a non-com was thought loyal to some SGM but had become disaffected. The SGM placed his man in a desired slot only to discover the rat was undercutting him.
Or see Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace circa 2008.
wide choice is never a problem.
dividing conservative voters till the bitter end is the problem.
if yo want a conservative nominee, let’s have one Rino versus ONE conservative.
Multiple conservatives running against Jeb Bush will guarantee Jeb will be the nominee.
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