Conservative Activists: Scott Walker Has Best Shot at Beating Hillary Clinton

National Journal ^ | March 9, 2015 | Shane Goldmacher

[2ndDivisionVet]

A new survey of conservative activists shows many in the movement see Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as the strongest Republican to take on Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The survey wasn't scientific. But conservative activist group ForAmerica surveyed almost 10,000 of its Facebook members and more than 32 percent said Walker has the "best shot at beating Hillary Clinton" in the field, according to results shared first with National Journal.

Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who has never held elected office, finished in second, with nearly 25 percent of the vote.

Sen. Ted Cruz (14 percent), Sen. Rand Paul (6.6 percent) and Jeb Bush (3.9 percent) rounded out the top five. Bush, who is expected to blow past his potential presidential rivals in fundraising this quarter, also finished fifth in the recent Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll.

ForAmerica, which is run by David Bozell and chaired by his father, Brent Bozell, has vowed to hold Republicans' feet to the fire in 2016 for hewing to a conservative line. Already, the group has skewered Bush for giving Clinton a public service award.

The ForAmerica survey included eight candidates (the others were Rick Perry, who finished with 3.3 percent, and Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie at 1.9 percent apiece). Members could also pencil in others, and Mike Huckabee led the write-in category, receiving pulling in 1.3 percent.

In anonymous comments shared by ForAmerica that accompanied the survey, the GOP activists didn't sound particularly enthused with the field. "We are screwed!!" lamented one. "None of these jokers," chimed in another.

[laplata]

Would you vote for Walker vs Hitlery? I’m just curious.

[Colonel_Flagg]

Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who has never held elected office, finished in second, with nearly 25 percent of the vote.

This statement calls the entire validity of the "survey" into question.

[XenaLee]

I love Ben Carson but not as a candidate for president.

Exactly. I have changed my mind about him. Don't know exactly what did it, but my gut instinct now says no to Carson as anything other than a cabinet post, perhaps like Surgeon General.

[Yosemitest]

You didn't know (?) :

He was FOR AMNESTY before he was AGAINST AMNESTY.

"Right to Work" was 'not a priority' for Walker BEFORE he Signed "Right to Work Law".


Barrett Says Walker Would Sign Right to Work Bill, Walker Avoids the Question ( 1:20 )

[Yosemitest]

I doinbty trust Walker.
I believe he's SOLD OUT to the "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS".
I would vote AGAINST WALKER,, and shove him over the cliff.

[GeronL]

An unscientific facebook poll is news?

[Yosemitest]

I doinbty trust Walker.

CORRECTION:

I DON'T TRUST WALKER .

[GeronL]

Cancel those primaries! An unscientific Facebook poll has spoken

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I’ll hold her if he’ll beat her, LOL!

[laplata]

I don’t doubt you one bit.

[Yosemitest]

You really need to read Jack Kerwick's article from May 24, 2011 titled The Tea Partier versus The Republican.
He expressed some very important issues that I agree with.

Thus far, the field of GOP presidential contenders, actual and potential, isn’t looking too terribly promising.

This, though, isn’t meant to suggest that any of the candidates, all things being equal, lack what it takes to insure
that Barack Obama never sees the light of a second term; nor is it the case that I find none of the candidates appealing.
Rather, I simply mean that at this juncture, the party faithful is far from unanimously energized over any of them.

It is true that it was the rapidity and aggressiveness with which President Obama proceeded to impose his perilous designs upon the country
that proved to be the final spark to ignite the Tea Party movement.
But the chain of events that lead to its emergence began long before Obama was elected.
That is, it was actually the disenchantment with the Republican Party under our “compassionate conservative” president, George W. Bush,
which overcame legions of conservatives that was the initial inspiration that gave rise to the Tea Party.

It is this frustration with the GOP’s betrayal of the values that it affirms that accounts for why the overwhelming majority
of those who associate with or otherwise sympathize with the Tea Party movement
refuse to explicitly or formally identify with the Republican Party.
And it is this frustration that informs the Tea Partiers’ threat to create a third party
in the event that the GOP continues business as usual.

If and when those conservatives and libertarians who compose the bulk of the Tea Party, decided that the Republican establishment
has yet to learn the lessons of ’06 and ’08, choose to follow through with their promise,
they will invariably be met by Republicans with two distinct but interrelated objections.

First,
they will be told that they are utopian, “purists” foolishly holding out for an “ideal” candidate.

Second, because virtually all members of the Tea Party would have otherwise voted Republican if not for this new third party,
they will be castigated for essentially giving elections away to Democrats.



Both of these criticisms are, at best, misplaced; at worst, they are just disingenuous.
At any rate, they are easily answerable.

Let’s begin with the argument against “purism.” To this line, two replies are in the coming.


No one, as far as I have ever been able to determine, refuses to vote for anyone who isn’t an ideal candidate.
Ideal candidates, by definition, don’t exist.
This, after all, is what makes them ideal.
This counter-objection alone suffices to expose the argument of the Anti-Purist as so much counterfeit.
But there is another consideration that militates decisively against it.

A Tea Partier who refrains from voting for a Republican candidate who shares few if any of his beliefs
can no more be accused of holding out for an ideal candidate
than can someone who refuses to marry a person with whom he has little to anything in common
be accused of holding out for an ideal spouse.
In other words, the object of the argument against purism is the most glaring of straw men:
“I will not vote for a thoroughly flawed candidate” is one thing;
“I will only vote for a perfect candidate” is something else entirely.



As for the second objection against the Tea Partier’s rejection of those Republican candidates who eschew his values and convictions,
it can be dispensed with just as effortlessly as the first.

Every election season—and at no time more so than this past season—Republicans pledge to “reform Washington,” “trim down” the federal government, and so forth.
Once, however, they get elected and they conduct themselves with none of the confidence and enthusiasm with which they expressed themselves on the campaign trail,
those who placed them in office are treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience.”

Well, when the Tea Partier’s impatience with establishment Republican candidates intimates a Democratic victory,
he can use this same line of reasoning against his Republican critics.
My dislike for the Democratic Party is second to none, he can insist.
But in order to advance in the long run my conservative or Constitutionalist values, it may be necessary to compromise some in the short term.

For example,

as Glenn Beck once correctly noted in an interview with Katie Couric,
had John McCain been elected in 2008, it is not at all improbable that, in the final analysis,
the country would have been worse off than it is under a President Obama.
McCain would have furthered the country’s leftward drift,
but because this movement would have been slower,
and because McCain is a Republican, it is not likely that the apparent awakening that occurred under Obama would have occurred under McCain.


It may be worth it, the Tea Partier can tell Republicans, for the GOP to lose some elections if it means that conservatives—and the country—will ultimately win.

If he didn’t know it before, the Tea Partier now knows that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics.

Ironically, he can thank the Republican for impressing this so indelibly upon him.

I'm fresh out of "patience", and I'm not in the mood for "compromise".
"COMPROMISE" to me is a dirty word.
Let the RINO's compromise their values, with the conservatives, for a change.
Take a good long look at where "Establishment Republicans" ALWAYS take us.



The "Establishment Republicans" can GO TO HELL !

[taildragger]

I love Ben Carson but not as a candidate for president.

* Mike Huckabee: Bill Clinton with a Banjo
* Chris Cristie: Bobby Bacala should not run for POTUS
* Rick Santorum: Would make a great producer for EWTN
* Jeb Bush: OJNTSA ( yes the photo of they guy with his hand on his head )
* Ben Carson: The Huckabee of 08' for 2016
* Ted Cruz: Senate Majority Leader, those words are music to my ears.
* Rand Paul: A Deadhead should not run for POTUS
* Marco Rubio: I could have been a contenda...

That leaves Cruz, Pence, or Walker. Anything else is a Yugo with Racing Stripes....

[laplata]

Cruz will campaign for and enthusiastically endorse Scott Walker if it comes to that.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Name one piece of pro-illegal alien legislation that Walker has proposed or signed.

[VRW Conspirator]

That leaves Cruz, Pence, or Walker. Anything else is a Yugo with Racing Stripes....

LOL. Racing stripes make a car go faster...it's a proven fact.

[laplata]

That’s from 2011. I’m not wasting my time reading all that gibberish.

[Yosemitest]

He MIGHT ... , but I WON'T ! ! !

[bigtoona]

The cabinet positions are nearly as important as POTUS. We need strong people to undo all of the DOJ stuff, the healthcare stuff etc. Carson would be wonderful as surgeon general.

[Yosemitest]

Read Walker's own words in comment #18.

[Yosemitest]

You mean, that's Scott Walker BEFORE HE SOLD OUT ... ? !