Scott Walker Would Be the Most Conservative GOP Candidate Since Goldwater

Mother Jones ^ | February 11, 2015 | Kevin Drum

[Cincinatus' Wife]

For those of us who are sort of fascinated by the rise of Scott Walker as a Republican presidential contender, here's an interesting chart from Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University. It shows the relative conservative-ness of GOP presidential nominees in the past six contested elections, and it demonstrates what an outlier Walker would be if he won next year's primary: he'd be the first candidate since Ronald Reagan who's more conservative than the average of the Republican field.

And by McDaniel's measure, he'd actually be the most conservative recent nominee, period—even more right-wing than Reagan:

Walker is well to the right end of the conservative spectrum, residing in the ideological neighborhood of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul....It is not a stretch to argue that if nominated, Walker would be the most conservative Republican nominee since Barry Goldwater in 1964.

....In contrast, Jeb Bush’s ideological position closely resembles previous Republican nominees. Bush most closely resembles John McCain in 2008....In Scott Walker versus Jeb Bush, party elites and primary voters are presented with clearly contrasting visions of the future direction of the Republican party....If the recent history of Republican nomination contests is any guide, the party is likely to decide that Scott Walker is too ideologically extreme to be the Republican nominee in 2016.

Of course, the fact that this chart seems surprising is one of Walker's big strengths. He may be as conservative as, say, Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, but he doesn't seem as conservative. He doesn't have Cruz's bombast and he doesn't go around hinting that we should go back to the gold standard, like Rand Paul. In practice, that may put him closer to the center of the field than his actual positions warrant.

Still, McDaniel's data is worth taking note of. If Walker remains hardnosed in his views, it may be hard to hide this from the voters. Eventually he's going to say something that will cause the Jeb Bushes and Chris Christies to pounce, and that might expose him as too much of an ideologue to win the mainstream Republican vote. It all depends on how well he learns to dog whistle and tap dance at the same time. But then, that's true of everyone running for president, isn't it?

[Yosemitest]

For the THIRD TIME, I say again:

Wake up and READ SCOTT WALKERS POSITIONS ON AMNESTY .

[MaxMax]

Rand Pauls whole family is batshit crazy.

May as well put a teenager in the WH who has issues with staying
on any topic longer than a sound bite, and with a family who is batshit
nuts there is a recipe for another Obama like whimsical dictator.

Rand Paul kook isn't a stable choice at all. I wouldn't even consider voting for him.

All the Libertarians here on the board who also support free marijuana and legalized Heroin
fully support him. Nice big red flag there.

[Uncle Miltie]

So would CRUZ. I like our options.

[The_Victor]

In contrast, Jeb Bush’s ideological position closely resembles previous Republican nominees.

Yup. Jeb Bush falls very much in line with previous candidates, ALL OF WHOM LOST!!!!

[AuH2ORepublican]

I read those little snippets grouped by “On the Issues,” and, more to the point, I understood what the words mean.

[trebb]

Pro Amnesty Scott Walker is NOT ELECTBLE. Ted Cruz is our ONLY CONSERVATIVE CHOICE.

Nothing like having pipe dreams and fantasies running through one's mind as a strategy - sure loser meme and it has been demonstrated why it is a loser. Put all your eggs in one basket - one that hasn't even formally stepped up yet - and you become a demonstration of the problem.

If you and those who think like you had to live up to their own expectations, you would be an extinct breed due to depression-crisis suicides..

[EternalVigilance]

I couldn’t read past the headline and the source.

Mother Jones is not where I go to find a good gauge of conservatism.

And I already know that Walker has surrendered on the issues I care most about.

[Yosemitest]

So you support LOWERING WAGES for the middle class with ILLEGAL ALIENS TAKING THEIR JOBS ?
You SUPPORT MORE OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT PROTECTING ILLEGL ALIENS?

[trebb]

So you support LOWERING WAGES for the middle class with ILLEGAL ALIENS TAKING THEIR JOBS ? You SUPPORT MORE OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT PROTECTING ILLEGL ALIENS?

Nope - don't support any of that. I do support getting someone to the Right of an Obama in the WH instead of just giving it all to them on a silver platter because I have some concerns that have not been proven to be valid. The overuse of capitals tells me that you are letting your emotions rule your mind and that may be why you have stopped thinking and opted for polemic rhetoric - once again you are a perfect demonstration of why we got Obama for not just one term, but for two terms and why we may yet give the WH to another hard-core leftist - absolute inability to make a sane discernment and a propensity for shitting in the oatmeal and blaming it on the outhouse not being up to your standards.

[DoodleDawg]

I think Ted Cruz will be even more conservative.

[MrB]

For a guy who isn’t electable, he sure gets elected a lot.

---

:)

[MrB]

How does that compare to the Kerry situation?

[Colonel_Flagg]

Perhaps. And Ted Cruz would be even better.

[citizen]

Yosemitest: Pro Amnesty Scott Walker is NOT ELECTBLE.

You: For a guy who isn't electable, he sure gets elected a lot.

They'll kill Walker like they did Romney. As in 2012, they may well defeat Walker because he doesn't 1000% fit someone's ideal. And just like 2012, by killing Walker they will be working for Hillary.

Walker is conservative enough for me.

I say it again: If Free Republic works against the Republican nominee as in 2012, I will be taking my monthly donation to some other conservative forum.

[Yosemitest]

"I do support getting someone to the Right of an Obama in the WH "

Hell, ANY independent or GOP candidate could qualify under that desire?

"once again you are a perfect demonstration of why we got Obama for not just one term, but for two terms and why we may yet give the WH to another hard-core leftist - "

Sorry, but I'm not that powerful.
HOWEVER ... idiots that believe anything the LAME STREAM MEDIA trys to sell us, and anything the "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" SAY ... might be your target to "Get 'er done!"

I WILL VOTE AGAINST ... AND TO DESTROY ANY "Establishment Republican" !
Compromisers ALWAYS LOSE !

"Establishment Republicans" lose everytime they're listened to.
They wouldn't care if they DO lose.
If they can't be in power, they don't want US in power.
It's just that simple.
It's WAR!

We will never unify under "Establishment Republicans" .
"Establishment Republicans" have more in common with the Democrats, than they do with Conservatives.
The weak candidates are "Establishment Republicans", weak on national security, amnesty for illegals, abortion, and government spending.
"Establishment Republicans" scream "COMPROMISE".
And people who study the Bible know that COMPROMISE almost always leads to destruction.
Someone once said [We're] 'Not victims of "the Establishment." '
I disagree.
I ask you again:

Who was it that dumped all those negative adds on Conservative Candidates in the primary?
Who was it that constantly battered each leading Conservative in the primary with an average of three to one negative ads against our real candidates?
Who's money was dumped against the conservative choices?

It WAS Mitt Romney, leader of the "Establishment Republicans"
and it WAS the "Establishment Republicans" who funded all those negative ads against Conservatives.

So conservatives, the BASE of the Republican Party, WERE ' victims of "the Establishment." '

These "Establishment Republicans" are being weeded out, one by one, and slowly but surely, the TEA Party is taking over.

"Establishment Republicans" Want to Redefine the Term "Conservative"

"DO CONSERVATIVES WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?"

DO CONSERVATIVES "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" WANT TO WIN IN 2016 OR NOT?

Jack Kerwick wrote an article on May 24, 2011 titled The Tea Partier versus The Republican and he expressed some 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 !

[samtheman]

Cruz is best, but Walker is still good.

I would prefer Cruz, but settle for Walker.

[Yosemitest]

I won't.
"HELL NO" to AMNESTY !

[sickoflibs]

RE:”Pro Amnesty Scott Walker is NOT ELECTBLE.
..........
For a guy who isn't electable, he sure gets elected a lot.”

BUMP!

Gets elected and beats Dems in battles, beats them bad too.

He doesn't lose every fight he starts and and then blames others for it. He gets results.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Scott Walker Would Be the Most Conservative GOP Candidate Since Goldwater”

Maybe he's too conservative to get elected ..... :)

Romney's out, Christies probably out, how about Jeb or Lindsey or Huckleberry?

[Plummz]

“what he supports: legal status for millions of people here already, while making it easier for immigrants to come here through the front door. “
Cruz supports amnesty for illegal aliens:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/us/cruz-tries-to-claim-the-middle-ground-on-immigration.html?pagewanted=all

Sen. Ted Cruz also supports temporary legalization status in the immigration bill

Read more: http://therightscoop.com/sen-ted-cruz-also-supports-temporary-legalization-status-in-the-immigration-bill/