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.
You raise a valid point.
In fact, it wasn’t the same voters. All three of Walker’s elections were outside of Presidential election years. In other words, the Dems didn’t have their full court get out the vote machines in gear.
That said, Walker was also elected County Executive in highly Democrat Milwaukee County, and Rep Paul Ryan, a staunch Republican, represents a constituency that tends to vote fairly heavily Democrat.
Wisconsin is a tough state to figure sometimes.
She fouled and she paid. Blaming Walker for either hiring her or firing her is simply looking for another gotcha.
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Trust me, there will be NOBODY Conservative enough for some of these folks. Give it some time, they’ll turn on Walker soon enough. They’ll ensure we’re stuck with Bush, then blame everybody else.
These “conservatives” ensured Obama won a second term. Now they have the nerve to bitch about what’s happening! Pfft!
What states were flipped in 2012 by conservatives staying home?
He fought back several recall attempts.
Death threats.
Occupation of the Capitol. Hostile mobs.
A renegade Democrat element within his own Legislature, one that eloped across state lines to avoid a vote.
Fought back legal challenges in court, by the Left.
WRENCHED his state, through sheer force of will and sound fiscal persuasion, into a state of solvency DESPITE temper tantrums from the Democrats who held Wisconsin in a state of bondage for many years.
I'm sure his own political advisors...thought it couldn't be done. Probably advised him not to try.
I'm sure the Democrats and their thug union pals thought he'd never succeed.
But he fought those odds. (No, not odd people, just the percentage-based odds.)
And now it's down to name-calling. Fine. But the author should have the sense of intellectual integrity at least to keep whatever name calling factual, at least. "Gutless wonder"? Indeed, not.
Shaddup moron. Mittens was no better than Soetoro hole. The GOPe don’t like winning anyway. You are stuck on stupid.
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Sadly, due to morons like yourself, we got a second term of an out of control Marxist. You and your ilk helped him win a second term to complete his destruction of America. As bad as Romney was, he wasn’t a Marxist, and didn’t hate his nation. But fools like yourself have to try and defend your indefensible stupidity and selfishness by claiming “they’re the same...”
Spoiled children like yourself gave a known Marxist a second term! You are NO Patriot!
It’s sort of strange, but the more Walker gets attacked, the more people seem to jump on board to defend him....it’s like they get invested in him.
The reason I think this is happening is because he was so well vetted during his second and third elections for Governor....there simply are no buried skeletons in this man’s back yard and so it’s safe to stick your neck out a bit earlier than you normally would and back him.
Well, that plus he somehow managed to take on the public employee unions and win...not a small matter.
Another aspect of this is that the Madison demonstrations in 2011 got so much national publicity that he really gets to skip the introduction phase of his campaign...which might be why it took off so fast, unexpectedly fast, I’m guessing.
You are the problem and not the solution. Get it, dummy. Otherwise spare us your foolish spittle. Dumber than Patty Murray.
Beware the Ides of Walkerbots.
Sorry, as has undoubtedly been explained to you before, the morals of Christians are not for sale. If the GOP wants the votes of committed Christian conservatives, then they’d better not put up a candidate that supports Abortion and/or the Gay Agenda.
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Apparently it was a better choice for people like yourself to allow a Christian hating, Jew hating, American hating, Radical Muslim loving man to gain a second term as the leader of the free world.
You provide one lame A$$ defense for your not voting for Romney. You hold responsibility for where our nation is at today. You had a chance to help remove a Marxist, and you did NOTHING! You are pathetic.
I think people should take a hint from Reagan and observe the 11th Commandment, at least for the next couple of years.
I hated the thought of having to vote for Romney, although in the end that’s exactly what I did. But I feared that if he won we’d have Obamacare for the rest of time. It was a tough choice because I honestly thought that Romney winning would cement Obamacare, the worst law passed in my long adulthood.
When you’re tempted to yell at another Republican, or conservative, or hell, even a Liberatarian, think of Reagan and his 11th Commandment, one which Walker also professes to observe, by the way.
Unexpected? By whom? The Washington-centric nattering political pundits? They are part of the problem and not to be looked to for “expectations.” Wake up!
She made herself the issue. No principal can tolerate that, and shouldn’t have to.
You are the problem and not the solution. Get it, dummy. Otherwise spare us your foolish spittle. Dumber than Patty Murray.
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I did my part in trying to help remove an American Hating Marxist; you did nothing! Only a dummy could see what Obama did to this nation in his first term and do nothing to remove him.
The only dummy is the one you see in the mirror every morning.
Keep arguing Dumber than Patty Murray. You GOPe types are perennial losers.
Fool. I and my wife both went to the polls and voted for that @$$hole RINO to stave off another Obama term. Didn’t work, did it? I’ve raised more money and done more volunteer work for the Republican party than you’ll probably ever do if you live to be 200 years old. Kilo Mike Alpha.
As you so effortlessly pointed out, electing a Conservative in a Blue state is rare and something to be proud of.
I could disparage Cruz with some smart comment, but disparaging the opposition rather than building up their own candidate seems to be more a Cruz contingent method than a Walker method.
Right on the mark
No kidding. If the GOP puts up another POS candidate like Romney, who helped facilitate the deviancy of fag-marriage onto this country when he was governor of his state, I’ll continue to stay home. Romney was the first Republican candidate, big office or small, in my entire voting life to NOT get my vote.
My soul is not for sale. The country can burn down to the ground first. Not that there even seems to be much of a country left even worth trying to salvage, at this point. And I certainly won’t follow the GOP down the path of embracing depravity, spitting on my values and beliefs, as it nominates liberal degenerates like Romney.
The biggest of those stay home idiots you mentioned would be Mitt Romney. When he showed up, he found little wrong with Obama he could complain about. Up until the time he quit the campaign early to stay home, he refused to come out and run against Obama so...I fully blame him and McInsane for the Marxist we now have in office.
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