Can Scott Walker Convert the Christian Right?

A few steps from the Capitol building on Tuesday afternoon, behind closed doors in Republicans’ upscale Capitol Hill Club, Scott Walker had a high-stakes sit-down.

The Wisconsin governor—who’s indicated that he will launch a presidential bid after he signs the Badger State’s biennial budget—was there to woo top social conservative and evangelical leaders, a task that might seem easy at first glance. Walker’s dad is a pastor, he quotes a Christian devotional on the stump, and he signed legislation defunding Planned Parenthood in the state he governs. Christian conservatives should be worshipping the ground he walks on, right?

Not so fast. The governor has made a string of comments on social conservatives’ top issues that has earned him some suspicion, and even ire. Last June, a few months before Election Day 2014, Walker had an awkward press conference about same-sex marriage. A district court judge had overturned the state’s constitutional amendment preventing same-sex marriage, and reporters were pressing the governor about his stance on the issue, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

That’s not the kind of answer that opponents of same-sex marriage like to hear. And it came after the governor defended the state’s law keeping employers from discriminating against LGBT people, suggesting to Bloomberg in 2013 that it gave the state “a healthy balance.” One top social conservative leader in Wisconsin told me later that Walker must only have supported the non-discrimination law because “he doesn’t fully understand some of the ramifications of ENDA legislation.”

Walker also raised eyebrows in 2014 when he ran an ad about his stance on abortion, defending legislation that “leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor” and saying that while he was pro-life, “reasonable people can disagree on this issue.” Among national pro-life advocates, that line went over like a lead balloon.

So when Walker headed to Capitol Hill to try to win conservative hearts and minds, the leaders in attendance had lots of questions. One attendee said that about 50 top social conservative and evangelical leaders were present, including Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, Brian Brown of National Organization for Marriage, Michael Needham of Heritage Action, and Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center.

“He felt very quoted out of context, very misunderstood,” she said. “He said there was a snippet of the ad used that did not convey the full meaning, and his communication was using the other side’s language but with the idea of forging common ground on ultrasound, because he’s a true believer on that.”

Walker signed legislation in 2013 requiring both that women seeking abortions get ultrasounds first and that the doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Dannenfelser said he defended his use of the phrase “leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor” as a way of co-opting pro-choice rhetoric for the pro-life cause.

“To the extent that we use the other side’s rhetoric to undermine their positions, we’re better off,” Dannenfelser added.

“It’s the whole style of communication and content of communication that you want to see moving into a presidential cycle that will make it different from 2012,” she said.

The Susan B. Anthony List, she said, is more interested in Walker’s legislative accomplishments than his rhetoric, and the governor assured the meeting attendees that he would sign legislation banning abortion after 20 weeks. For pro-life leaders, that’s huge. If Walker signs the bill—which Wisconsin Republicans introduced this month—then he’ll underscore his dedication to the pro-life cause. But if the legislation fails to make it through the Republican-controlled state legislature and to his desk, his reputation as a politician who can net big conservative wins could suffer.

“He has an opportunity to authenticate his stated convictions, and I have every belief that he’ll do that,” Dannenfelser said.

“My view is that he gets it and he’s got good people around him, and we’re in good shape,” she added.

Other meeting attendees were cagier. Nance emailed to confirm that she attended.

Brown was similarly coy about whether Walker has taken a strong enough stance on the question of marriage. He said many of his allies were unhappy with the comments Walker made after the overturn of the state’s marriage amendment.

“That was very disappointing,” Brown said of Walker’s response. “But the reality is he’s come out and endorsed a federal marriage amendment.”

Brown added that his group will issue a pledge on the issue in the coming months to let potential presidential contenders clearly denote where they stand on marriage.

“We are meeting with folks from a number of potential presidential campaigns and folks that have already put their hat in the ring,” he continued, “and the reality is what we’re seeing in Iowa and across the country is the myth that somehow the same-sex marriage debate is over is just that, it’s a myth.”

So Walker’s closed-door meeting doesn’t seem to have backfired. But it isn’t yet clear whether he made converts.

Well, it seems that while daddy Walker has attended gay marriage events, his son has actually served as an adult witness for a gay marriage ceremony.

You keep bugging me about Walker and gay marriage, so perhaps I will start getting involved in looking at him, I have been trying to avoid these threads, but you insist on antagonizing people.

There seems to be a lot to investigate.

“Walker vs. Cruz on Gay Marriage
The 2016 battle lines on gay marriage are drawn for Republicans.”

“After the Supreme Court punted on state rulings, how to define legal matrimony again veered into sharp focus, with two polar opposite approaches being outlined by the Wisconsin governor from a blue state and a Texas senator from a deep red one.”
snip
“I’d rather be talking in the future now more about our jobs plan and our plan for the future of the state. I think that’s what matters to the kids. It’s not this issue,” he says.

If Walker finds himself reprising that answer on a Republican presidential primary debate stage sometime next year, expect a thunderous response from Cruz, who in two short years in the U.S. Senate has already made himself a favorite of social conservatives.

Cruz blasted the Supreme Court’s decision not to weigh in on the issue as “astonishing” and “indefensible,” and has previously introduced legislation to protect the authority of state legislatures to define marriage. He also plans to introduce a constitutional amendment to prevent Congress or the court from striking down bans on same-sex marriage imposed by states.”

You have a strange definition of “antagonizing” - which apparently means let you walk all over my threads.

I know that Scott Walker’s son stood up for his mother’s cousin, a majority of millennials don’t have as much concern about this as their parents.

I find it curious that you are so offended by how the Walkers act in their personal family’s situation, but insist on referring to the gay couple who threw an event in their home for Cruz to meet and solicit funds from them and their friends, as businessmen.

Really, you have nowhere to go with this.

Really?

This minor corrective post set you off and was walking all over your thread?

To: Cincinatus’ Wife
You mean what is Cruz’s record in attending homosexual marriage events?
77 posted on 5/21/2015, 11:03:55 AM by ansel12

You really do want to antagonize people into giving Scott Walker their full attention don’t you?

I remember you were just as nasty when you were pushing Rick Perry.

You’re the one who keeps bumping this thread.

We’d be a lot better off today if Rick Perry was in the White House.

Scott Walker wasn’t running back then, but I was hoping if Perry got the nomination that he’d pick Walker for VP.

But because of the “winnowing” of candidates, Romney took the nomination and lost the election.

Walker has the best chance to win and defeat the GOP-e Bush choice.

You want Cruz to be the nominee.

I get it.

Are you always this angry?

You are about the worst supporter that a candidate could have, you seem desperate to be on the attack against someone, anyone.

I made a simple little correction that didn’t even mention Walker, and you have gone totally nuts over it.

You did the same with Perry, it was like you were trying to make people dislike him.

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