MANY OF US ARE NOT SURPRISED THAT SCOTT WALKER IS GONE

….How Governor, Scott Walker is considered by some in Wisconsin today…

 

It’s another world to go from running for a state office to going national.

Even though the Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker has announced that he is suspending his presidential bid, be aware that he could re-enter the race if the circumstances change to his benefit.  But personally, I doubt that will happen and I have been surprised for a couple of years about those that have thought Walker was ready for primetime.

His announcement ending his 2016 presidential campaign was attributed to a lack of fundraising prowess. That may have been a bit of a concern, but today Walker still has a large cache of money in the bank.  The real reason he is backing down now is that his poll numbers have been tanking for weeks.  After the last debate where he basically didn’t even show up, his poll numbers went down to ½ of 1% support.  He was tied with 5 others at the very bottom of the barrel.

Now you might ask, well why don’t the others on the bottom also drop out.

The reason is that Walker was at one-time, only two months ago, a national front runner in the polls. (The other bottom-dwellers have been down there all along.) But Walker has been so non-exciting and he has shot himself in the foot many, many times.  To go from front runner to the bottom-of-the-barrel in two months is bad enough, but not the reason he dropped out. That was because the RNC is now saying the next debate may not be a two-part debate with the bottom 4 or 5 candidates having their own forum.  The word has it that they will instead restrict the regular debate to a maximum of the 8 top candidates, and no TV exposer forum for those sitting at the bottom.

If that becomes the situation, and if Walker was still at the bottom of the polls, how would it look to be a front-runner in July and not even in the debate in October?  Ergo, the governor has instead decided to exit the scene.

But let’s get back to why the governor went into the dumper so quickly, and there were and are many reasons.

Early on, before Walker officially declared he was running, he made a major gaffe that showed that he was highly unpolished and not a serious candidate. 

Last winter, Walker had declared that his battles with pro-union protesters in Wisconsin prepared him to fight ISIS—the Islamic state in Syria and Iraq.  Yes, he actually equated dealing with ISIS the same as dealing with the union protestors in his states.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t recall seeing any union protestor killing and be-heading any Wisconsin government employees.  This major gaffe generated serious ridicule inside and outside GOP circles, just as his campaign was getting started.

Then, right after that stumble, Walker spent state taxpayer dollars to go to England on a supposed trade mission.  But instead of burnishing his non-existent international credentials, Walker was mocked by the British and European press for ducking questions on evolution and science.  That was strike 2. 

Walker had begun his Iowa campaigning saying that he was “unintimidated” by the labor protesters, and that he had survived a recall election in a purple state. But then in his most recent state budget, he also showed his potential financial backers that his politics was thuggish and immature.

As governor, he proceeded to attack the brightest educational jewel in his state, the University of Wisconsin.  He went after their tenure system, he cut $250 million from the UofW annual budget, while he allocated that same amount of financing as a subsidy for a new sports arena in Milwaukee.  He followed all that by signing strident new anti-abortion laws, which were well beyond what he had said he would support. These steps re-enforced the perception that Walker was not ready to compete nationally, especially when compared to other governor-candidates such as Florida’s Jeb Bush and Ohio’s John Kasich.

Basically, while everyone was shaking their heads, Walker was saying he was proud of his record as governor. He continued to portray himself as the toughest fighter among candidates, saying his attacks on Wisconsin's unions showed he was ready for the presidency. He took many other nasty actions in trying to build a national reputation, from signing anti-abortion bills into law, expanding state prisons, and embracing charter schools.  He even shepherded into law many pieces of legislation drafted by the extreme right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  Finally, he also gave out corporate tax breaks and signed tougher voter ID requirements to discourage voter turnout.

Due to the efforts of governor Walker, Wisconsin is now ranked 33rd among US states in economic health during Walker’s terms ”with the state only a little more than half of the 250,000 private-sector jobs that Walker had promised during that time.”

But Walker’s overconfidence in himself totally blinded him from his own weaknesses.

When the billionaire Koch Brothers had originally made it known that Walker was their top choice for the GOP nomination, this all went directly to Walker’s head. The Koch’s political network had pledged to raise and spend nearly $900 million in the 2016 race.  Apparently this gave Walker a false sense of security.  He assumed that if he built a large, expensive campaign organization, the Koch’s would pickup most of the tab.  So that’s exactly what he did.

But as Walker started to plummet in this summer’s polls, in both the national polls and in Iowa's and other primary states, it became obvious that Walker had been very naïve about his prospects.  Even the Koch Brothers finally had to make it clear that their choice of the Governor of Wisconsin was incorrect.

Apparently, Walker has always been his own campaign strategist.  And anybody who has been around presidential campaigns knows how unlikely it is for a new candidate to sustain front-runner status for more than a year.  But apparently that’s what Walker had expected he could do.

And when Donald Trump jumped into the race, all those that looked like they were part of the status-quo government candidates, Trump’s entrance knocked the wind out of over ½ of all the other GOP candidates, and that included Walker.

Trump then attacked Walker directly for his lousy economic management of Wisconsin.  He cited statistics that showed Walker was an unsuccessful governor in turning his state’s economy around. For the candidate that was trying to brand himself as the toughest Republican, having his record skewered by a more forceful Trump further eviscerated his support. Being a governor that was willing to implement whatever model legislation that was drafted by ALEC, Trump was able to show how poor Walker had been in creating jobs, ending Wisconsin’s state red ink, and attracting new businesses.

Instead of showing his strength as an independent thinking politician, Walker doubled down on his right-wing proposals that clearly were intended to please the anti-union Koch’s and other libertarians.  His political enemies in Wisconsin openly mocked Walker’s moves as the last-ditch attempts of a floundering presidential candidate.

As an example, Walker called for ending federal employee unions and other anti-labor proposals.  But even his hometown paper in Milwaukee, which had endorsed him for governor three times, ran an opinion piece by a top GOP legislative staffer.  This staffer said that supposed "tough" governor had been visibly afraid and that he had hid and cowered from the 2011 anti-union battles.  The paper then editorialized that Walker as a politician could not be trusted.

The reality is that when Walker finally pulled out, he was so low in the polls there really weren’t any actual supporters for him to offer to another candidate.  (Some top-notch political staff members yes, supporters, no.)

Walker is young enough that he can try running a couple of more times if he has the backing and the stomach for it.  And based on how the GOP works, that’s pretty much status-quo for how they have been running the party for decades.

Copyright G.Ater  2015