Walker, Wobbling, Will Embrace, Implement Talk Radio Agenda

It's pretty clear that Scott Walker has made a mess of his post-election honeymoon by botching the high-speed rail issue.

Hasn't been sworn in yet, and he's cost the state an estimated $100 million and 400 jobs off-the-bat.

With another $700 million in federal rail funds lost to another state or states, years of construction work and probably the Talgo train assembly plant that just a few months ago was a source of bi-partisan, non-partisan praise - - also fumbled away.

He's even managed to disappoint and baffle Sheldon Lubar, one of Milwaukee's calmest, smartest and genial public citizens. Who'd want that on his or her permanent record?

Walker continues to over-reach - - this time on state/employee union negotiations. Contracts long in the making are done; he wants, in a fit of ideological, anti-union pique, to reopen them, which isn't going to happen.

So that's two strikes against impulsivity and Mr. 52%.

How will be right his ship before it sinks at the dock?

Change the subject.

Distract the base from his missteps by getting behind the right's talk radio agenda - - and the talkers will praise Walker for while not too openly thanking him for carrying their water - -  an agenda wherein in anger is justified, then turned into legislation that embodies the right's political correctness:

Bans on Voter photo ID,  same-day voter registration, early voting; restrictions on immigration; rollbacks to clean air standards; legalizing smoking in restaurants and bars; and maybe, oooooh, just maybe, re-instituting capital punishment, too.

A Wisconsin death house! Wouldn't that be just the right symbol for the ascendant right in Wisconsin?
 
I had suggested in an op-ed last Sunday that Walker & Co. would take the pandering detour, and I'm sticking by it.