Scott Walker Lives The Downside Of Ideology

So there's Scott Walker's Workforce Department putting out the bad news: a fourth-straight month of job losses.


A few weeks ago, it was his Revenue Department saying that Walker's campaign pledge of 250,000 new jobs in four years was unattainable.

With friends and appointees like that, who needs detractors - - like the legions carrying recall petitions near and far, about already 10% towards the goal of 540,000 in just 48 hours, with 58 days to go.

You do the math: the only real questions left are: when will the figure of 540,000 be reached, and can one million signatures be gathered by the end of the deadline?

And here's another political and mathematical question:

How many more jobs would there have been on the positive side of the ledger, and how many fewer signatures might there have been going after Walker's political hide had he not:

a) Killed three years of $810 million in federally-funded Amtrak construction between Madison and Milwaukee, plus other improvements on the Milwaukee-to-Chicago Amtrak line, and to stations?

b) Killed the construction statewide of least three wind turbine farms that were ready to go, with a value of $600 million?

We'll never know - - he'll never know - - because his ideologically-driven, narrow-minded opposition against rail (public) transit and green energy generation to serve throwback highway and real estate lobbies and donors has cost the state good-paying jobs, business development, and a fresh, trend-setting technology base.

And also cost Walker goodwill and political support.

Both of which are eroding, as shown by polling data and the large number of people back in the streets - - this time gathering signatures and momentum for his recall.

Walker's ideological hard-edge and overbearing certitude, reminiscent of George W. Bush, rules out any admission, error, doubt or second-guessing. 

And it's far too late for compromise, as he told the unions that he hammered last winter in his ultimate act of ideological arrogance that he had nothing to negotiate.

So here comes the whirlwind. 

Ideology make a self-defeating basis upon which to live in a pluralistic democracy or to manage it.