As I Said, Walker Has The Presidential Bug
Following the script he followed on the political road to Madison from the Milwaukee County Executive office, Scott Walker tells media in DC that he will not to commit to finishing out a second gubernatorial term as the Presidency calls:
As I wrote the other day:
This newspaper is again reporting that Gov. Walker has Iowa and other national appearances on his schedule, and that previous conservative GOP politicians traveled the same road before their presidential bids.
Walker similarly used the office of Milwaukee County Executive as a springboard to higher office.
He was eyeing the Governor's Mansion from the moment he stepped into the Milwaukee County Executive's office in 2002, ran briefly for Governor executed a strategic, pro-party withdrawal in 2006, then went for it full bore and successfully in 2010 using a simple, consistent message lifted from Grover Norquist's no-taxes/anti-government playbook.
As Governor, Walker refused federal funding for Amtrak and Obamacare-related Medicaid expansions, blew up public sector collective bargaining and embraced privatization of public services and resources.
Everything Walker did when he was Milwaukee County Executive was run through the filter of a potential or ongoing gubernatorial campaig and the same is true with every word he says, every dollar he spends or item he budgets as Governor.
No wonder Walker appeals to CEO's, conservative funders and the fringiest, foot-soldiering 5% of those who thought Donald Trump was for real and went down with Romney and Ryan.
It's a shrinking national base demographically, but one which would enthusiastically finance and enable pre-primary organizing for Walker long before 2016 caucuses and balloting.
Just as they did during Walker's recall campaign last year, or to fund his legal defense fund.
Campaigning for office in presidential cycles is something Walker has been lucky enough to avoid in Wisconsin; nationally it's altogether a different, tougher matter - - just ask Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum or the entire Romney-Ryan effort - - but Walker has positioned himself advantageously for a 2016 run.
When he's not around in Madison from now on you can assume he's in Iowa, New Hampshire and anywhere from DC to Dallas to San Diego where big money Republicans are writing checks.
Because his ambition lines up with the far-right's agendas, too.
11 comments:
This might be a great way to get him out of Wisconsin
A Walker presidency has the potential to be more destructive than Dubya's.
The state needs a PFA issued against S.W. providing a 300 mile no-go zone from Madison. He rarely shows up except to create mayhem anyway.
antibiotics--quick
Walker and his cousin B. Obama have almost everything in common, politically. A Walker as POTUS is continuation of a dynasty.
Take your pick:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/07/02/trans-pacific-partnership-corporate-escape-from-accountability/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/15/the-progressive-movement-is-a-pr-front-for-rich-democrats/
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/david-dayen-the-gradual-privatization-of-medicaid.html
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/03/slate-agrees-that-obamas-vanity-drives-the-grand-betrayal-and-praises-the-betrayal.html
Sorry I can't provide live links, please cut and paste. There are no Democrats and no Republicans people. Surprised? You should not be.
Walker and his cousin B. Obama have almost everything in common, politically.
yeah, Walker advanced an expansion of the health care system, and moved same-sex marriage forward.
Oh wait, he didn't.
false equivalency is no way to argue. However, feel free to argue that electing whatever Republican horror comes down the pike will serve to 'heighten the contradictions' and lead to a liberal paradise.
@ZRB to both of your comments
Walker is exactly taking after Obama in further expansion of the private health insurance industry interests by refusing to do anything about actually providing affordable healthcare or cost controls. Health insurance is not affordable health care or even available health care.
Same sex marriage is enough of a "populist," crumb for you to ignore TPP signatory country supranational corporate sovereignty over all USofA law and regulation that exists now? There is some difference here to Walker wanting to bring in more foreign control of WI natural resources in his budget overturning 100 yr-old-law?
Arne Duncan's school "improvement," policies any different than Walker's attack on teachers and funding cuts for WI education and give-aways of taxpayer money to for profit, charter schools?
Just released State Dept Keystone study funded by same groups that said cigarettes were not a health problem and you don't think Obama is on the same level as Walker's asking for our state water laws to be trashed with the mining law? EPA coal plant emission standards relaxed first term and now more corporate hacks being installed there for O's second term is any different than Kathy Stepp and crew in WI?
BO's NDAA wasn't enough of a furthering of Dubya's repression of civil rights (Patriot Act) to get noticed by you? Obama declaring the USoA a battlefield in the perpetual war on terror something you missed reading about? With Obama already surpassing Dubya in doubling down, your 11:23 AM comment and then claiming the opposite is true @8:39 PM seems a bit silly.
Either of these two not answering directly to the biggest pile of money in front of them? DoJ Holder any different that WI DoJ Van Hollen? Find me an example, please.
I'll grant you that it might be a tough call on a which came first chicken or egg, BO or SW level, and who is following whom, in being the more effective evil threatening anything left of our former Democratic Republic and civil society, but there is nothing false about any equivalencies that I've presented here.
Kindly find time to check out the links I provided for a benefit to your overall understanding of reality.
The best (worst?) advertisement for the lumbering velociraptor that is Walker's ego is that he apparently believes that beating up on civil servants qualifies him for the Presidency. God knows he hasn't accomplished anything else.
This is good leverage against Walker in 2014. He is not committed to Wisconsin -- very clearly his focus is not on being Governor but on becoming President. In truth that has been the case from the day he got elected; now we have it from his own mouth. Why would we elect someone Governor who no longer has any real interest in the office? Better question might be why DID we elect someone who, if you knew anything about the guy at all, never had anything at heart except his own personal ambition and who weighs every action by how it well help him get to the next step on his climb to power? Let's elect someone who actually cares about the office, about the state, and about something other than him/herself.
TPP signatory country supranational corporate sovereignty over all USofA law and regulation
That's a remarkable construct. Meaningless, but remarkable.
Sheesh. you "50 Shades Of Black And White" people are really fervent about your imagined equivalencies, aren't you? If you can't see the qualitative differences between Governor and President, I have much better things to do than argue.
Go ahead and tell yourself it's because I have no answer for your Internet Debate Wizardry. Whatever gets you through the night.
@ZRM March 18, 2013 at 8:37 PM
Really rich, charging me with the task of coming up with arguments for you to use against me on a subject because you can't be bothered, or simply don't have an answer is what kind of an informative or useful response in a forum of ideas?
I put out a premise, Obama and Walker are very much the same in what they are doing with their present authority. YOU challenged me as presenting false equivalencies. YOU then claimed authority to set the terms allowed in how some "debate," you apparently envisioned you had just begun, would be allowed to be argued, damned big of you.
I offered examples of the similarity I claimed with the links I provided, and YOU then arbitrarily dismissed me personally with what I will term a derogatory phrase as part of, "you people," when I explained my premise further.
Gratuitous personal attacks and name calling are seemingly all that you are here for. Nothing about furthering an informative discussion. I'd label that bullying and abusiveness toward another commenter. That behavior would get people banned from several sites I know and there are classes offered for getting help before you really do hurt someone.
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