Gaps In Politico.com Piece Boosting Walker

The website Politico.com profiled Gov. Scott Walker - - Scott Walker's Stealth 2016 Strategy - - but missed a few things, like identifying these two former Walker aides or associates in its lead photo as having been convicted in a John Doe probe aimed at several of Walker's Milwaukee County Executive office and 2010 gubernatorial campaign activities and personnel - - Russell on a felony theft charge, and Pierick, on an unrelated misdemeanor:

Scott Walker, center, meets with Tim Russell, left, and Brian Pierick, in the parking lot at Kinko's on Mayfair Road in Wauwatosa, preparing campaign signs for Walker's County Executive run in 2002.

Russell and Pierick's crimes are laid out, here.

The headline about Walker's stealth 2016 presidential campaign could have been a great segue to the stealth behind some of Walker's 2010 campaign for Governor.

Russell, a long-time Walker aide, installed a secret email system in Walker's County Executive office suite that allowed county tasks and campaign work, including fund-raising, to be seamlessly coordinated:

The secret email system was available for use by certain staff for both official and unofficial business. Its existence was "never disclosed to county employees outside a closely held group within the Walker administration," according to the indictments (available here). On county time, the staffers allegedly communicated extensively with Walker campaign staff, organized fundraisers, made invitations, exchanged fundraising lists and sent out campaign press releases. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote extensively about the secret email system and Russell's role in establishing it 25 feet from Walker's office.

And, Politico, you have to double-and-triple check this guy's statements, like this one, because they serve to reinforce an inaccurate persona that Walker has carefully constructed:

He has repeatedly declined to say how he would have voted on the Senate immigration bill, which has caused Rubio so much heartburn. “Well I haven’t taken a position at all, because I wasn’t elected to Congress,” Walker said during a July Aspen Institute panel discussion in Colorado.

National media should not let Walker play this two-faced game about avoiding Congressional issues, feigning disinterest in federal policy and staying focused on Wisconsin issues alone, as I cataloged in April:

Gov. Walker says, on principle, that he doesn't think it's his place to tell filibuster-pledged Sen. Ron Johnson how to vote on federal gun issues. And there's more.

You might want to save the priceless Walkerism in the lines below from this NRA-compliant interview, as it's a keeper:

“I’m not going to tell people what they should or shouldn’t do,” Walker told reporters when asked about Johnson’s proposed filibuster. “That’s really a procedural issue in terms of the United State Senate and I’ll leave that up to them.”

Except just a few months ago when the "fiscal cliff" loomed, we read this:

Don't raise taxes just to fix the federal budget and avoid the approach of the fiscal cliff, Gov. Scott Walker signaled to congressional Republicans on Wednesday.

And more recently, about potential sequester cuts and their federal fiscal impact: 

...Walker said in the interview with the Journal Sentinel that deferring spending cuts would be "kicking the can" down the road, and that Republicans in Congress were right to insist that any 11th-hour deal - any alternative to across-the-board cuts - comprise spending reductions only and not tax increases.

Or...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) urged lawmakers to call President Barack Obama's "bluff" ahead of March 1, when a serious of automatic cuts take effect.