Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Decoding Scott Walker's 7 P.M. State of The State Selfie

Updated from Monday, 9:59 p.m posting "Walker's State Of State Speech Can Be Campaigns' Ad, Too."

Gov. Walker's State of the State speech Wednesday night offers higher-than-normal political opportunity because this is a Wisconsin gubernatorial election year.

And Walker can use the speech to road-test themes and showcase talking points for a possible 2016 presidential candidacy, too.

So he gets a two-fer; expect to be spun for double your fun as he tells you:

*  Though Wisconsin lags the national recovery (well, he won't actually say that), he'll take credit for  creating jobs...

*  Except that he's all-but-mathematically eliminated from, or even getting close to keeping his 2010 campaign's signature promise - -  the creation of 250,000 new jobs - - so Walker will default to his ritual shot at long-retired former Governor Jim Doyle while misdirecting your attention to a different subject - - a declining unemployment rate.

*  Without mentioning that the decline is a reflection of a statistically-shrunken worker pool because people out of work long-term have quit looking and no longer show up in the count - - the very people whose character Walker will claim to be spiffing up by ending their mooching dependency on health insurance, food stamps, unemployment benefits or a living wage.

* More highway spending is happening, though driving is declining, road maintenance is suffering and transit is starving, but the road-builders must be served - - so funds will be skimmed from social programs (see moochers, dependency, above).

*  And he'll talk about his his tax cuts - - puny per capita - -though you may have a hard time actually hearing about this Holiest Republican Grail over the choreographed cheers from assembled GOP legislators, staffers, VIP's and other hand-picked guests in the galleries.

Should he say that some of the surplus state revenue that serendipitously showed up just in time for election-year redistribution can go to education, I do not expect him to remind you that he included a huge cut in public education funding in his first budget - - a cut that has yet to be fully restored while state aids are heading to expanded private choice and charter schools.

File under 'When-an-entitlement-is-not-an-entitlement.' And mooching isn't charged even if millions just disappear.

Also listen for the buzzwords that Walker repeats robotically, and with which he will stay on message through November, and perhaps beyond, though there is nothing of substance behind them except focus-group testing and PR consultant word-smithing:

*  Wisconsin taxpayers aren't just taxpayers, they're always "hard-working taxpayers." (A subtle dig at those moochers, above).

*  Expect to hear "tools" a lot. Comments will be open, below, for clean double-entredres.

*  Reforms, in his self-aggrandizing, self-centered but oblivious way, have always been "bold." Yes, it's been a slog, even though the Legislature and the State Supreme Court are run by and for his party and its corporate donors.

*  And Walker, humility-free, will probably tell you of his "courage" since The Day He Dropped The Bomb.

Such plaudits would be better coming from others, but Walker is Walker, so these phrases, with cheers in the background, will be delivered ready for cutting and pasting right into TV ad copy and promotional footage for Fox & Friends, fund-raisers and primary planners.

Such is the state of our state.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

4 more years is a very real possibility.

Jake formerly of the LP said...

Will we see pics of Joel Kleefisch clapping madly again? I can think of some Dem ads that should use that footage.

Anonymous said...

Too bad Scott Walker keeps the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on such a tight leash.

Anonymous said...

Needs to remind the voters and taxpayers that he is not a crook.

Anonymous said...

Cross post please

James Rowen said...

If you mean at Purple WI, it's already there. http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/purple-wisconsin/241410091.html

Anonymous said...

anon 6:47

You have it backwards -- the overlords at the propaganda machine keep walker on a tight leash.

This chronic and habitual liar was fraudulently hoisted on the public by Journal Communications and Wisconsin's dysfunctional media.

Anon 3:05

Cross post this at Journal Communications?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

LOL

Gareth said...

Has anyone else noticed how "taxpayer" has routinely replaced "citizen" in political rhetoric and reporting? Is this a deliberate debasement of citizenship rights that signals the cultural acceptance of a rigid class system with multiple tiers based on income and race? Is this the logical extension of Republican hero, Margaret Thatcher's maxim: "There is no such thing as society"? Is this what it means to live in a Homeland rather than a Nation?