Walker displayed early extremism, narcissistic ambition

Walker's latest budget includes fresh, deeper attacks on state parks, recycling and science in the public interest - - from UW labs to DNR field work - - so Wisconsin water and land are clean and healthy and worth being passed on to our children's children.

I dusted off these early warnings here about Walker's devious methods and extreme plans to remake the state into a grab-bag for corporate interests and a personal informercial for right-wing votes. 

*  Remember his false, obnoxious and deceptive claim repeated on his behalf by the NRA that 2010 opponent Tom Barrett had a "radical environmental" agenda. What a crock:

The corporate water-carrier Scott Walker swaggers into office Monday on the strength of a 52% 'mandate' - - leaving behind nearly nine years of political and financial disinterest and disaster at the Milwaukee County Courthouse - - and arrives sworn in as Governor early, and silently, and with major state train construction and labor contract cancellations (victories, he says) under his belt already.

Let's note one telling episode during his at least five-year run for Governor that helped him to his 52% and hints at what's coming through at least 2014.

During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Scott Walker ran an ad that claimed opponent Tom Barrett had a "radical environmental agenda."

What a whopper and deliberate political diversion that was - - but two weeks later, right on schedule and closer to the election, there was the "radical environmental" bogeyman in scary tones from the National Rifle Association, lauding Walker for his opposition to "radical environmental regulations enacted by the DNR." 

There's the Right's pitch-perfect, echo chamber harmony, and fine foreshadowing, too, as Walker has put the home builders and others who have yearned for years to neuter the Department of Natural Resources in charge of the agency.

And also to weaken Wisconsin's conservation efforts, which is about as radical as you can get in the land of Gaylord Nelson, Aldo Leopold, and John Muir.  

And here's the kicker: 

It was Walker all along who had the radical environmental blueprint, the 'Cut It, Gut It, Pave it, Fill It' plan to help the home builders and road builders help themselves to the state's wetlands, forests, and from inside the DNR.

It was also noted here just weeks after his 2011 swearing in that Walker was tailoring state government and public assets for his opportunistic dreams:

Scott Walker, neophyte Governor, but already brushing off Vice-Presidential chatter (maybe the reporters should have asked him about a higher position?) has turned public budgeting and policy-making from the State Capitol to the smallest village hall into a one-man political calculus - - and worse, is using us, based on 52% of the November vote, as data and inputs for his desired outcome.

Has there been a bolder narcissist in the Governor's office?

Have so many people ever been used to advance the agenda of a single politician?

What Walker wants from this forced political experiment is the creation of statistical claims to conservative fame - - be it a number of jobs 'created,' or a state deficit closed, or public employee unions de-certified - - wrapped inside a central talking point, or campaign theme for future TV spots, or a tag line in official biographies for every news release and media story and lecture circuit programs...for years. 

He is, after less than three months in office, recreating an entire state as a personal spreadsheet and looking for legacy material.

A political spreadsheet into which is fed the value, on his terms and for his use, of every diminished public worker, BadgerCare enrollee purged, pothole not filled, bus line halted, teacher position erased, power plant given away, ton of recycling land-filled and phosphorus discharged into trout streams - - even every dollar wrung out of a W-2 welfare mother's reduced check, every penny squeezed on to tax returns from the working poor, and, yes, even every calorie cut from poor children's school breakfasts at Milwaukee Public School.

The goal of this political computation is advancing the career of one person, Scott Walker, as it sets the state back 50 years, wrecks middle-class household budgets, undermines professions and degrades a world-famous landscape whose previous stewards included Aldo Leopold, Warren Knowles and Gaylord Nelson.