Walker was flailing, not pivoting
Watching Walker unable to answer a question in Thursday's debate about "Black lives matter" as a civil rights issue, or talking about things he never listed or explained which pregnant women could do short of abortion if their lives were at risk, I decided that Walker was not strategically pivoting, or sticking to a play-it-safe play book - - he was flailing quietly and weaving around being caught flat-footed because there are real gaps in his knowledge base.
Yes, Walker has more than proven he has the energy to campaign, and he does a good job assessing when to pick his spots and run.
And he knows how to use props to create clever optics - - Harley rides, cheap Kohl's shirts, carefully-controlled media events at businesses far from protest signs - - to get himself on TV per his own scripts.
Wisconsinites have seen it all before - - you can read an extensive reviews of his record, documented, here.
And makes you think, well, maybe when he says "I don't know," sometimes he really doesn't.
Molotov! Spell-check FUBAR, intern's gaffe, or Walker's?
But on the debate stage Thursday night in Cleveland, Walker looked like a boy among men, the kid who dropped out of college as a junior 34 credits short of graduation with a 2.59 GPA, as PolitiFact via his campaign has disclosed.
If college was too hard or challenging, how could Walker manage the world's most important economy, most powerful military and a very complex and diverse citizenry?
Staff work, talking points and blueprints sent over from think tanks and Super PACs can paper over only so much once the independent questions start flying.
Which is why I am also rethinking a story I have told several times on this blog - - one example, here - - about having observed Walker attending a meeting among the major elected officials in Racine, Kenosha and Milwaukee Counties on the commuter rail issue, but then later passing the word that he did not want anyone even saying to media he was there.
I had long thought that Walker didn't want right-wing talk radio to know he was in the room and had agreed to support spending then-available federal funds on commuter rail - - not light rail, mind you.
But now I think Walker didn't know enough about the grant and its purposes and its potential role in a regional transportation mix - - he said virtually nothing during the meeting - - to be quoted intelligently.
So rather than fumble around or appear uninformed when reporters came calling, he punted by hiding - - even passing the word to then-Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist's office where I worked that no one was allowed to confirm that Walker was even at the meeting.
I saw that same lack of preparation and depth during the debate; it is not a confidence builder or a winning plan for the rest of the debates.
But it's why there have already been weird unscripted Walker moments in the pre-primary campaign of his own making about teacher protesters in Madison being like ISIS terrorists, or telling a little boy kid who asked about climate change after the big CPAC meeting in Washington DC this last winter that Eagle Scouts always put out their campfires.
Yes, Walker has more than proven he has the energy to campaign, and he does a good job assessing when to pick his spots and run.
And he knows how to use props to create clever optics - - Harley rides, cheap Kohl's shirts, carefully-controlled media events at businesses far from protest signs - - to get himself on TV per his own scripts.
Wisconsinites have seen it all before - - you can read an extensive reviews of his record, documented, here.
And makes you think, well, maybe when he says "I don't know," sometimes he really doesn't.
Molotov! Spell-check FUBAR, intern's gaffe, or Walker's?
But on the debate stage Thursday night in Cleveland, Walker looked like a boy among men, the kid who dropped out of college as a junior 34 credits short of graduation with a 2.59 GPA, as PolitiFact via his campaign has disclosed.
If college was too hard or challenging, how could Walker manage the world's most important economy, most powerful military and a very complex and diverse citizenry?
Staff work, talking points and blueprints sent over from think tanks and Super PACs can paper over only so much once the independent questions start flying.
Which is why I am also rethinking a story I have told several times on this blog - - one example, here - - about having observed Walker attending a meeting among the major elected officials in Racine, Kenosha and Milwaukee Counties on the commuter rail issue, but then later passing the word that he did not want anyone even saying to media he was there.
I had long thought that Walker didn't want right-wing talk radio to know he was in the room and had agreed to support spending then-available federal funds on commuter rail - - not light rail, mind you.
But now I think Walker didn't know enough about the grant and its purposes and its potential role in a regional transportation mix - - he said virtually nothing during the meeting - - to be quoted intelligently.
So rather than fumble around or appear uninformed when reporters came calling, he punted by hiding - - even passing the word to then-Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist's office where I worked that no one was allowed to confirm that Walker was even at the meeting.
I saw that same lack of preparation and depth during the debate; it is not a confidence builder or a winning plan for the rest of the debates.
But it's why there have already been weird unscripted Walker moments in the pre-primary campaign of his own making about teacher protesters in Madison being like ISIS terrorists, or telling a little boy kid who asked about climate change after the big CPAC meeting in Washington DC this last winter that Eagle Scouts always put out their campfires.
9 comments:
Say what you want about Walker's debate performance or anything else. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel comes to the rescue and reprints his dishonest talking points as news. For example, at this very minute and since yesterday, they have been uncritically publishing Walker's lies about his secret email router while simultaneously attacking Hillary Clinton for her private email server.
MJS/jsonline refuses to put this tripe in a meaningful context and, in fact, repeatedly endorsed Scott Walker after it became public knowledge that he had illegally avoided open records requests and campaigned on the taxpayer's dime with a secret email system.
"Look over there" MJS proclaims, catapuling Walker's propaganda, "Blah blah blah blah blah!" They have also promoted Sheriff David Clarke for years now, never publishing truthful stories that would acknowledge he is a right-wing teabagger that runs under the false flag of being a democrat. Of course, this just demonstrates how corrupt and incompetent the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is, but don't expect MJS to tell the truth here either.
You are right, Walker cannot truthfully address equity issues and #blacklivesmatter, but, as always, the problem isn't what Scott Walker says. The problem is the media echo chamber that pumps his lies up as truth and "bold".
Walker was not unprepared for the debates. He was aggressively coached and as prepared as his dim little mind would ever allow him to be. But none of this is actually about Walker. It is about a compliant media network that cleans up his asinine statements and then republishes them in more eloquent terms.
Scott Walker is entirely a media creation. He is not our problem. When he moves on to whatever, the media will promote another corporate shill. There is no change in Wisconsin until more people get back and take meaningful action against the propaganda shills.
I think he has fooled a lot of incurious people with the help of WI newspapers and TV.
Scott Walker is a slightly smoother version of Sarah Palin.
Govern yourselves accordingly!
Thank you! I have been saying for a long time that Walker is not smart enough to be President of the local Dairy Queen, much less Governor of a State or President of the U.S.
It's all in the way he answers questions, or rather doesn't answer them, and his constant repetition of talking points with no detail on solutions to problems. Some of the hesitations he makes before he ends up saying something completely different from what the original question was is a big clue (like do black lives matter). He seems to only answer questions he is prepared to answer and deflects on any other questions. Too often he never answers the original question. There have been times where I've said "huh" to myself, and "what does that have to do with the question that was asked." When he had a press conference with the Milwaukee Journal Editorial Board, he was asked the same question three times by two people and he never did answer it. They gave up when they realized he was not going to give them a straight answer.
Watch some early speeches and press conferences of Obama's when he was beginning to campaign and then watch some of Walkers. You can see a huge intelligence gap on Walker's part.
Walker thinks strategy and money can get him where he wants to go and he can leave the heavy lifting to everyone surrounding him like he does in Madison. It doesn't work that way for the President's job. They may have a lot of advisers, but the hard decisions have to be made by them and they have to live with the consequences of those decisions, especially when put in a position to send people into harm's way. He isn't doing any of that in his state job.
It is so disappointing to see people make this about Walker's intelligence. And there is a HUGE difference between Scott Walker and Sarah Palin. Palin has NEVER had the type of media propaganda behind her that Walker has benefited from for years now.
This is not about Scott Walker's intelligence! The fact he is a fool is precisely why he is the Koch brother's favorite tool. His stupidity works to his advantage and even more to the advantage of his multinational corporate sponsors. Strategy and money certainly CAN put Scott Walker into the White House and the strategy is not of his own-making, nor is the money behind him.
Scott Walker was one of the potential republican rising "stars" that Karl Rove mentored after he left the White House. He is a useful tool precisely because people mistakenly make it about him instead of the folks he represents. Scott Walker is just a figurehead, and now absentee Governor of Wisconsin. He will be a figurehead and a distraction in the White House. This is why he is dangerous.
I do not understand why some want to point to the very reasons he is a front-runner as somehow being proof that he can't be hoisted into the White House. This is just plain wrong and plays into the hands of his handlers.
Correct. He just knows how to.memorize his script. But there is NOTHING else going on, except for trying to score the next grift
Good Governing is hard. It requires skill, original thinking, problem solving, listening, understanding,compromise and leadership. Scott Walker has never been about governing.
For Walker, it is about winning the election and tightening the reigns of control. Look at his track record in Wisconsin of changing the "rules" to ensure conservatives maintain power.
He claims he does not have to change his conservative principles to remain in power. Perhaps, but to do so he lies, hides his true intentions, engages is demagoguery, works in secrecy, sells his soul to fill the campaign coffers, creates a false image and sells it ad nauseum during campaigns. Oh yes, and he coordinates the monied "free speech" to support his ideology and impose his political will.
He is a ruthless politician and it works for him. He does not care about your liberal opinion or your vision of clean open government. As long as he wins, he won and you lost. That is the bottom line in Scott's world.
Anon 3:25 p.m.
You start out talking about everyone making this about Walker's intelligence and go on to say this is not about Scott Walker's intelligence. Then you talk about his stupidity and how it works to his advantage. So, are you also saying he lacks intelligence. That is confusing, but I do understand what you are saying. A good trainer can teach tricks to any dog. Which is basically what Walker's life has been, just one trick after another taught to him by individuals who have ulterior motives. That's what makes him such a good puppet. In the end, it requires no intelligence.
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