Saturday, March 9, 2019

Walker said 'the eagle has landed.' Evers-the-teacher must play myth-buster.

There's something of 'No-Drama-Obama' in Tony Evers as he sops up the mess left behind by his predecessor who's busy these last two months soaking up sun, surf, speaking fees and spring training fun.

Saddled with a Foxconn deal 'negotiated' by the failed job-creator and defeated Scott Walker - - and a knee-capping by lame-duck GOP legislation that intentionally distanced Evers from managing the state agency which oversees the Foxconn contract - - Evers has instead tried something novel when communicating to the Wisconsin taxpayers about the billions in obligations heaped upon them:


Hype-free clarity and honesty in an interview posted by radio station AM620WTMJ:

Governor Tony Evers: Don't expect 13,000 Foxconn jobs 'anytime soon.'
The issue of the Foxconn development in Racine and the promise of 13,000 new jobs in return for billions in state and local investment in the project was a major issue in the 2018 gubernatorial election which Democrat Tony Evers won. 
Now, he is attempting to make sure Foxconn keeps its word after the company recently said it was switching direction with its development and did not accomplish its 2018 hiring goals...  
"I want to be a good partner with them. I want to make sure that they're a good corporate citizen...we cannot go forward with inconsistence and changing messages. That's been my pitch to them from the beginning. I'll continue to insist on that."
(I'll be adding today's post to this archive I'v built on the Foxconn issue since Walker announced the project 21 months ago.)

Contrast Evers' level-headedness with the spin, cliches and rhetorical heft and theft Walker tossed out when he took himself at taxpayer expense on a statewide tour to sell the deal in the middle of his re-election campaign, saying, in Appleton:

"This move is a transformation, this is one of those once in a lifetime once in a century type of opportunities; for this state to get it right to put us on the map, to make an impact not just around the country but really around the world..." 
Walker says, "This is going to be transformational....People are realizing we made it we're for real we called this project before it was announced publicly, the flying eagle, well the eagle has landed and the world now knows how great Wisconsin is."
And if Walker's Foxconn acolytes in state trade associations and the Legislature don't want to hear the truth from Evers, perhaps they'd be persuaded by private-sector experts recently quoted:
The Journal Sentinel weighs in with its own stunner
Wisconsin might not get a Foxconn plant of any size, analysts say
By the way and speaking of landings, Walker tells us via three tweets and eight photos on Twitter in the last 24 hours that he's enjoying spring training baseball in Phoenix, after other recent landings in California, Florida and Washington, DC.



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