Tag: scott walker

Gov. Scott Walker (R, Wisconsin) and the Washington Post’s institutional bias.

You’ve no doubt already heard that Scott Walker is, yea, indeed, running for President – with a hundred ‘Throne of Skulls’ jokes already blossoming on Twitter – but I don’t want to hit that.  I want to hit a problem that I have with the Washington Post’s reporting on the subject.  This passage, in particular:

[Scott Walker’s] decision to take on public employee unions in Wisconsin in early 2009 created huge protests around the state Capitol building in Madison and left the state deeply polarized around his leadership…. That anger resulted in a recall election in 2012, which Walker survived. He went on to win his reelection campaign last November by a comfortable margin, and his three victories in four years have made him a hero among many conservatives.

Continue reading Gov. Scott Walker (R, Wisconsin) and the Washington Post’s institutional bias.

Scott Walker at the Iowa Freedom Summit.

If you’re looking for the Scott Walker speech, here you go*.  Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I skipped it at first myself. But reports came in that he was kicking it, and… yeah, Scott Walker did. A lot of emotion under control, there. Can’t say that I’m surprised about either: in retrospect, the Left may have miscalculated in allowing its pro-death-threat wing to drive anti-Walker sentiment in the Wisconsin recall and re-elections. You want to get a man focused and driven? Threaten to murder his wife. Continue reading Scott Walker at the Iowa Freedom Summit.

Courtier from Baronness Hog-gelder joins the court of the Duke of Skull Throne.

Come on, you have to admit: it sounds better than “The team that is building Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s political organization for a possible presidential campaign has brought on a GOP strategist with Iowa ties: David Polyansky.” As the Des Moines Register notes, Polyansky was one of Senator Joni Ernst’s key advisers during her successful campaign last year: he was also involved in getting Mike Huckabee to win the Iowa caucuses in 2008 and Michele Bachmann to win the Ames Straw poll in 2012.  True, neither Huckabee nor Bachmann went on to win the nomination: then again, neither Huckabee nor Bachmann are Scott Walker. Besides, this is clearly about Iowa.  Presumably the Duke of Skull Throne will be seeking suitable courtiers for the other primary states…

Via RCP.

Just had the Chromebook eat a post on the crazy people who hate Scott Walker.

Short version: they are, indeed, crazy.

Continue reading Just had the Chromebook eat a post on the crazy people who hate Scott Walker.

Um. Well. Yes, of course Scott Walker is going to run for President.

This is news?

In a 35-minute speech here at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting, the governor mentioned the name of his home state no fewer than two dozen times—and referenced “our state” or “my state” on at least 30 other occasions.

It all fed into the contrast Walker is eager to strike. While President Obama’s Washington, Walker says, is spending big, expanding the federal bureaucracy, and taking a “top-down” attitude to governance, Wisconsin has cut costs, shrunk the size of government, and adopted a “bottom-up” approach.

Walker’s speech left little doubt that he will run for president in 2016.

This is apparently news. I knew that Scott Walker was going to run for President just as soon as the Presidential election was called in 2012: the combination of Walker’s recall win and Mitt Romney’s loss made it pretty much inevitable. And yes, I knew since about mid-2013 that Walker was going to win re-election in 2014, too.  I never quite understood why other people seemed to be more uncertain about that, but then again I usually am quite ridiculously optimistic about things…

And So It Begins, Scott Walker edition.

Welcome to the 2016 election cycle.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will launch a new political organization in the coming weeks and has tapped a national political strategist to serve as his campaign manager should he decide to run for president, multiple GOP sources told CNN.

Walker, who was sworn in to a second term in Madison this week, quietly brought on Rick Wiley, a former Republican National Committee political director and veteran of multiple presidential campaigns, about a month ago to build a political operation in advance of the 2016 race, the sources said.

Yeah, Walker’s running.

The Left did absolutely nothing to stop Scott Walker’s re-election. They didn’t even slow him down.

Throne. Of. Skulls.

Permit me this little amusement.  All bolding mine.

  • The Daily Beast, August 25, 2014 (“The Tea Party Governor Backlash of 2014”): “Wisconsin’s Scott Waker is frequently talked up by RNC types as a leading 2016 contender, but he’s fighting for his political life at home, beset by a tsunami of scandals and running neck and neck with Mary Burke. Walker’s most-favored Midwestern governor status in D.C. is in trouble despite a misguided arrogance born of his surviving a recall attempt. His efforts to rein in the public sector unions have been successful, but his style and tone—and did I mention scandals—could make him an unexpected loser on Election Night.”
  • NPR, October 28, 2014 (“In Wisconsin Election, Gov. Scott Walker Fights To Hold On”): “[Craig] GILBERT: Well, you know, one thing that we’ve seen in all the public polling is that, as divided as the state was in the middle of that kind of raucous recall fight, it’s even more divided now. It has not got – there hasn’t been a lot of healing in Wisconsin. And Governor Walker hasn’t really added to his coalition, politically, since those elections. And if you think about 2010 being a really conservative wave election, and you think about 2012 – winning a recall where some voters, you know, had reservations about Governor Walker but didn’t like the recall process – you can sort of see how this election really ought to be closer than those two elections and is.”
  • Politico, October 29, 2014 (“Scott Walker limps toward 2016”): “The politician who confidently lectured Mitt Romney in 2012 (“He has to say that I’m a reformer like Scott Walker,” Walker told The Weekly Standard) has tumbled into yet another fight for his political life. Far from a conservative Clark Kent, Walker is visibly straining in the closing days of his race against Mary Burke, a wealthy former Trek Bicycle executive and member of the Madison School Board.”
  • The New Republic,  October 28, 2014 (“Scott Walker Is Scared He Might Lose—and He’s Already Blaming His Fellow Republicans”): “The polls are generally not trending well for Democrats in the final days before the 2014 midterms, but it’s increasingly looking not inconceivable that the party’s loss of the Senate could be accompanied by a loss for one of the party’s biggest bête noires: Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. If polls showing him effectively tied with former Trek Bicycle executive Mary Burke weren’t enough, Walker has been giving off the distinct vibe of a man in a bit of a panic.”
  • Salon, October 30, 2014: (“5 Tea Partyers who could lose reelection next week”) “Walker was never going to glide to reelection in a state that in 2012 elected progressive Democrat Tammy Baldwin, the nation’s first openly gay U.S. senator.”
  • Slate, November 3, 2014 (“The Most Important Race in America”): “On a portable stage in the parking lot of a strip mall in front of the Eau Claire GOP field office, sandwiched between a Curves and an Office Products Co. store, Gov. Scott Walker is keeping his chin up. After the beating he’s taken, that’s no small feat. Walker, Wisconsin’s incumbent Republican governor, is in a tough statewide contest for the third time in four years, and this one is much closer than it was supposed to be.”
  • ThinkProgress, November 4, 2014 (“A Pro-Environment Candidate Could Kick Scott Walker Out Of Office Tonight”): “With the final polls showing an extremely close race between incumbent Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) and challenger Mary Burke (D), an influx of last-minute donations and high-profile supporters indicate the importance of the race on a national scale.”
  • Wonkette, October 25, 2014* (“Scott Walker Gets Some Chris Christie All Over Him, On Purpose”): “With a little over a week to go before Election Day, Scott Walker is increasingly a man in need of a helping hand.”

Continue reading The Left did absolutely nothing to stop Scott Walker’s re-election. They didn’t even slow him down.

Wisconsin Voter ID reforms back in place for midterms.

This is a pretty good summary of what happened, which is a relief, because it’s also an official document:

On August 21, 2014, this court issued an order providing that the motion for a stay would be considered by the panel assigned to decide the case on the merits. This order further provided that the state was free, in the interim, to implement the changes to the procedures for obtaining (or excusing reliance on) birth certificates, and similar documents, that the Supreme Court of Wisconsin adopted in Milwaukee Branch of NAACP v. Walker, 2014 WI 98 (July 31, 2014).

Having read the briefs and heard oral argument, this court now stays the injunction issued by the district court. The State of Wisconsin may, if it wishes (and if it is appropriate under rules of state law), enforce the photo ID requirement in this November’s elections.

More via Hot Air.  Basically, this is a definite step back for Voter ID opponents – who have, by the way, a decidedly minority opinion on this position; and I don’t mean ‘a position taken by racial minorities‘ – as they’re stuck now with a Voter ID program in Wisconsin that’s essentially identical with one that’s already passed Constitutional scrutiny. It’s going to be very interesting to see how they plan to pursue an appeal under those circumstances, although goodness knows the Democrats will certainly try.

Moe Lane

Barack Obama, Mary Burke (D-CAND, Wisconsin-GOV) indignantly object to news report that latter is hiding from former.

Watch national and Wisconsin Democrats backpedal, backpedal, backpedal…

In addition to a Milwaukee visit on Monday, President Barack Obama will return to Wisconsin before Nov. 4 to campaign for Democratic candidate for governor Mary Burke, a party spokesman said Thursday.

The announcement made to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel came swiftly after Republicans criticized Burke for saying she couldn’t appear with Obama during his Labor Day visit to Milwaukee because it was an official stop, not a campaign event.

Burke’s campaign had strenuously objected to the GOP claims she was ducking the president because of his lackluster approval rating…

…because while it’s certainly true that the President has a lackluster approval rating, and that Mary Burke kind of hates the idea of being in the same photo frame as Barack Obama these days, well, Obama still does have supporters.  And if Mary Burke insults their hero too much but being too honest about him, then Mary Burke is going to have even more electoral problems than she has right now.  The dance is, as they say, delicate. Continue reading Barack Obama, Mary Burke (D-CAND, Wisconsin-GOV) indignantly object to news report that latter is hiding from former.

Tweet of the Day, @AoSHQDD Has Some Interesting WI-GOV Primary Results Up edition.

Ultimately via AoSHQ Decision Desk, this is very interesting:

And, frankly, unexpected. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I don’t think Scott Walker is going to lose his election. But if this holds up it’s news.