Posted on 03/02/2015 1:37:11 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Scott Walker likes to tell a story about shopping at Kohl's. Under instructions from his wife Tonette, Walker has learned how to pile on the discounts and coupons whenever he goes to the popular Wisconsin-based department store. If he sees a shirt on the rack with a tag that reads, "Was $29.99, Now $19.99," Walker explains, he goes to the cash register with a flyer from the newspaper and gets another ten or 15 percent off. Then he pulls out his Kohl's credit card and there's another ten percent. And another newspaper flyer that might be worth as much as 30 percent off. "And the next thing you know, they're paying me to buy that shirt!" Walker exclaims.
When Walker told the story at the Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Iowa in late January, the audience ate it up -- just loved it -- and Walker was rewarded with rousing applause. Fast forward to Saturday morning, here in Palm Beach, when Walker told it again at a meeting of wealthy donors sponsored by the Club for Growth in an ornate ballroom at The Breakers, one of the most opulent hotels in America. The reception to Walker's story was polite, but noticeably more subdued than in Iowa.
"Probably not as many Kohl's shoppers here," Walker said dryly when I asked him afterward about the contrast. "In Iowa, the people went 'Yeah! We feel great when we get that 30 percent in the mail.'"
At The Breakers, in front of the contributors whose approval all GOP candidates hope to win, it wasn't quite the same. But Walker still saw value in telling the story. "A lot of these donors were frustrated after the last election because they were feeling…that Americans couldn't relate to our nominee," he told me. "So even if they don't necessarily relate to that story, I think they appreciate that someone like me can tell that story and relate to the people who we're going to need in the next election."
That's a huge part of Walker's appeal right now: He seems to be the Republican candidate who has the best chance of connecting with the millions of middle-class voters who have drifted away from the GOP in recent elections. And for that reason, Walker looks like the man who can attract almost everyone in the Republican camp -- social, economic, and national security conservatives -- in addition to those disaffected voters. That's a huge plus for Walker and, along with his impressive record in Wisconsin, is the reason he has shot to the first tier of the Republican race in recent weeks.
At the same time, Walker could be headed for trouble with the establishment, Washington-based wing of his party. Look for GOP insiders to begin whispering, and then saying out loud, that Walker needs to raise his game if he is going to play on the national stage. On the one hand, they'll have a point -- Walker needs to come up with clear, crisply-expressed positions on a variety of national and international issues. On the other hand, Walker's way-outside-the-Beltway method of expressing himself might resonate with voters in primary and caucus states more than Washington thinks.
For example, in our conversation Saturday, I asked Walker what Republicans in Washington should do in the standoff over funding the Department of Homeland Security. "Not just Republicans, I think the Congress as a whole needs to find a way to fund homeland security going forward," Walker answered. He explained that he recognized the concerns lawmakers have about giving up their ability "to push back on the president's questionable, if not illegal, actions." Walker noted that he was part of the states' lawsuit against Obama's action. "I think they're right that the president is wrong," Walker told me, "but I also think we've got to make sure that homeland security isn't compromised."
After a little more along those lines, I said I was still a little unclear on where Walker stood. Should Republicans stand firm on not funding Obama's unilateral action on immigration, or should they go ahead and fund the Department of Homeland Security without regard to what Obama has done? Here is what Walker said:
I think they have to figure out some way to have the bridge to continue to fund homeland security but in a way that doesn't remove their ability to come back sometime in the not too distant future if the court rules or if the administration changes how they do this action in a way that could be upheld in court. They need to have the power of the purse string to offer a counter to that.
What does that mean, exactly? It's not entirely clear. On one hand, it appeared Walker was adopting the time-honored stance of the governor who stands outside the squabbling of both parties in Washington -- a tactic that last worked quite well for George W. Bush in 2000. He'll appeal to more voters by not getting stuck in the Washington mud.
On the other hand, maybe Walker just hadn't thought it through very carefully. Certainly some parts of his performance before the Club for Growth led observers to suspect that he has not really dived into a number of big issues -- not just foreign policy, but domestic as well -- that will serve as tests for presidential candidates in coming months.
One easy question, at least as far as members of the Club were concerned, involved the Export-Import Bank. The Club wants to see it die; that's a good conservative position. All the other candidates who came to Palm Beach -- Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Jindal -- quickly and clearly said Ex-Im should be allowed to expire. But not Walker. Here's how he answered the question:
I think again, if you do what I mentioned with the tax code, if you make it fair and simple, if you do trade overall that's open and fair going forward across the world, across the globe, and you simplify the regulatory code, then the most compelling argument people would say is that this Bank is there because other countries have it, somehow we need it out there -- I think that's a faulty argument and premise, but I understand why today, when you've got all these other various regulations and a tax code that doesn't work and other things, but if you simplify the tax code, you simplify the regulatory climate, you pull back the frivolous and out-of-control lawsuits, there's no need to have it, and let the market drive everything, and those that are worthy of the competition, big or small, I think, will do well.
It wasn't exactly a straightforward answer, and the Club questioner noted that the audience would have liked to hear the word "eliminate." Walker eventually said he did not support re-authorizing Ex-Im, but it took a while to get there. In the end, Walker left the uncomfortable impression that he hadn't considered the question very seriously.
And then there was foreign policy. No one expects a governor to have dived deeply into international affairs this early in the race, but Walker is definitely a work in progress. In recent weeks, for example, he has cited his command of the Wisconsin National Guard as evidence of national security experience, and in Palm Beach on Saturday, he pointed to Ronald Reagan's 1981 firing of the air traffic controllers as "the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime" -- a decision made, in case anyone missed the point, by "a president who was previously a governor."
Walker's comparison set off a lot of debate over whether the air traffic control firings, as consequential as they were, really supported the point Walker was trying to make. Whatever the case, Walker insisted that "Foreign policy is something that's not just about having a Ph.D or talking to Ph.Ds. It's about leadership." In our conversation, he said he has gathered together advisors -- some of whom do have Ph.Ds -- and is working on foreign policy questions.
Still, all that has led to some feelings of unease among policy experts and Republican insiders that Walker, for all his outward popularity, might be headed for difficulties over the substance of policy. Yes, he has a huge record of achievement as a governor. But will that be enough to get him through a long campaign?
In contrast, other Republican candidates -- some with less impressive records of accomplishment than Walker -- have shown a lot of fluency with national and international issues. From Jeb Bush, with his long exposure to both state and national governance, to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, senators who speak with some authority on big issues, to others like Bobby Jindal, and potentially John Kasich and Mike Pence, who have experience on both the state and federal stage -- other candidates are ahead of Walker in their ability to come up with sharp and well-argued statements on domestic and foreign policy. Walker will have to reach beyond his record to compete with them on the issues and present himself to voters as a potential president.
It's not clear whether Walker's problem is temporary or longer lasting. Part of the difficulty is that he has found himself far ahead of where he thought he would be at this stage in the race, and is thus under a much hotter spotlight than he might have imagined. In our conversation, I asked whether the campaign had shifted under his feet. "Totally," Walker said, without a moment's hesitation.
"We thought all along if we got in, it would be kind of this slow and steady, don't worry about the other guys, just keep focused on moving forward, and as candidates chose not to get in or fell off, we'd be in a position to make a compelling case to them," Walker explained. "We had no idea that after that Iowa summit there would be that kind of acceleration to the race. But we're here, and we're not going to complain about it."
Walker assumed that in the best-case scenario he would be in for a long, slow move to the front of the Republican pack. But he caught a slingshot out of Iowa and instead finds himself at the top of many GOP lists at a very early point in the race. Now he has to take some time to catch up with himself.
And making that a prerequisite will only make it more likely that Hillary is the next WH squatter.
ow do you envision the search for the absolute perfect conservative candidate? How do the dynamics of the end game play out when all the decent candidates have been destroyed and Neo doesn't show?
The GOPe is headed for trouble with Conservatives.
Look up the name (and former republican senator) Jim Talent.
Maybe you could be convinced.
I like Mike Pence as well, but he has been very lukewarm about running and if he really wanted it, he'd be out there in the fray right now. Somebody who's willing to fight for it starting in the first round will be on my short list.
My first thought was that, of course, he’s in trouble with the DC elite. They wouldn’t be caught dead in a Kohls. WAYYYY beneath them to do anything that makes sense. :)
Anything in that story about looking for made-in-the-USA merchandise and being willing to pay a few extra dollars for it? Oops.
As I may have posted before, if this were back in the “old days,” when the candidate was chosen at the party convention, and the voting was deadlocked, Pence would have been the ideal dark horse candidate, emerging at, say, the 102nd ballot.
I agree. However, I also like the other candidates very much, and I just LOVE Dr. Carson. Together they represent so much hope for this country and I hope whomever wins the Presidency, if that happens, will find places of honor and influence to offer the others if they will take them.
Scott Walker will have trouble with GOPe cause he might actually oppose and seek to undo Obama’s top-down-one-size-fits-all policies. The GOPe is just fine with tyranny, they just want to be part of it. My question is will any of the GOPe oppose Obama when he declares himself “president for life” on or about January 20, 2017?
Entitlements.
Like Walker but think the good old boy GOP club will go for a softer candidate and will feed the media with BS.
“This station” will only back someone who will gracefully lose to the next Democrat candidate.
Exactly right.
Look at the previous two election cycles. McCain was as popular as poison ivy in June 2007 after pushing amnesty TWICE and had no money. Yet he had the nomination sewn up by March 2008.
Romney was the author of the precursor of the hated Obamacare and had taken all positions on all issues at one time or another and was less popular than McCain. Yet again, by March of 2012, he’s the nominee.
They have the calendar rigged so red states have virtually no say until it’s too late. Elsewhere they have purposefully open primaries. The rules have been tweaked to smooth out the bumps Romney experienced on the way to his nomination. The GOP exists to block conservatives, not represent them.
The last 4 Presidential elections have been amnesty D vs amnesty R.
Jebbish will be the designated loser this time. What will we do then?
We have to think outside the box the parties have put us in.
Walker is correct, correct, correct about PATCO. It's about the leadership, dummies.
In regards to policy questions about, say, the Ex-Im Bank, Walker is correct again...it's not as simple as it's being made out to be.
Polished presentation got us Obama. That should clearly illustrate why it's not a reliable indicator of... Leadership.
Walker is second on my list of two.
On my short list as well.
BTW-is there anything other than a short list? I start counting and cannot use up the fingers on one hand. :)
Scott Walker’s performance on Fox News Sunday dissected.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
I don’t like how Scott Walker is already starting with the “I’m the best candidate with the experience it takes and none of the others are”
I even wrote to his campaign and said to remember Reagan’s 11th commandment “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”
Where did Walker say that?
I thought that was Ted Cruz's line.
All weekend, Fox kept repeating Hannity’s interview at CPAC with Jeb Bush (shudder). I must have run across that same show being repeated at least 4 or 5 times. It seems they ARE pushing for Da Bushes. He is revolting in his support for Common Stupidity and Shamnesty.
End of rant
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