Posted on 03/19/2015 7:45:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Sometimes the most inside-baseball political stories tell you something essential about a presidential candidate. That's what happened this week to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who apparently wants to win the Iowa caucuses so badly that he's willing to torch his staff and his reputation to do it.
The Walker campaign recently announced that it had hired Liz Mair, a highly regarded Republican consultant. Mair has also played pundit at times, and is generally more pro-gay rights and pro-immigration than the average Republican. But that's typical of Republican consultants in general. It is assumed that policy is set by the candidates themselves, not by the people advising them on their social media accounts.
However, Mair's hiring was subject to an unusual amount of scrutiny. Muckrakers on the right pointed out that Mair supported "amnesty" for immigrants who had entered the country illegally, or something like it. The Des Moines Register ran an article highlighting some sharp remarks Mair had made about Iowa's distorting influence on national politics, with its first-in-the-nation status forcing candidates to embrace Iowa's agricultural subsidies and a federal mandate that requires fuel-inefficient ethanol to be mixed with all gasoline. And finally, Jeff Kauffman, Iowa's GOP chairman, suggested to The New York Times that Walker should give Mair "her walking papers."
Mair was gone. Officially, she resigned.
Forcing Mair out was like amputating your finger to deal with a paper cut. Instead of having a problem with a few Iowans and a writer at Breitbart.com, Walker has now baffled his admirers across the right. Mair's resignation signaled that Walker's team either didn't do its homework before hiring Mair, or that it was too spineless to defend her. It is hard to believe the former, since Mair consulted for Walker before during his 2012 recall.
Walker's unwillingness to defend his own hire will give other consultants and policy experts jitters before joining the team. It totally undercuts his reputation as a tough-minded fighter who stands on principle. And it may contribute to an alternate interpretation of Walker as a 'fraidy cat. Earlier this month, Walker caved to Iowa ethanol interests by reversing his position on the federal mandate.
The problem, in other words, wasn't the tweets of a single staffer, but the way Iowa's parochial concerns act like kryptonite on Walker's convictions and reputation. He can certainly recover from this, but if Walker thinks his path to the nomination runs through Iowa, he needs to figure out how to win that state's caucuses without turning into Tom Vilsack before he arrives in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Walker's approach also contrasts badly with Jeb Bush's. Bush has been hiring policy brains and strategic brawn from across the right and center-right. He recently hired the social conservative legal activist Jordan Sekulow. Jordan is the son of Jay Sekulow, a pioneer in forming the modern right's commitment to religious liberty issues at home. The hire was not well-received in the media. It was described as a "lurch to the right." A number of stories bringing up Jordan Sekulow's support for anti-gay rights laws in Africa popped up across the media.
Did Bush panic and throw Sekulow under the bus? Nope. He assumes, correctly, that adults won't confuse the positions of one of his hires with his own. And as it happens, having people who disagree with you on staff is incredibly useful.
If you were a top expert, a policy-thinker, or a consultant, which candidate would you want to work for? The guy who tosses his people out on the say-so of an Iowa Republican whose name he had just learned, or Jeb Bush, who doesn't give a jus exclusivæ to his enemies?
How would Walker handle a tough Supreme Court nomination battle against a united Democratic Senate, if he folds instantly after some whinging from a right-wing muckraker? Until this week, Walker supporters could have pointed to his white-knuckle fight with Wisconsin's public-sector unions. Now his critics can point to the way he cowers before a few rotting corn stalks.
If every conservative had voted and Romney had won, it would only have forestalled the inevitable a few more years.
I'm hoping that somehow Gloria Allred becomes president so that people will get mad enough to rise up and take back the government.
So Walker set his policy and fired her. Who knows what she said to him when she came on board.
So Walker set his policy and fired her. Who knows what she said to him when she came on board.
This was her second time working for him, says the article.
She worked for Walker in his 2012 campaign. The tweets that got her canned came later.
If Obama and his shenanigans haven’t done that, why do you think some other person’s would? Our parents and grandparents would already have risen up, IMO.
Nonsense
Gloria Allred is ALL RED and she has a nasty squawking raven's voice to boot.
When she gave her first state of the union address, we would finally see a scene like we saw in "Independence Day", but instead of hundreds of RV's heading for Area 51, they would be headed for the NSA servers in Utah.
Interesting insights you offer...thanks
But my guess on her tweets is that if she was asked that question she didn’t even remember her tweets....they’re like comments on a comment board, with a lot less thought....I mean, with 140 characters, what can you say other than make a fool out of yourself? Seriously. Email is already an impossible place to have a serious discussion, and now they do tweets?
You reap what you sow...even if you can’t remember the sowing....
I think this is a whole bunch of baloney by someone who must get paid by the word for his hogwash.
Walker’s record as governor is what matters to me. What - we’re supposed to expect these people are PERFECT?
>>Despite all of his faults, Obama does have a nice speaking voice.<<
In all seriousness, it’s his voice that got him the presidency. I distinctly remember hearing him speak for the first time 2004 at the convention and, listening to his voice, and upon learning he was both black and a Democrat, thinking, “Oh, oh, this guy is trouble.”
Little did I know....
I maintain that Obama and his shenanigans have done exactly that. He, together with Pelosi and Reid, have shrunk the Democrat Party significantly.
2016 isn’t going to even be close. The Dems have driven all but the insane Progressives from their party, leaving Hillary well to the right of her voters, which, in itself, should make the next couple of years quite interesting.
She did, and from what I've learned she was an important player in his election wins in WI.
You guess wrong.
Then Walker had to be playing as an ‘evolved’ republican all three times he won while the same voters elected zero TWICE.
That’s just too big a coincidence for me to swallow. The whole electorate can’t be schizophrenic.... or can they?
>>She did, and from what I’ve learned she was an important player in his election wins in WI.<<
Whether she was an “important player” or not, it makes perfect sense that Walker would hire again if he were satisfied with her work then. It also makes perfect sense that she would choose to resign after her inane tweets became a point of contention in one of the most important primary states.
She fouled and she paid. Blaming Walker for either hiring her or firing her is simply looking for another gotcha.
It is quite telling that you spout that nonsense and you are supporting Walker.
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It’s even more telling that you appear more comfortable with another Marxist as president.
Those spoiled brat “conservatives” who stayed home knew all too well the plans Obama had for our nation if he were to win a second term. We are now seeing those plans come to fruition before our very eyes. Those who stayed home deserve at least some of the credit for where we’re currently at. They saw Romney as a bigger threat than an avowed Alinskyite. They were (are) first class idiots!
Those who stayed home in 2012 are NO Patriots!
Shaddup moron. Mittens was no better than Soetoro hole. The GOPe don’t like winning anyway. You are stuck on stupid.
So do I. This crap is 2012 repeat.
As soon as a conservative leader surges ahead the left tries to knock him out. One after the other. Soon the only one left standing is a wrist limped loon who could never win, and even if he does,will bend to the Dems on everything -like Boner.
So, unless they can link Walker to a dead Vince Foster, a dossier of “missing” IRS retutns, several dead US embassy staff members, a career of non-achievement, a parade of threatened women prayed upon by a serial sexual predator, and millions of missing e-mails, I AM BACKING HIM ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!
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