Can Scott Walker Convert the Christian Right?

The Daily Beast ^ | May 20, 2015 | Betsy Woodruff

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A few steps from the Capitol building on Tuesday afternoon, behind closed doors in Republicans’ upscale Capitol Hill Club, Scott Walker had a high-stakes sit-down.

The Wisconsin governor—who’s indicated that he will launch a presidential bid after he signs the Badger State’s biennial budget—was there to woo top social conservative and evangelical leaders, a task that might seem easy at first glance. Walker’s dad is a pastor, he quotes a Christian devotional on the stump, and he signed legislation defunding Planned Parenthood in the state he governs. Christian conservatives should be worshipping the ground he walks on, right?

Not so fast. The governor has made a string of comments on social conservatives’ top issues that has earned him some suspicion, and even ire. Last June, a few months before Election Day 2014, Walker had an awkward press conference about same-sex marriage. A district court judge had overturned the state’s constitutional amendment preventing same-sex marriage, and reporters were pressing the governor about his stance on the issue, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

“It doesn’t really matter what I think now,” Walker said.

“I don’t comment on everything out there,” he added.

That’s not the kind of answer that opponents of same-sex marriage like to hear. And it came after the governor defended the state’s law keeping employers from discriminating against LGBT people, suggesting to Bloomberg in 2013 that it gave the state “a healthy balance.” One top social conservative leader in Wisconsin told me later that Walker must only have supported the non-discrimination law because “he doesn’t fully understand some of the ramifications of ENDA legislation.”

Walker also raised eyebrows in 2014 when he ran an ad about his stance on abortion, defending legislation that “leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor” and saying that while he was pro-life, “reasonable people can disagree on this issue.” Among national pro-life advocates, that line went over like a lead balloon.

So when Walker headed to Capitol Hill to try to win conservative hearts and minds, the leaders in attendance had lots of questions. One attendee said that about 50 top social conservative and evangelical leaders were present, including Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, Brian Brown of National Organization for Marriage, Michael Needham of Heritage Action, and Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center.

Dannenfelser said Walker brought up his 2014 abortion ad before being asked.

“He felt very quoted out of context, very misunderstood,” she said. “He said there was a snippet of the ad used that did not convey the full meaning, and his communication was using the other side’s language but with the idea of forging common ground on ultrasound, because he’s a true believer on that.”

Walker signed legislation in 2013 requiring both that women seeking abortions get ultrasounds first and that the doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Dannenfelser said he defended his use of the phrase “leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor” as a way of co-opting pro-choice rhetoric for the pro-life cause.

“To the extent that we use the other side’s rhetoric to undermine their positions, we’re better off,” Dannenfelser added.

She said she was impressed with Walker’s way of talking about abortion.

“It’s the whole style of communication and content of communication that you want to see moving into a presidential cycle that will make it different from 2012,” she said.

The Susan B. Anthony List, she said, is more interested in Walker’s legislative accomplishments than his rhetoric, and the governor assured the meeting attendees that he would sign legislation banning abortion after 20 weeks. For pro-life leaders, that’s huge. If Walker signs the bill—which Wisconsin Republicans introduced this month—then he’ll underscore his dedication to the pro-life cause. But if the legislation fails to make it through the Republican-controlled state legislature and to his desk, his reputation as a politician who can net big conservative wins could suffer.

“He has an opportunity to authenticate his stated convictions, and I have every belief that he’ll do that,” Dannenfelser said.

“My view is that he gets it and he’s got good people around him, and we’re in good shape,” she added.

Other meeting attendees were cagier. Nance emailed to confirm that she attended.

“I think it went well,” she said.

Then I asked if she had thoughts about his stance on same-sex marriage.

“I think people are still trying to discern,” she replied.

Brown was similarly coy about whether Walker has taken a strong enough stance on the question of marriage. He said many of his allies were unhappy with the comments Walker made after the overturn of the state’s marriage amendment.

“That was very disappointing,” Brown said of Walker’s response. “But the reality is he’s come out and endorsed a federal marriage amendment.”

Brown added that his group will issue a pledge on the issue in the coming months to let potential presidential contenders clearly denote where they stand on marriage.

“We are meeting with folks from a number of potential presidential campaigns and folks that have already put their hat in the ring,” he continued, “and the reality is what we’re seeing in Iowa and across the country is the myth that somehow the same-sex marriage debate is over is just that, it’s a myth.”

So Walker’s closed-door meeting doesn’t seem to have backfired. But it isn’t yet clear whether he made converts.

[EternalVigilance]

...the governor assured the meeting attendees that he would sign legislation banning abortion after 20 weeks.

He supports lawless, immoral, unconstitutional legislation that grants explicit permission in the statutes to murder babies, all of them, as long as they are killed on schedule.

Disqualified.

“It doesn’t really matter what I think now,” Walker said.

Make no mistake, that's a surrender on marriage and constitutional, republican self-government. He's a judicial supremacist, which is the acceptance of the changing of our constitutional republic into a judicial oligarchy.

Again, disqualifying.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

“We” are those of us who want an authentic, unapologetic conservative, and we have him because he has already announced his candidacy. It would be kind of pointless for Walker to toss his hat into the ring now.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

He’s speaking as the governor - not as a dictator.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Well, you really have no way to stop him, so it’s kind of pointless (using your “logic”) to make a comment like that.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

The vast majority of this is pointless. We’re all just bloviating.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

You may be bloviating, I’m passing along information.

[Yosemitest]

"He does not want citizenship for illegals.
... Cruz wants to give work permits to illegals"

WRONG on both accounts.

Walker wants the rules for entering the United States tone SO LOOSE, that ILLEGALS won't have to worry about meeting ANY Requirements.
Walker's a SELLOUT, and NOT TO BE TRUSTED !

Where as TED CRUZ supports LEGAL IMMIGRATION !

( Did you get that? Do you know the DIFERENCE between LEGAL and ILLEGAL Immigration ? )

Now I've linked Walker's VIDEOS in his FLIP-FLOP statements before !
Where are the links to back up YOUR BOGUS ACCUSATION ?

Sen. Cruz Presents Measure to Strengthen, Improve Legal Immigration

Ted Cruz And Legal Immigration: “No One Is A Stronger Advocate For Legal Immigration “

Watch these “YouTube Videos” and form your own opinion.



Ted Cruz, and Principles Over Winning | "Glenn Beck Program" ( 2:24 )


Ted Cruz is just getting started ( 4:33 )


Ted Cruz Announces His 2016 Presidential Run ( 2:06 )

[EternalVigilance]

He took the oath. His obligation is to that, no matter what anyone else may or may not do. That’s not dictatorship. It’s leadership. You’re mistaken.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"....“We need to focus where there’s agreement: securing the border and improving legal immigration,” [Sen. Ted Cruz] said. “And once we demonstrate we can secure the borders, I think then we can have a conversation about people who are here illegally.”

Cruz added that he tried unsuccessfully to pass an amendment to the bipartisan immigration bill that passed the Senate in 2013 that would have barred undocumented immigrants from receiving citizenship but still allowed them to obtain permits to live and work in America. Its failure, he said, showed Democrats were unwilling to compromise on citizenship at all costs.

Cruz’s anecdote again left things open to interpretation. At the time he offered his citizenship amendment, The New York Times described it as Cruz seeking a “middle ground” between full citizenship and mass deportation in which undocumented immigrants could still work legally in America.

On Wednesday, however, a spokesman for Cruz, Brian Phillips, clarified to msnbc on Twitter that this interpretation was incorrect and Cruz merely offered the amendment as an exercise to prove Democrats’ obstinacy on citizenship. It was not an endorsement of the work permit component of the bill that his amendment left intact.

“Cruz’s amendment had nothing to do with that issue,” Phillips said.

Cruz offered an unambiguous defense of greater legal immigration, where he boasted that he had offered to expand an annual cap on H1B visas for high-tech workers “fivefold” in order to attract more talent to the United States...." Ted Cruz tiptoes around immigration at Hispanic business event

[Cincinatus' Wife]

You want a dictator.

Can’t help you there.

[EternalVigilance]

No. I want someone who will keep their oath to provide equal protection for the supreme God-given, unalienable right. You want someone who doesn’t care about that supreme obligation.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

In that regard, I’d venture to say, that Scott Walker has done more than most of the nameless people taking pot shots at him have ever done to promote life.

http://myelectioncentral.com/pdfs/2014_WalkerRecordOnLife_2color.pdf

[EternalVigilance]

But he supports legislation that destroys the principle of the God-given, unalienable, individual right to life, and violates the express equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Explain.

[EternalVigilance]

These “20 week” bills contain explicit permission, governmental license, for abortionists to kill babies, all of the babies, as long as those babies are murdered on schedule. That’s a clear violation of the equal protection provisions of the U.S. and the Wisconsin constitutions, which the Governor swore to support and defend.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

So he should not sign this?

[EternalVigilance]

If I had no other information about Governor Walker except this one article, his quotes as contained in the piece would completely disqualify him as far as I’m concerned.

It’s crystal clear from what he says here that he will do absolutely nothing to stop the abortion holocaust, or protect real marriage, or rein in lawless, out-of-control judges. He’s accepted the coup d’etat that has transformed our free constitutional republic into a tyrannical, immoral judicial oligarchy.

I don’t vote for people like that any more. Learned my lessons.

[EternalVigilance]

Absolutely not. It’s a gross violation of the oath.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

So, you refuse to look at anything else I’ve linked here?

[Yosemitest]

Benjy Sarlin and MSNBC ... as a source ?
Ah ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha !
You're funny !