Walker's exit opens door for Rubio

Scott Walker’s exit from the White House race is disrupting the GOP contest, and many observers believe Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will be the biggest beneficiary.

Rubio and Walker were seen at the outset of the race as the candidates with the best shot at winning over the GOP’s conservative grassroots and then running strong in the general election.

But with the Wisconsin governor now out of the mix, suddenly a new group of supporters — and big-money donors — are up for grabs.

Rubio had already been showing signs of new strength in the wake of the second GOP debate last week, with a poll from CNN/ORC putting him at 11 percent support nationally — good enough for fourth place and a big improvement over the 3 percent he had registered in the same poll just two weeks before.

“Rubio is not putting himself front and center but he is ensuring that at each Republican debate he is well noticed as competent and well-studied,” said GOP consultant Ron Bonjean. “He is showing consistency with those performances.”

Another Republican strategist, David Payne, suggested that Rubio’s presence and demeanor make him primed to take advantage of Walker’s sudden departure.

“I think the folks who were supporting, or were considering supporting [Walker], will be looking for someone with poise and polish,” Payne said. “Marco Rubio has a lot of that poise and stylistic excellence, and is starting to capitalize on this moment.”

Still, the impact of Walker’s absence is hard to predict. The battle for the support of establishment Republicans, in particular, seems fluid.

Rubio’s polling bump comes at a time when former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the erstwhile frontrunner, appears stuck in neutral.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, another establishment contender, is performing reasonably strongly in New Hampshire but is mired in low single digits nationwide.

And while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was widely seen as having had a good night in the debate, it remains an open question whether his campaign can get out of the doldrums.

Any one of those candidates is also confronted with the reality that they need to overtake the trio of “outsiders” in the race: Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, none of whom has ever held elected office. Those three together command the support of 53 percent of GOP primary voters, according to the CNN/ORC poll.

Walker drew less than 1 percent support in that same poll, a finding that might well have helped push him from the race. That raises the question of how much — or how little — his departure will matter.

“When you are an asterisk in the polls that is not exactly a surge that is going to move to some other candidate,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University professor who specializes in political communications.

But the effect of the Wisconsin governor’s decision could depend on where his donors, staff and activists go. The campaigns of Bush, Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas all announced within 24 hours that some Walker supporters had come over to their camps.

Insiders suggest that the importance of organizational strength is often overlooked.

“The clear and present opportunity is with organizational folks, the folks who are precinct captains, chairman of relevant committees, donors and the like,” said Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

“A lot of people lose sight of what a presidential contest is all about,” Steele added. “It’s not about being the most ‘outside,’ it’s about organization. [There are] all these bright shining objects, whether it’s Donald Trump or Ben Carson, but meanwhile the Bush campaign, the Kasich campaign have been building up a network because they know this field is going to be whittled.”

Steele argued that Bush’s campaign machine makes him a formidable presence, whose chances are if anything understated because of media coverage of his stumbles.

Others suggested that Bush’s last name and his status as the early favorite have put a target on his back.

“If you want to say Donald Trump is held to the lowest standard, Bush is held to the highest standard,” Berkovitz said.

Even if that is so, however, many Republicans are underwhelmed by the former Florida governor’s performance to date.

“In the two debates that have occurred already, we’ve observed him showing stature and stability but not a lot of enthusiasm and action,” Payne said. “There is just sort of a lack of action.”

Many members of the GOP establishment are worried. The outsiders remain strong, they note, and there is no clear mainstream figure who appears ready to slay them.

“Every [establishment] candidate has assets but also liabilities,” said one such strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

“Rubio has been outstanding with his public speaking but lacks experience. Jeb has got mixed reviews. Kasich is more on the liberal end of the Republican spectrum and he runs the danger of becoming the Jon Huntsman of the pack.

“Most, if not all, polls are done by phone. Who answers their phone these days. I get about 25 calls per day that I do not pick up because the caller is unidentified.”

We’ve actually put the “ringtones” that you get when you reach a disconnected number on our answering machine. It doesn’t stop all the calls, but we think it’s cut down on the robocalls because the robodialer logs the call as a disconnected number. For our cell phones, we’ve created a “group” we call “a$$holes.” We don’t answer any number that doesn’t come up as one that’s on our address book. Then we go in and create a contact for each of the numbers after the fact, and call it “a$$hoie.” So the next time they call, it comes up as “a$$hole” and we know not to answer it. Oh, and the “do not call list” is simply BS. President Trump will need to overhaul the whole area of telecommunications laws and start really enforcing “do not call” including fining AT&T big time for giving foreign businesses DID lines into the US that facilitates all this telemarketing. AT&T sells these lines, then they sell their consumers “blocking features” to block the line they’ve just sold. If you want to see a $hit company, you need look no further than AT&T!

With you on that.

Walker did piqué my interest more so because of his conservative accomplishments in Wisconsin. BUT, maybe he was just a low key guy, he just did not seem to have that fire in the belly necessary to gain nationally.

The article infers “Big Donors” with Walker might go to Rubberio. What Big Donors? If Walker had Big Donors to will to someone else he would still be running.

Walker’s Super PAC has $20 million in big donor soft money in the bank. That’s a lot of simoleons. It’s the campaign that was broke.

If go re-read #82, you’ll see that you actually agree with my contention.

I was sorry to see Walker drop out, but a candidate just has to make a better showing. It was NOT just his campaign being broke. His campaign was broke because he just couldn’t catch the voter’s attention.

Scott Walker would make a good VP.

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