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Walker to Drop Out (Updated with Official Statement)
From the New York TimesGov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has concluded he no longer has a path to the Republican presidential nomination and plans to drop out of the 2016 campaign, according to three Republicans familiar with his decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mr. Walker called a news conference in Madison at 6 p.m. Eastern time.
UPDATE: Excerpts from Gov. Walker’s official statement, which was emailed this afternoon.
Published in GeneralAs a kid, I was drawn to Ronald Reagan because he was a Republican and a conservative. But most of all, I admired him because of his eternal optimism in the American people.
That thought came into my head when we were all standing at the Reagan Library last Wednesday. President Reagan was good for America because he was an optimist.
Sadly, the debate taking place in the Republican party today is not focused on that optimistic view of America. Instead, it has drifted into personal attacks.
In the end, I believe that voters want to be for something and not against someone. Instead of talking about how bad things are, we want to hear about how we can make them better for everyone…
To refocus the debate will require leadership. While I was sitting in church yesterday, the pastor’s words reminded me that the Bible is full of stories about people who were called to be leaders in unusual ways.
Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top of the field. With that in mind, I will suspend my campaign immediately.
I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive conservative alternative to the current frontrunner. This is fundamentally important to the future of the party and – ultimately – to the future of our country.
Yep, the thought did cross my mind. I’m biased towards successful governors for presidential candidates but dang it, how’d we end up with just Jeb in that category!? Guess Rubio’s my guy now.
Jindal was on my short list too.
I don’t feel like I have much to add to what I said a few days ago. Except this:
The Wisconsin conservative movement is a serious, principled movement, and Scott Walker is a serious leader of that movement. And they have proven that a serious movement can win.
The national conservative movement is not a serious movement. At least not right now. Yes, Walker made some pretty serious political mistakes. He was never clear on immigration (though never as inconsistent as reported). Perry made mistakes. But none of those mistakes, so early on, spoke to their actual qualifications to be president compared to those to whom the conservative media chose to listen to for the past weeks.
One thing is certain: Scott Walker is conservative on principle, and his record meant that we could know this, not hope it. If we were serious about repealing Obamacare, about defending religious liberty, about the Supreme Court — Perry would not be out, Walker would not be out, Jindal would not be an asterisk.
Now maybe we will become serious before it is too late. Maybe President Rubio repeals Obamacare, deals with Iran, protects religious liberty, and — yes — secures the border.
But if not, as is likely enough — if these things do not happen — conservatives cannot blame “the Establishment” alone.
That might work if he didn’t have a day job. A lot tougher when you’re currently holding office.
You’re not focused on your day job when you’re running for president, regardless of how you do it. (For that reason, I’ve always thought that governors especially ought to resign when they pursue the office). So while I certainly grant your point that it would distract him from his duties in Madison, I suspect that ship sailed the day he got into the race.
Somehow I don’t think that’s happening.
“Fighting” in Wisconsin — whether campaigning or in governing — just doesn’t look like we might think. And what Walker couldn’t do was communicate to primary voters that this bland nice mild style wasn’t inconsistent with that. In fact, it was part of it.
Never mind Madison, conservatives don’t get elected three times as Milwaukee County Executive and survive eight years of it without becoming a squish unless they’ve got a tough streak and serious political talent.
(Actually, evidently conservatives don’t win that job unless they’re Walker. Current race is between a liberal and a further left liberal.)
It’s a fair point (incidentally, there was speculation Walker would resign if he won the nomination), but as someone who still cares about Wisconsin I’m glad he’s the governor again. There’s some heavy lifting to be done next session, the governor will be in town, and he’s not a lame duck yet. He has a legislative majority for the moment, three years, and nothing left to lose. Unless he takes some other Washington job next year and sets up Rebecca Kleefisch as his successor.
The other event in Madison today means that he now has a Supreme Court justice to appoint. He will appoint Rebecca Bradley (confident prediction), and the Wisconsin Supreme Court will have a 5-2 majority.
Actually, how much time he has is up to him. I haven’t seen this noted in any of the campaign autopsies yet, but Wisconsin doesn’t have gubernatorial term limits.
Wow, I’m actually going to need to spend time figuring out who to support now that Walker is out.
This is the tragedy of this cycle: we can’t really evaluate any of the non-Trump, non-Jeb candidates before they run out of money. Our loss, really.
I think Walker may have made the best president of the bunch but it became apparent he didn’t have the charisma to win the job. Trump’s entry kind of messed everything up anyway for him.
I’m surprised no one has floated the conspiracy theory that Jeb! is buying off the governors with cabinet positions to get them out of the race. Seems plausible to me.
Except in Wisconsin autopsies. The widely held assumption before today was that he wouldn’t run again. He won re-election and promptly began running for the next office — while submitting a tough budget that cuts education spending, and spending less time on TV defending it — that was inevitable, but it hurts standing at home. And while every conservative thing he’s said is consistent with his record, it’s not rhetoric Wisconsinites are used to hearing from him (that’s the flip side of my post the other day). So his poll numbers have dropped accordingly. Let it drag on for several months and he’d be an unpopular lame duck.
But maybe by doing this now, he has time to salvage it. And maybe that was a factor.
And I hope so. Because although I was quite ready to set that aside for the good of the country — Wisconsin could really use a governor. I love Rebecca Kleefisch, but let’s give her a couple more years.
Maybe Walker’s better contribution right now is to remain a strong Governor…
As someone else said, and I agree, he’s a team player.
In some ways does that prove he was the man for the job?
Rubio is not a Tea Party candidate.
You are 2 for 2. Much props to the cat in the hat.
There is a lot of shock, awe, and disappointment on Ricochet at Gov. Walker dropping out.
How many folks were Gov. Walker ‘supporters’ and how many were Supporter$?
He clearly has support on these pages, but did folks dig deep for that support or was he just the favorite to write about.
Whatever ties he had were severed with the Gang of 8.
He’s the only one I’ve sent money to, this cycle.
I assume this was a serious question, and I’ll give you a serious answer.
I don’t give money to candidates. I don’t have money. I have to choose carefully where my dollars go, and I give to what I know, and that’s not generally political candidates. I’m much more cynical about politicians and politics than I sometimes come across, I think. If I send you money I feel an extra responsibility for what you do with it. Call it logical or not, I can be confident a candidate is the best in the field and yet be unwilling to financially support them.
So it is significant that I was very close to giving to Walker. For me I had to go beyond “preferred candidate” to being very, very sure. I’ve been doing my own research, quietly confirming the things I thought I knew, and I’d virtually made up my mind. I’ve never done that before.
And if you want to know the truth, meaningless as it is now, I wish I had, sooner. That announcement confirmed something to me — behind spin and politics and the zigzags of this campaign, I read the man correctly.
This is where I am at a loss now. Walker was the only one that seemed to latch onto Sen. Jeff Sessions as the best conservative point man on immigration. Unless you are with Jeff Sessions I am not with you.
There is only one candidate left you can trust on the immigration issue and that seems to be Trump. Even Cruz is for increasing the H1B visa program. I have to start investigating Carly’s stance on immigration.
Do you truly believe you can trust Trump on immigration?
And you really believe that degree of trust is worth sacrificing all else for? Because I am afraid it really is that.
There is as much reason to believe Rubio as Trump that he would secure the border. And there is still room for political pressure to make a difference. Remember, Rubio backed off the Gang of Eight.
I trusted Walker more — on everything. But we are where we are.
Check your history. Rubio was elected largely with TEA Party support. He was also the preferred TEA Party VP candidate in 2012.
And here I thought the TEA Party was about more than just immigration.
It wasn’t just about immigration. It was the completely shameless way that he betrayed his voters just months into office. No one trusts him on anything now. That’s why his star fell. The base knew that if he’d sell out on something that important, that fast, that he likely couldn’t be trusted on anything else. I argued in a post that this is why Trump is getting so popular. He’s not promising a lot of things, but the issue he is riding on… immigration…. he’s promising to follow through on that. Betrayals like Rubio’s have left the base so distrustful that a sometimes-liberal has caught their attention by essentially saying “Hey, I’ll make you ONE promise, and that promise I’ll keep”.
Yeah. I trust Trump on immigration. And if he betrays that? He’ll be no different than all the other Republicans that have betrayed us, except that he’ll have done it just once. Boehner, McConnell, et al, have made a career of it.
Because if you can’t trust a man who until recently was a pro-choice Democrat, wants to tax the rich, and still thinks single-payer works great to stick to his conservative principles, whom can you trust?
@Douglas, I think you’re underestimating the damage can do while overestimating the damage those other republicans have done. You may not have gotten everything you’d like from everyone, but we haven’t had the presidency, either. I think your expectations may be a bit high, while your qualifications for betrayal are a bit too loose.
Everything we like? What the hell have we gotten at all? Name one major promise that national GOP politicians have made to the base in the past 15 years that they’ve actually kept? Name one major accomplishment that still remains today. Name a federal agency that’s been eliminated. Name an entitlement that’s been abolished, or at least radically shrunk. Show me a balanced budget. I’ll wait.
Heller was through the courts, so they really can’t take credit for that. And if you want to give Dubya credit for it anyway, because he appointed Roberts, then contemplate “it’s a tax”. Pretty much cancels that out.
Republicans give excuses. Democrats get results. Tell me again why the definition of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results isn’t insanity now?
The fact that Walker didn’t run as himself with whatever his core principles out in front is why he should be out. How would America benefit electing a president with chameleon core principles? When during the campaign did Walker lead with his principles?
In a loud, multi-way primary, it is important to gather attention. In a two way multi billion dollar general election, that’s not needed. Instead, you want to look like the attack ads aren’t true. In the former, seeming normal is bad. In the latter, good.
Walker is an Establishment team player, which is why he is not the man for the job.