Walker to Drop Out (Updated with Official Statement)

 

WalkerFrom the New York Times:

Gov. 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.

As 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.

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  1. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Joseph Stanko:

    Tuck:

    Jager:

    James Of England: They’ve cut spending; the debt is set to go down next year.

    Could you explain this? US debt has gone up every year for decades. The debt went up under Reagan and with Newt as speaker. Where are you getting information that we will have a surplus next year that will allow the debt to go down?

    He’s mistaken. Debt as a percent of GDP is expected to go down next year (and a few after). Total debt will continue to go up. Spending goes up.

    CBO: “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2015 to 2025

    The chart there shows that deficit as a percent of GDP goes down next year (slightly). So that either means the deficit will be a bit smaller, or else will grow more slowly than GDP. Debt will grow either way.

    However the chart does show 4 years of actual surplus in the late 90′s, so during that period the debt really did shrink.

    I should make this a separate post, but I should check what you mean. The debt is listed on summary table 1 as 2015 (one more week): 74.2% of GDP. 2016 is 73.8%. That seems like good news to me. The debt is still high, there are lots of problems, but a small drop is much better than the large increase that people appear to believe.

    It doesn’t mean that we don’t need entitlement reform; we really do need to make it clear that we’re not going to pay out as much as we’re currently suggesting. It’s not the whole of the battle, but it nonetheless seems like good news to me.

    • #151
  2. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    BrentB67:

    James Of England:

    BrentB67: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.

    I moved to Madison, WI, to support him. I was told I’d have an interview this week. Happily, it seems to have worked out better than it might have sounded; Mrs. of England likes the idea of Madison (she should join me permanently in a few weeks), and it looks like there’s other stuff I can do out here.

    Welcome to the great northern Midwest, we look forward to Mrs. Of England joining you soon.

    When you say support is that support or $upport?

    As I understand it, it’s more tax efficient to forgo pay than to take pay and give it back. That being the plan, I didn’t end up contributing directly to the campaign, but moving here wasn’t free. The discussions with Mrs. of England certainly included donations, but we thought that the campaign and I were going to talk about that after I’d gotten the job. It is possible that they’d have preferred me to give cash, in which case I would have.

    I also believe that the sweat equity would have held some value. Again, it was apparently not to be, and maybe I wouldn’t have contributed as much as if I worked at something else and gave cash. I feel comfortable claiming that my support has not been of the armchair variety. It took about a month of hotel living nailing down that interview. It turns out that what I needed was not to have people on the campaign send my resume to other people on the campaign, or to pester their office, or to use the various web forms that they used for resume submissions (that apparently did not feed resumes to the HR guys), or to do stuff for the RNC and have them recommend me. I needed to ask Troy, and the next day I had an email from their HR looking to set up a date. I figure it’s safe to say this now, since I believe that Troy isn’t going to be inundated with requests, even though people now know he’s the key to those lucrative Walker gigs.

    At an earlier stage, I think I could have worked in New Hampshire, where the campaign was much more outgoing about that sort of stuff, but Mrs. of England really liked the idea of Madison, which worked out well; if I’d rented someplace in Manchester, I’d be… I don’t know. Maybe it would have been worth it to have actually done something, rather than just expending effort in getting to the point where they would let me help them. It looks like Madison is probably where I should be now, though.

    • #152
  3. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    BrentB67:

    James Of England:

    jetstream:

    Douglas:

    Name one major promise that national GOP politicians have made to the base in the past 15 years that they’ve actually kept?

    They’ve cut spending; the debt is set to go down next year.

    What metric shows the national debt declining and our budget running surplus next year?

    It doesn’t show our budget running a surplus. It shows 3% GDP growth, which is enough to more than swallow the deficit, said deficit having been aggressively shrunk. .

    What metric shows federal spending declining. Discretionary – yes, but that is a sliver.

    Total Federal spending is down since Obama lost his supermajority and (in keeping with my posts on this) since Reagan took over.

    Name one major accomplishment ….

    Labor unions are dramatically weaker. The fence is mostly built, and e-verify now covers much of the nation. Tax rates are lower.

    What fence is mostly built?

    The one on the border with Mexico.

    When the Bush tax rates expired that was one of the largest tax increases in years and made the code the most progressive since Jimmy Carter.

    Some of the Bush tax rates expired, but most of them were rendered permanent. It’s true that tax cuts for the middle classes result in a more progressive tax code, although I think that you need to engage in some shaky math to get it to 1980 numbers.

    Name a federal agency that’s been eliminated.

    It’s true that there’ve been no agencies that have been eliminated, but Ex-Im is gone.

    If that sticks and isn’t re-authorized, but I hope you are correct.

    They’ve created substantial Congressional majorities supporting entitlement reform, and the Ryan Plan creates surpluses within the budget window. …

    This is mathematical fantasy. The Ryan plan creates no such thing unless you count an enormous increase in taxes taken by the federal and imaginary growth rates as a plan.

    I think that this needs a longer treatment, but I will try to have something posted disagreeing with this in a manner that can be productively engaged with soon.

    Republicans authorized large increases in SNAP.

    … To me it seems pretty clear that the last fifteen years have mostly gone well for us.

    Obamacare, stimulus. Not sure how those have gone for us.

    It’s true that Obamacare passed, and if we lose this time round it will likely be permanent, the currently blocked executive amnesty will likely go into effect, etc.. But the stimulus failed (it won a single election, but did not provide the anticipated scale of union bonanza) and there’s been a lot of other changes.

    Americans have to worry less about unions, criminals, gun grabbers, Justice O’Connor, tariffs and all kinds of other problems. We have unprecedented levels of school choice, and the blue model for public transport and urban planning appears to be set for permanent retirement. As with any political system, there have been losses as well as gains, but I believe that Americans today are living longer and more prosperous lives in part as a result of the gains, particularly for those not aborted. How you weigh the gains and losses is subjective, but there are clearly gains and losses, in sufficient numbers that no conservative can fail to support some of the gains; some people dislike the bankruptcy reforms. I guess you’re not a fan of the middle class tax cuts. Lots of people have their own pet issues, but everyone should be able to find something to like.

    • #153
  4. Leigh Inactive
    Leigh
    @Leigh

    James Of England: It looks like Madison is probably where I should be now, though.

    Wisconsin is a good place.

    • #154
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