Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Scott Walker: The Left’s Keyser Söze
During the sleepy summer months other candidates have announced their runs, sometimes to acclaim and sometimes to silence, but Wisconsin’s governor has bided his time. He has plotted, planned, and stayed out of the spotlight while overseeing the approval of his state’s budget. Monday he finally announced, in a heartland-themed ceremony outside of Milwaukee.
Introduced by his wife Tonette, Walker took the stage sans teleprompter and ticked off one conservative priority after another. It was a serious, straightforward speech delivered from — and to — middle America. It wasn’t flashy, but with his record, Walker didn’t need it to be. Think Cal Coolidge if he ate brats and rooted for the Packers.
Walker has spent one-and-a-half terms tipping sacred cows and winning three elections amidst the most toxic leftist attacks imaginable. Riots in the streets, court-ordered harassment of his allies, and threats on his family weren’t enough to make him back down. This steel makes Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) very, very nervous. The official Twitter account of the DNC has shrieked all weekend over the unassuming executive’s entry into the race.
And he’s running for president. pic.twitter.com/lGtxlAoOoH
— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) July 13, 2015
They left out PUPPY-KICKING, MATTRESS TAG-RIPPING, BABY-SHAKING, and DONUT-LICKING, but you get the idea. They want Americans to think that Scott Walker is the scariest thing to come out of the Badger State since Jeffrey Dahmer. Even worse, this monster sometime agrees with the Koch brothers.
The Dem-loving press spent their weekend alternating between demonizing Walker and mocking him as too dull for the White House. Inexplicably, every news site trumpeted the grumbling of one of the governor’s most famous victims.
A top union leader just issued the best press release ever. In six words, he destroyed Scott Walker: http://t.co/BoZNnr0bHD
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 13, 2015
Richard Trumka’s six words were not “yes, sir, may I have another?” and did not so much “destroy” Walker as bitterly remind liberals that public-sector unions are the bottom layer of the governor’s throne of skulls. Big Labor threw everything they had at Walker only to see him crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentations of their life-partners.
Looking at the panic on the interwebz, Walker has emerged as a sort of Keyser Söze figure to the left.
Who is Scott Walker? He is supposed to be from Wauwatosa. Some say his father was a Baptist. Nobody believed he was for real. That was his power.
One story the guys told me, the story I believe, was from his days in Madison. There was a gang of labor thugs that wanted their own union. They realized that to be in power, you didn’t need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn’t. After a while, they come into power and then they come after Walker. He was small-time then, just running numbers, they say.
The union thugs knew Walker was tough, not to be trifled with, so they let him know they meant business. Then he showed these men of will what will really was. After dissolving the union, he lets the last member go. He waits until the recall is over and then he goes after the rest of the mob.
He fires their kids, he fires their wives, he fires their parents and their parents’ friends. He forecloses the houses they live in and the offices they work in, he fires people that owe them money. And like that he was gone. Underground. Nobody has ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that Democrats tell their kids at night. “Rat on your shop steward, and Scott Walker will get you.”
Walker, perhaps seeing the praise for the “fighting” Trump, repeatedly said, “I will fight for you.” But unlike the Donald, Walker added that he would “win for you.” If his record is any indication, the left has every right to be nervous.
Published in General
I saw his speech tonight on television. I think the most brutal part of it for Dems should be when he reminded everyone that Obama is now in the process of bowing to the will of the government that once held our citizens hostage, and then pointed to one of those captives sitting in his audience.
Walker looks promising, but I want root-and-branch structural reforms, and he hasn’t proposed any of that yet.
Doesn’t his record show that he is good at delivering structural reform. I don’t want some guy to just make promises. Trump makes promises and I wouldn’t trust him to water my house plants. Also there are limits to reform. I wan the things we do to matter and to stick. I think if he can undo Obamacare, and crush unions nationally and enact some budget discipline it will be big enough. Even Reagan didn’t do everything he wanted. Walker seems like he knows how to pick his battles and win, and win in such away that it sticks.
I’ve been on record as a Walker supporter since the silly season started. I still am, though I recognize that he has flaws. I support him because he stood up to the unions, and managed to prevail, and we’ll need that kind of principled toughness to take on entitlement reform, for instance.
The only problem is that I have never backed a candidate who eventually became the nominee, so I’m fairly certain his candidacy is doomed from the start. But maybe he can do some good yet.
If you want structural reform, you want someone who knows how to sit down with nervous Republican legislators and push them to the very boldest point to which they can be pushed. And then has won, so that they have the nerve to do it again.
That’s Walker. No other candidate would have the same credibility to convince weak-kneed Senators that bold reform is a winning platform. This is who you want sitting across from legislators when it comes time to repeal Obamacare.
He’s not going to fully lay out his strategy, because to do so would be to tip his hand to the Left. You’ll have to look at his record — and it speaks for itself.
I’m usually horrible at evaluating political speeches, especially from candidates I either strongly like or dislike. But I figure if you have one good line that sticks in people’s heads it was probably effective. And that thrice-repeated line that “I will fight — and win — for you” stuck. It was the emotional climax of the speech, and I think it worked.
I’ve wondered how he would develop his pitch for a general election, and he started to show that tonight. And I think, if he is the nominee, that Hillary Clinton will not be President.
I also have to agree with Rolling Stone that Trumka’s press release was the best ever. It was hilarious. It was roughly the equivalent of throwing everything on the ground and stomping out of the room. It was the temper tantrum of someone with an abundance of rage but no argument. The Walker team should make an ad out of it.
I like Walker. He’s got a record of victory, and he’s been through the left-wing attack machine. He needs to bring his A game with a field like this.
If you ever wanna start a club for backing losers, I’m sure I’ll meet the entrance requirements.
Does he want to scrap the tax code or just lower marginal rates a bit?
Does he just want to get rid of some regulations, or put structural tools in place that make it harder for the regulatory leviathan to grow?
Does he want to eliminate corporate welfare, or is he going to do the Chamber of Commerce’s bidding on crony capitalism? He’s already caved on ethanol.
Will he build a border fence?
Will he champion a Balanced Budget Amendment?
I’d expect that, in a Walker presidency, Paul Ryan would be doing the heavy lifting on tax reform. I know that the Republicans have pushed a bill to make it much harder for the executive to pile on regulations (REINS, I think?). Walker would sign something like that. On crony capitalism, I’d expect a mixed bag: frankly, he’ll do what he has to politically. (In Wisconsin, he’s vetoed the worst of the pork, but not all of it.) I would expect him to take border security seriously. I would not expect him to campaign on building a fence. I’d be mildly surprised if he actively pushed a BBA — and I will admit that I’m fine with that, because I’m queasy that any realistic BBA will lead to higher taxes.
(He might push for a line-item veto amendment.)
But no one in this field — no one America is going to elect — is going to do all those things. And they all know it.
So we can vote for the candidate who makes impossible promises the loudest, and we’ll ultimately get Bush vs. Clinton. Or we can vote for a candidate with proven convictions and accomplishments who will actually repeal Obamacare.
I cannot wait to campaign and vote for Scott Walker. He’s the best one of the bunch.
>>Who is Scott Walker? He is supposed to be from Wauwatosa. Some say his father was a Baptist. Nobody believed he was for real. That was his power.<<
All I know is – we call him the Stig!
I too am looking forward to casting a vote for Walker. I too have waited. He seems to me to be the most electable of the governors and former governors, and I seem to have the idea that Republicans do better with governors than with senators or businessmen.
Man. Remember back in ’09 when the scandal was Obama literally bowing too the Saudis? Remember when he was only making us look weak, without actively maneuvering us into the weakest possible position? Good times, by comparison.
The clear Ricochetti favorite (according to the polls), and we know we all possess impeccable taste.
OK, I didn’t see the speech, but I’m worried about two things:
1) A friend of mine who is a speechwriter thought the speech was weak: basically, a bunt, and at a time when Trump is out there making lots of news, and
2) There is this decision to hire someone named Brad Dayspring. I am the last person to know anything about Washington personalities, but the internet has it that this guy is anti-conservative, and this worries me.
Can anyone reassure me on either of these two points?
He came across to me as very unlike Trump. I know he talked about fighting “for you” but he had choir boy look to him, and I don’t mean that negatively. He had a very pleasant demeaner. He came across as very likable, though the speech was not overly inspiring. One thing he could work on that I found a little annoying was that after every time he made a point he kept nodding his head. I think he did it just about every time. But I feel comfortable with Walker if he wins the nomination.
I saw the speech. It was fine — he did what he was trying to do: set out a serious agenda and come across as a likable human being (sans telepromter). Here’s a clipped version (though they left out what I thought was the most effective part — when he talked about fighting and winning and then said “I will fight — and win — for you.”) He’s not going to win by sheer eloquence, and he doesn’t need to. He is not going to try to out-dynamite anyone — his claim to credibility is his record, and he set that out clearly enough.
As for Dayspring, he’s a staffer. I don’t know much about him. It might have been a bad hire, but that’s all it is. Walker will set his own agenda — not his staffers. His new campaign head is Michael Grebe — a serious, respected conservative:
Leigh, you must be from Wisconsin also?
Scott Walker’s run will be a first for me in that I have followed him for a number of years and met him under a variety of circumstances and have mutual friends who knew him while he was still in college. So for the first time, I have an actual sense of this candidate as a person. Since my experience of media reporting is that they NEVER get it right, I’m curious to see what they spin that will stick. He is someone they probably cannot understand because they have lost that frame of reference. I hope it shines through anyway.
Kim — no, not really. I just got to live there for a little while. But of all the places I’ve lived something in Wisconsin got to me. I actually miss it.
And I’ve kept following the politics, because it’s so much more interesting. What you’ve had in that state is incredible, even going beyond Walker. I’m in a state right now that I think is actually slightly more conservative, but the Republicans seem to be engaged in a circular firing squad I can’t figure out, and quality conservative media seems to be almost non-existent. From Scott Walker to backbench legislators to talk radio to think tanks, you actually have an effective, functioning conservative movement in Wisconsin.
Excellent column.