He got twice elected governor and survived a recall election by
having friends with EXTREMELY deep pockets putting money into a political machine with more than a few crooked gears
running against challengers with the breathtaking charisma and political savvy of a tub of expired cream cheese. If the Democrats had managed to convince Russ Feingold to run, Walker would be trying to get a teaching gig at Bob Jones University right about now. They had to settle for someone (I forget the name, which just goes to show…) with no qualifications and even less charisma.
In Wisconsin, he had a perfect storm of a slanted playing field and the backing of the Koch Brothers. On the national stage, he’s out of his league.
If this is the end, then good riddance. I thought he had a shot and he scares me more than Bush. Especially with that new anti-union legislation he proposed, combined with his financial support, I consider him one of the more dangerous candidates. Anything that destroys his chance of being elected is a good thing. Plus, other than maybe Trump and Cruz, he has the absolutely most punchable face in the whole race, its hard for me to even look at him.
For reasons I won’t go into here, I saw part of the recent Wisconsin Prayer Breakfast on You Tube, and one of the speakers ended his presentation by saying, “Let’s get our governor elected to the White House!”
Not wanting to sound shallow, but I wonder if appearance has anything to do with it. He does not photograph well. A google image search is not kind to the man. He just looks dopey in a suprisingly high percentage of them.
Walker’s problem is that he has no unique catch besides what state he comes from.
Jeb: related to Presidents
Rubio: Hispanic and young
Trump: celebrity
Fiorina: a woman
Carson: a black physician
Huckabee: evangelist
Cruz: Tea Party (and also Hispanic)
Paul: Libertarian
Christie: was popular with Democrats for a while in a deep blue state
(I’m not gonna bother with Graham, Santorum, Jindal, & Pataki).
Walker’s got nothing. He’s too generic. Not to mention, his approval rating is in the shitter in his home state. Only popular governors bring swing states! Yes Walker got elected but that means he knows how to be popular at one time, not on a continuous basis. Governors Clinton, Reagan, W. Bush, and Carter were actually popular in their states.
Well, he’d had the “got elected three times in a blue state while bashing all our favorite bogeymen” bit, but now that even Wisconsin is unhappy with him (as you note), he doesn’t really have that anymore.
Even with the general unhappiness among the GOP moneymen with this year’s crop of Establishment candidates, it’s hard to see them settling on Walker at this point. They may not be crazy about Jeb or Rubio, but Walker is doing poorly even by the low bar those two set.
Wow, they don’t even try to maintain a pretense of nonpartisanship at those things anymore, do they?
I’m sure appearance is a factor (just as it’s been a factor in Presidential elections since the Kennedy-Nixon debate). Walker has a protruding lower lip, a bald spot, and an expression that Vanity Fair’s James Wolcott called a “dumb, subservient-to-power junior executive look.” You take one look at the guy and it makes perfect sense that he actually believed David Koch would call him up for a friendly chat about ratfucking.
Maybe that wouldn’t matter much if Walker had more going for him, but he doesn’t. People keep talking about how he beat a recall in a blue state, as if some kind of masterful political wizardry was involved. What put him over the top was his base of support in the whitebread Milwaukee suburbs; in the rest of the state he’s far less popular. Well, he isn’t running for president of Waukesha County now, and the only other thing on his resume is breaking public employee unions. It’s ludicrous for him to claim that he can beat ISIS because he screwed over teachers waving hand-lettered signs.
I’m amazed that some people are still taking him seriously as a candidate. I always figured he would be toast as soon as people saw him in the debates, but I didn’t think the bottom would fall out of his campaign this quickly. The latest CNN poll has him below 1 percent.
I can’t help compare pictures of him (such as this one) to the intrepid space traveler Joel. I’d prefer Joel over Scott (and Mike over Joel, but that’s another debate).
I’ll admit to being shocked. Months ago, I thought Walker was the biggest threat to Democrats winning in 2016. A few weeks ago, I switched to thinking it was Kasich, but I figure Kasich now wants me to to switch to someone else lest he be doomed. Nah.
Equating protesting teachers to ISIS terrorists, his appearance and his debate performances, certainly didn’t help, but I like to think the wall at the Canadian border was the clincher.
:smack:
