What Scott Walker Could Have Learned From George W. Bush

It's interesting that the NY Times, and a GQ writer, are writing campaign obituaries with 20/20 hindsight regarding a candidate's "message."

The media deliver "the message" and Donald Trump has dominated the media. The media are complicit in this charade.

Did Walker have a message? It would be difficult to tell from reading your paper. I can't speak to the political coverage of GQ, I assume it might discuss a candidate's suit, but I can't imagine it has any relevant reporting on issues.

The Times, as well as all broadcast media, most newspapers, magazines and websites have allowed Mr. Trump to lead them around by their collective noses.

Perhaps if real issues were covered, if news was about events and positions the process would deliver better candidates.

Mr. Walker failed to garner attention, but he failed in garnering it from YOU. His message was compelling for the same anti-government, anti-status quo, anti-PC republicans who flock to Mr. Trump. He defied the public employees unions, and withstood a brutal recall. That's a great story. Too bad you didn't report it. You do seem to have lot's of space for Jorge Ramos (see today's magazine).

Your story mentions Mr. Gilmore. Your newspaper hasn't written a single story of any substance about him. He gets a mention when you write about low polling candidates, but nothing on him, Jindal, Santorum, Graham, et. all.

Now you write about candidates failure to deliver a message?

Scott Walker was presented (by his own backers!!!) as a sock puppet for the Koch Brothers. They bragged (threatened) that they were (prepared) to spend ''$832,000,000'' in this election cycle. This, we were assured by the pundits, made Scott Walker a 'real challenge on the right' to ''Jeb(!)'' (BUSH!!!) the PAC fund raising leader to date. Who was left out of this equation on the Republican right of right flanks? Trump, Carson, and Cruz backers who tally in at about 55% of their primary electorate vote.

The GOP has chartered a course since Nixon/1968 that makes it an antipode to the declaration at the base of the Statue of Liberty. It might read, ''Give me your wealthy, your bigoted, native, and xenophobic, with a strong authoritarian streak and a crowded gun rack. Give me all who wish to impose their personal irrational beliefs upon others. Give me those who have, but feel they have not. Those who want, but want much more. And those whose vote can be weighted to make a minority a gerrymandered majority by any means necessary.''

I never once saw Walker answer a question. He said a lot, but answered nothing.

He never learned the current Republican strategy of just making things up. It's not the truth that matters, it's the authoritative way to tell the lies and half truths. Republicans don't fact check anything, they watch FOX news. Once a Reagan or a Bush says something, it is difficult to alter that first belief. I still know people who think that Saddam Hussein attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon and that's why we went to war with Iraq. All Republicans, naturally.

To paraphrase Dick Cheney's message about deficits from a few years ago, The truth doesn't matter anymore

It's not just how a candidate spins his message--it's also what the core message is--Walker hit a brick wall for additional substantive reasons often glossed over: American voters generally speaking are not opposed to labor unions to the degree warranting abolishing them like he did; are not opposed to family planning and some allowance for abortions; they do not want to privatize SS; or cut Medicare payments; nor reduce funding for public Universities for no particular reason other then most public college teaching staff vote Democrat. Of course he was mousy on-camera--but he was also saying all the wrong things when--determined by reading a few current polls--60% plus of the electorate disagrees with him and most of the other Repub hopefuls. Writ large, this seems to predict a new Democrat President.

The most plausible reason for Walker's demise I've seen is that, ironically, he is actually blue collar and not a 1%-er. He didn't have the $1B of the Bush machine at his back lest he accumulate campaign debt. That fact may have been why his strategy team was relatively bare boned. Either way though, it is a fair come-up-ance for a man who has actively done more to hurt the middle class himself than the rest of the Republican presidential field. Good riddance!

The RNC won't give up on Walker, he has the perfect intellect for them, only knowing what he is told and a genuine passion for wielding power. Presumably he is functionally literate enough to sign the bills that the owners of the Republican brand set before him. Grover Norquist knows what he needs in a candidate and Walker just the policy tiro he's looking for.

"what would be a vast policy shop of issue advisers who met with the candidate regularly"

Wow. John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice. Now that is a team of cold warriors that were completely out of place when the time came for 21st century foreign policy advice. They could only run the same old playbook that they learned with Reagan and Nixon. Jeb!, by the way, is repeating that error. God help us if he is elected. About Walker, I've watched him turn the thriving state next door int what we call Fitzwalkerstan, a third world state with a couple of football teams.

Walker shined when only his moments were in the spot light. But when he needed to fight to stay noticed, while sharing the spotlight with those elbowing their way into it he got lost in the shuffling.

Scott Walker is a poster child for what's wrong with the current state of politics: he was an empty suit with a mouth. Just another poll-driven, media-playing professional politician the like of which would have turned the stomachs of the Founding Fathers. He has no genuine core; he cuts his "beliefs" to fit the moment and then wiggles and squirms like a guy with a suit that no longer fits right. He's just another two-dimentional career pol that our money-heavy electoral process now turns out like gum drops before Halloween.

If he does have a core it is mean and small minded, defensive, divisive, and narrow minded. Though I doubt that's what held him back with the Republican electorate. They seem to thrive on that.

Walker is a stunningly uninformed political lightweight who rode the anti Democratic wave to the governorship of a largely rural Midwestern state, but then washed oun in the rougher waters of a national campaign. Way in over his head, he is perfect example of the Peter principle.

Ha ha ha. So, how easy is it, this god business? These are the people who heap daily abuse on Barack H. Obama. He criticized Mitt Romney, eh? This guy could not shine Joe Biden's shoes or tie his own shoe laces. Now, woe, be gone. To Minnesota, sorry, Wisconsin, your fired. Your 15 minutes on "Comedy Central" being Trump road kill are up.

The man who destroyed a state wanted to be President. I'm so glad he's out of the race.

I saw and heard Scott Walker and now I know: "There is no there, there!"

The fundamental truth about this mean-spirited, one-trick pony was revealed before the Kochs even realized they'd bet on the wrong horse. His failure to complete his college education in order to pursue a career requiring no real credentials speaks volumes about the guy. Too bad for him that he can't lie convincingly while waving a Bible, or he'd have televangelism to fall back on. Fox won't be interested in him, nor will any future Republican President for a Cabinet post.

Looking back at the 2000 election as a lesson for Walker on running a campaign ignores one simple fact. By all measures except the Supreme Court, Bush lost in 2000. He lost the popular vote by a half-million votes, and would have lost Florida were it not for the disqualification of votes in the heavily Democratic Dade and Duvall Counties, due to an unapproved ballot that created almost 25,000 double votes (Gore and third-party candidate Buchanan).

Ultimately Bush won the election, 5-4, via the Supreme Court, but the win had nothing to do with Bush or Rove running a successful campaign.

You make an excellent point about Reagan's 'closing argument'.
The question is, what is/was Walker's opening argument? The truth is, what he truly wanted for the United States is contrary to what the majority of Americans want. Hence, he couldn't truly address them.
Just a sampling here of what he did in Wisconsin and what he stands for.
Defunding K-12 spending by 6.2%
Supporting open carry laws
Opposing Colorado's marijuana law.
Banning Abortion
Supporting Constitutional Amendment overturning the Supreme Court's decision on Gay Marriage
Replacing the Affordable Care Act
Cutting corporate taxes
Sending ground troops to fight ISIS.

Too many (all?) of the Republicans running after the nomination seem to be motivated by nothing but huge egos and lust for power. They all come down squarely for the wealthy and against anything that would help the ordinary American. If any of them gain office, heaven help the unfortunate.

A pox on all of them!

So, the bottom line message is that Scott Walker didn't spend enough money on staffers?

Who knew?

What he could have learned from George Bush was that if he was lucky enough to get elected, he wouldn't be smart enough to do the job right. We can't afford more of what Bush offered. Terrible foreign and domestic policy ending in war and economic turmoil. Scott Walker should resign from the Governorship and go back to college to get educated.

What you seem to be saying is that W Bush and Walker are both airheads, but Bush's corporate handlers got Rove to coach him on how to compose intelligent sounding sentences. This may not even be possible in Walker's case, but you chided him for not making the effort.

And we wonder why Congress is a train wreck, or why the Republican Party answers only to corporate lobbyists and "God". It's because the media treats people like Walker and the Bushes with a straight face, and won't hire people like Mencken, Liebling, or Morrow. Our best social critic in the last few decades has been George Carlin, and he's dead.

It's time to ridicule programmed and vicious politicians, and for organs such as the New York Times to stop being scared of them.

Why would we look to George W. Bush or Karl Rove as role models? They led us into an unnecessary war and they turned a budget surplus into a deficit.

Also, when Scott Walker demurs to questions about the Islamic State and evolution, and flip-flops on birthright citizenship, it doesn’t merely demonstrate insufficient short-term preparation, it’s a sign that he is too ignorant to ever be president, and that he lacks the moral core to be a leader of any large group of people.

The most important take from Scott's demise is that the NYT propped him up and made attempts to validate and inflate his prospects when anyone with vision saw him as a loser from the start.

I think this may end up being the last major piece about Scott Walker ever published by the NY Times, except perhaps he may eventually get an actual NY Times obit, depending on who else died that week.

And for me, this is more than one piece too many about Scott Walker.

Or maybe, it was the suggestion that we should build a border wall to defend ourselves from Canadian immigrants?

This would be pretty impressive, considering it would have to go down the middle of Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario!

No doubt, Mr. Trump would be very pleased to take the contract and send the bill to Canada.

One thing Gov. Walker's failed candidacy has shown is that our presidential races start way too soon. If not for the Donald (who's merely a media clown, not a serious contender for high office) the humdrum drones who keep spouting stale Reaganisms would be still be studying the polls to see if they should even bother running. Too much 'soft' money. Too much time wasted. If not for our 24/7 media starving for attention, these so-called talented people would be at their elected jobs doing what the public is paying them to do: govern responsibly!

Mr. Draper, How could you possibly spend time following Walker around and come away thinking he is qualified to be anything beyond a Ronald Reagan groupie? His education and experience as a lifelong politician is built on his adoration of an actor who read a script he figured to do the same. If you ask him a question that was not in his script he would make it up. If you think the American People thought him credible, you might want to consider another profession. For me, I'm glad this politician with arrested development has been put away surely many more will follow.

Thoughts:

If it were easy, anyone could do it. And would.

There is a reason that most sports have a regular season to ensure the best teams play for championships. The same reasoning applies to primaries, whether the election is for dog catcher or POTUS...

It's hard to imagine that Scott Walker has any significant political campaigns ahead of him, winning ones anyway. He thinks small, doesn't do his homework and was way out of his league in running for president, although he certainly had plenty of company in that regard among his fellow Republican candidates
He was tripped up by his oversized ego and his failure to apply himself to his studies in school and to the issues confronting the country. He doesn't even pretend to have the best interests of the majority of average citizens at heart which shows in his persona on the campaign trail and in governing in Wisconsin. There is a coldness and mean spiritedness about him which is noticeable and unattractive. I'm not so sure that Scott Walker has the ability to be introspective and become "a sadder but wiser politician". Sadder perhaps, but wiser?... I doubt it.

The only thing he learned or could learn from GW Bush is that stupid is forever.

What Scott Walker learned from GW was that lack of intelligence is not deterrent for seeking public office. With a similar deer in the headlights look about him, what else did he need to know? Fortunately, the American people aren't as stupid as some would have us believe.

As George W. himself would put it: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

Mr Walker was ill prepared for either the campaign or the presidency. I say good riddance.

I have tremendous respect for Mr. Draper, but I am puzzled as to why he was ever interested in profiling Mr. Walker, who has the texture and appeal of brown cardboard. Mr. Walker is obsessed with political strategy because politics is the only job or interest he's ever had. Ever!
Like many other hollow candidates in the GOP lineup, he has no higher purpose other than to win the prize. Self-aggrandizement IS the end goal; There is no OTHER there there!

I think Walker's days on the Wisconsin political stage are almost over, he lied to us and wore too many masks

You assume that Scottie is capable of stepping out of his 'model' and actually learning something new. The sheer arrogance of thinking he would ride an anti-union wave out of Wisconsin and in to the White House.

Please.

Actually, Mr. Draper, I still cannot understand why any American who doesn't understand foreign policy or domestic policy could ever possibly think of running for President. I certainly do understand why Scott Walker's attempted candidacy failed -- because, elementary, my dear Watson, he does not understand foreign or domestic policy. Of course, I still can't understand why so many others who share Walker's ignorance of foreign policy, domestic policy -- and economics and American and world history -- are still in this race. We have made ourselves the world's laughing stock.

The only folks who care about this guy live in Wisconsin. For worst, or worst, they have their governor back.

"Having said that, Walker is not yet 48 and presumably has other campaigns ahead of him."
My first thought was "OMG, we'll see this union-busting know-nothing blowhard in 4 more years."
Plea to citizens of Wisconsin - Please make sure he will never leave that state again.

no comment.

Having lived in Wisconsin, and having been an educator in Wisconsin, I can't agree more with this statement ..... "Walker simply hadn’t slowed down long enough to think through the issues of the day."
He plows through without thinking. He is shallow. Little depth. He "knows what he knows" but rarely listens, researches, or thinks beyond his obvious and often bad ideas.

I am so not surprised that George W Bush, after two years of intensive conditioning by Rove et al. used terms like "Grecians" and "Kosavarians." SISD