In his New York Times column this morning, Joe Nocera approvingly links to our feature on Scott Walker (as well as a new feature on Walker in the Times Magazine) and comes to the proper conclusion.
Both articles conclude by pondering what Walker would do if he became president. But to read the two articles is to know the answer: If union-busting gets him to the White House, why would he stop there?
The reason this conclusion is obvious is because, as both articles make quite clear, Scott Walker’s attacks on Wisconsin unions were rationalized as solutions to problems that were actually fictional. The state’s pension fund was in decent shape and the local business community wasn’t clamoring for right-to-work status. Walker attacked the unions for purely partisan reasons, in the reasonable hope that weakening unions would weaken the Democratic Party.
Having succeeded in his efforts, he’s gained heroic status in some conservative circles, and this could drive him right into the Oval Office.
Based on his predilections, the factors that led to his political rise, and the preferences of his strongest financial backers, there’s every reason to expect that Walker would see union bashing as one of the most vital political weapons in his toolbox. What worked in Madison could be expected to work in DC.
At least, I think it’s pretty obvious that Walker will be inclined to believe this and act on his belief.
Taft-Hartley didn’t pave the way to the WH for Taft — but he did come close to getting the GOP nomination in 1952. However, the Democrats of that time failed workers by not repealing that assault on workers after the 1948 election.
Then again, workers didn’t demand a repeal and were just fine when Reagan came along and busted PATCO.
Democrats fail to appreciate why busting public employee unions can today appeal to a majority of voters.
Envy. But how many of them would stand up to the killing pace and responsibility of Air traffic Control? How many would put up with mandatory weekends and holidays? And travel at a moment’s notice?
Envy is exactly what’s been in play in Walker succeeding in WI.
Compared to the average private sector worker today, public employees get a good deal. They get what most workers want — decent wages, good benefits, and a much higher level of job security. As they aren’t going to get any help from Democrats on that front, it’s human for them to vote against those that get such a good deal.
With that said, IMHO Walker is still too much of an empty suit to go all the way. Although at the bottom of the GOP ticket, he could be most effective.
This absolutely nails it. Unlike Romney, Walker does not begin from a position of elite noblesse oblige. Walker is more of a class-resentment kind of a guy. More George Wallace than George Bush, if you will. He won’t run Romney’s campaign and he won’t write off 47% of the population as “takers”.
Walker’s appeal will all be based on “I’m one of you [white people]; Hillary is one of them.” And as far as it goes, he’s actually kind of right.
Well I hope you’re right about that but he’s not a whole lot emptier than the other suits. As if full suit / empty suit were a defining criterion in any case…
At the end of the day, one of these turds is going to float to the top of the punch bowl and it’s as likely to be Walker as anyone else.
Walker can creditably play crab-bucket politics in a way that Romney really couldn’t.
You’re not in a union — I’ll break theirs.
Your job doesn’t have a real pension — theirs won’t have one either not when I’m done.
You don’t have any protection against arbitrary dismissal, or a safe workplace — they won’t have that either, not when I’m done.
And so forth….
This country is so crabbed, and so mean-spirited, after 6-7 years of recession, I expect it to work.
It was mean spirited long before that, but the tough economic times sharpened it.
Is ENVY the new dog whistle for US and THEM to Conservative Republicans?
When hasn’t it been?
Walker indeed is the only one I’ve been slightly afraid of. He is Nixon without the conscience or the patriotism, and he does use this resentment populism quite effectively.
That’s why I was so happy to see, last week, his comments about rape. Those comments are on video. He’s babbled a few other little gems recently that ought to disqualify him.
No doubt Hillary is already getting the ads ready.
(He’s also Nixon without the brains, but that doesn’t matter anymore.)
Nixon wasn’t a rocket scientist, but you’re probably correct that he was smarter than Walker is. As for ethics and cunning, probably a draw between the two.
Duke Law wasn’t the powerhouse it is today, but they took Nixon on a scholarship, and he did very well there.
Narrow-minded, not dim-witted.
Some of the smartest people I’ve known dropped out of college for one reason or another. And some of the dumbest were college graduates. Based upon what I’ve seen and read, I’d estimate that Walker isn’t as bright or sharp as Nixon was. Nixon was always determined, motivated, and worked hard as needed. Qualities that make one appear smarter to casual observers. But his social “IQ” was decidedly average. Walker seems to have more of that “used car salesman” type of social smarts, but difficult to assess if he was an academic slacker because he lacked ability, motivation/determination, or became accustomed to getting gold stars for non-performance.
Nixon was definitely paranoid. But he could understand briefings and scheme well, unlike RR and GWB. IMHO, Walker is dumb too, but he is like an illiterate assassin, good with a knife.
In his lucid moments — increasingly rare as the years went by — RR could probably understand briefings. They aren’t exactly written for those nearer to the mean in raw intelligence. Thus, GWB needed Condi to translate the simpler bits for him. Suspect Walker is much like GWB.
I’ll go along with that. Still, I don’t think W was mean, just ignorant. Walker is mean AND ignorant.
Have to disagree that W isn’t mean.
He tortured small animals when he was a child.
Only a mean person would do this.
Maybe not as mean. Maybe so boozed up he didn’t appear mean.
Walker just needs to get himself a Cheney to do the dirty work. The mean among the privileged learn early on how to do that. (Romney didn’t have that down when he gathered his gang to torture a prep school classmate, but he honed it quickly enough after that. Except for that accident in France.)
Another measure of how low we have sunk. Forty years ago, I would never have thought that I would look back at Nixon with nostalgia. But in many ways he was more progressive than Obama.
No, he wasn’t.
He really wasn’t.
John Cusack and Noam Chomsky notwithstanding.
it’s easy, and mostly justified, to be cynical about the politicians we have now. That doesn’t mean they’re worse now than before, it just means they’re not better either.
to have people looking back on NIXON favorably boggles the mind.
Nixon was an asshole and a warmonger and a crook without a liberal bone in his body.
My point exactly.
Memories are fragile bodies. Two things make Nixon appear retrospectively to have been progressive: 1) a Democratic Congress with enough New Dealers and non-crazy Republicans and 2) Nixon didn’t give a shit about domestic policy. His sights were always set on winning elections and ruling the world, and he would do anything to achieve those goals.
Not that Obama is a progressive — he’s merely more ethical than Nixon was and was born fifty years later.
Because of your points 1 & 2, he bargained with Democrats on domestic policy to get favorable legislation for his goals. Which does make him smarter than Walker. I’ll concede that this made his domestic policy much more liberal than he probably desired.
Obama OTOH despises liberals and his big dream is the Grand Bargain selling out the 99%. Romneycare is somehow held out as Obama’s big liberal accomplishment.
He didn’t bargain with them. He thought environmentalism was all the rage and would win him votes from that movement; it’s about power politics. When they didn’t vote for him, he vetoed legislation in his second term that improved upon the environmental laws he enacted in the first (those passed with veto-proof majorities, btw). He was scum, and he was in no way, shape, or form, a liberal or progressive.
Scott Walker’s appeal to Republicans is his assault on the incomes of reliable Democratic voters. University professor tenure is not in his sights.
If he makes it to the White House, it will be full-out assault on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and labor standards. And he is playing the religious right with his American Revival rhetoric.
Now that Jeb has flamed out, Walker is the most likely clown to make it through the debates. Granted it is early but Walker has been consistently underestimated because he doesn’t play politics as usual. He bends as many rules as he can in order to win. Keeping Waukesha County elections open to generate exactly the votes he needed to push back a recall; just cover the tracks with enough ambiguity that no laws are broken.
Even union members tend not to be pro-union anymore. Not to mention being social conservative Republican voters.
What do you mean by “anymore?” Wages for men with a high school diploma have been falling since 1970. Not coincidental that was right after they flirted with Nixon and Wallace in 1968. Or that once after they married Reagan and the GOP in 1980 that they quickly lost 25% of their earnings capacity. Now they’ve been angry for decades and are stupid enough not to see who has shafted them.
Not evident in the polls. Union households vote reliably Democratic.
Union membership and income below $35,000 are about even as predictors of Democratic voting. The only more-reliable indicators were race, or sexual orientation.
BLS:
That 6.6% may be reliable Democratic voters, but it’s only 6.6%.
Police officers reliably vote Democratic?
Don’t know for sure, but have been told tales that union folks in Pennsyltucky reliably vote Republican.
Agreed, THD, but a minor quibble or three:
Unfortunately, yes it is. Worse, he wants to destroy the whole UW system if he can. See here. He may succeed, too — the profs have little organization and little constituency to back them up. Quite a few small and medium-sized cities will take an economic hit (over the long run) because the campuses are big institutions locally but whether they will organize to fight is doubtful.
No, he won the recall by 53% to 46% of about 2,500,000 votes cast. It wasn’t even close — thanks in large part to the ineptitude of the Democrats but that’s another story. You’re thinking of the Supreme Court election of April 2011.
More than that — his allies mount direct attacks on prosecutors, judges, and enforcement agencies that try to hold him accountable. In so doing they move the debate out of the judicial arena that uses formal procedure and standards of proof, and into the political arena where it’s all “he said / she said”.
Agree with you here.
Getting old sucks. Yes, it should be “now”.
“Walker is the most likely clown to make it through the debates.” – I’ll bet he flames out before the 6th debate – he’s is not very bright and he won’t be able to hide under the national spotlight.
Check out his competition. Then check out Walker in one of his 2014 gubernatorial debates. He really did deftly handle an admittedly weak DEM nominee.
Anyone else remember how Jeb’s book tour was extremely underwhelming?
So far, his campaign (“no, I’m not running for President yet”) has seemed like little more than another grift.
Walker is indeed the one to watch.
Cheers,
Scott.
For those of us that previously never saw Jeb! in campaign mode, it’s surprising that his political chops are so pathetically bad. Even in comparison to his dad and bro. Not that either of them were better than mediocre.
Unfortunately, it’s only June, and the Jebster has at least 5 months to improve. And right now only the political junkies and pundits are watching and care. Not even the GOP big money donors seem to care as they are lining up to give him a massive warchest.
Poppy was probably a better campaigner than libs want to concede — certainly so when Atwater ran his campaign. A little less so when he didn’t have the latter around to guide him in kicking his opponents in the teeth.
Junior, another non-rocket scientist but not so dumb as to fail to listen to Roger Ailes, did have a better-than-mediocre theme of “compassionate conservatism”, certainly more focused and effective than what Al Gore ran on (“I’m not Bill Clinton … whoever he is”).
Technically, GWB’s political chops were worse than his campaign (and no, he wasn’t in the driver’s seat in assembling the campaign team). The reverse was the situation for Gore (and unlike Bush, he was instrumental in putting that dreadful team together).
On his own Poppy was never elected to any office above the US House. He lucked out in drawing Dukakis as his opponent and was fine with a sleazy campaign. The real GHWBush wasn’t as able to hide in 1992.
By this point in a Presidential election cycle, political junkies that take off their partisan hats are quite able to see the presentation style strengths and weaknesses of candidates. They don’t change that much in the course of a campaign. However, that’s in isolation and it’s not so easy to imagine how they will fare against their competition until the “debates” begin.
” there’s every reason to expect that Walker would see union bashing as one of the most vital political weapons in his toolbox. “
HELL YES! As Scotty has intimated many times: After the MEAN American Unions, ISIS would be easy peasy!
o/t Hillary giving her first major speech this morning. It’s a barn burner, to a huge crowd. I may just have to like her if she keeps this up.
You’re taking your eye off the ball again. Never look at the storyteller; always look at the audience.
If it weren’t (isn’t) Scott Walker, it would (will) be someone else, with the same message and the same results.
Candidates don’t have names, or faces, or voices, or opinions, or beliefs, or intentions, or volition. They are cardboard cutouts. They literally and absolutely do not exist as individuals.
The only thing that exists is the Party, and the Party only exists because of the propaganda, and the propaganda only exists because of its audience.