Taint that a shame
by Tom Sullivan
Several postmortem analyses this morning on the Great Whitebread Hope’s presidential ambitions (emphasis mine):
Short of support and cash, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, saying he had been “called to lead by helping to clear the field,” announced Monday that he was suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
Wow. On his way off the national stage and he comes up with a euphemism worthy of a Mike Huckabee.
The Guardian has this:
With a reputation for selling ruthless conservatism to traditionally Democratic voters, Walker was leading the primary race not just in Iowa but in national polling too, easily upstaging the awkward-looking Jeb Bush and Donald Trump’s ominous security guards.
But by the time Walker took the reluctant decision to suspend his campaign on Monday – just 71 days after its formal launch – the dream of this tough new breed of purple state Republicanism lay in tatters.
Walker’s campaign didn’t even last long enough for Walker to file a single federal election commission (FEC) report, the Guardian notes. His human bobblehead announcement speech was perhaps a portent that there was never enough there for Walker to go the distance.
A former staffer Tweeted a series of mistakes Walker made. Here are two:
Not training himself out of tics incl instinctively answering "yes" and "absolutely" to things, comparing lots of things to union fight.— Liz Mair (@LizMair) September 21, 2015
Not educating himself fast enough on issues outside governor's remit. Educating himself on some things by talking to the wrong people.— Liz Mair (@LizMair) September 21, 2015
Walker suffered from overconfidence, it seems. A senior Republican said of Walker’s campaign, it didn’t help that “Scott was making it up as he went along.” Trump might get away with “wingnutting” it, but Walker could not. He may not have been a competent candidate, but that wasn’t Walker’s real problem. Competence is not what the GOP base wants in 2016.
Politico gets to the heart of the matter, both for Walker’s “charisma-free” candidacy and for the rest of the GOP field:
“It’s no longer about just backing an outsider in principle; people want somebody who is completely outside the system,” says Heather Stancil, co-chair of the Madison County, Iowa Republican Committee — an area that was supposed to be a Walker electoral stronghold.
“It makes me scratch my head; the only thing I can attribute Walker’s failure to is that people do not want someone tainted by any relation to government at all,” she added. “They are so fed up they don’t trust anybody. He said he was an outsider, but he also had that taint of working in government.”
Walker has the taint. What the GOP base wants is Purity of Essence.
So, we’ll meet again, Scott Walker. Don’t know where. Don’t know when.