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| Scott Walker is Mitt Romney. Minus the bronze tan and silver streaks | Scott Walker is Mitt Romney. Minus the bronze tan and silver streaks |
| (1 day later) | |
| Related: Scott Walker announces 2016 campaign with checklist of conservative aims | Related: Scott Walker announces 2016 campaign with checklist of conservative aims |
| If you are a glutton for punishment, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Monday announcement of his presidential aspirations was just a taste of the masochistic romp ahead: all the hallmarks of everything odious and petty about the 2012 campaign are there already, only ramped up and accompanied by bad ideas copied from other states. | If you are a glutton for punishment, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Monday announcement of his presidential aspirations was just a taste of the masochistic romp ahead: all the hallmarks of everything odious and petty about the 2012 campaign are there already, only ramped up and accompanied by bad ideas copied from other states. |
| There is something grandly stupid about taking last election’s playbook, following it to the letter and proclaiming that you’re doing the opposite. But no one told Walker that, so, just before his announcement, the National Journal quoted an anonymous Walker advisor admitting that his boss’s long-term plan was to pull a Romney: “You start in Iowa and lock up conservatives,” he said and then added “It’s much easier to move from being a conservative to being a middle-of-the-road moderate later on.” | There is something grandly stupid about taking last election’s playbook, following it to the letter and proclaiming that you’re doing the opposite. But no one told Walker that, so, just before his announcement, the National Journal quoted an anonymous Walker advisor admitting that his boss’s long-term plan was to pull a Romney: “You start in Iowa and lock up conservatives,” he said and then added “It’s much easier to move from being a conservative to being a middle-of-the-road moderate later on.” |
| In March 2012, one of Mitt Romney’s advisors, Eric Fehrnstrom, told CNN that as soon as Romney was done convincing the base of his conservatism, he’d tack toward the center. “I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Fehrnstrom said. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.” The base howled; it was all the proof anyone needed that he was a lyin’ centrist all along. | In March 2012, one of Mitt Romney’s advisors, Eric Fehrnstrom, told CNN that as soon as Romney was done convincing the base of his conservatism, he’d tack toward the center. “I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Fehrnstrom said. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.” The base howled; it was all the proof anyone needed that he was a lyin’ centrist all along. |
| Only Scott Walker could be as assured of the efficacy of exactly this strategy as he is of the sun rising in its orbit around the earth every morning. He just has to lock up his base by demonizing everyone else as insufficiently conservative, turn around and pretend that he’s not as conservative as he promised the primary voters, and do it with more wit and responsiveness than Mitt Romney. All Romney did was wind up mistrusted by one half of America, lose the election, then get kicked to the curb by the other half. What can possibly go wrong? | Only Scott Walker could be as assured of the efficacy of exactly this strategy as he is of the sun rising in its orbit around the earth every morning. He just has to lock up his base by demonizing everyone else as insufficiently conservative, turn around and pretend that he’s not as conservative as he promised the primary voters, and do it with more wit and responsiveness than Mitt Romney. All Romney did was wind up mistrusted by one half of America, lose the election, then get kicked to the curb by the other half. What can possibly go wrong? |
| Related: Scott Walker: a candidate who embodies America's current partisan divisiveness | Related: Scott Walker: a candidate who embodies America's current partisan divisiveness |
| But Walker’s self-Romnification didn’t stop with his promises to winkingly deny his promises in the general election. In his announcement, he beat up Romney’s and the Party’s straw-men: “Washington seems to measure success by how many people are dependent on the government.” I’ll bet that set the green visors spinning on the heads of the bean counters at the Government Suffering Index Office (“Reaping American Souls To Serve Moloch™!) | But Walker’s self-Romnification didn’t stop with his promises to winkingly deny his promises in the general election. In his announcement, he beat up Romney’s and the Party’s straw-men: “Washington seems to measure success by how many people are dependent on the government.” I’ll bet that set the green visors spinning on the heads of the bean counters at the Government Suffering Index Office (“Reaping American Souls To Serve Moloch™!) |
| He beat up the poor people (who Romney never liked) allegedly preyed upon by those straw-men: “In Wisconsin, we enacted a program that says that adults who are able to work must be enrolled in one of our job training programs before they can get a welfare check ... We are also making sure they can take a drug test.” The Florida welfare drug-testing law was twice ruled unconstitutional, and implementing and legally defending the program cost more than it saved in people kicked off the welfare rolls— but whatever, let’s try it all over America. | He beat up the poor people (who Romney never liked) allegedly preyed upon by those straw-men: “In Wisconsin, we enacted a program that says that adults who are able to work must be enrolled in one of our job training programs before they can get a welfare check ... We are also making sure they can take a drug test.” The Florida welfare drug-testing law was twice ruled unconstitutional, and implementing and legally defending the program cost more than it saved in people kicked off the welfare rolls— but whatever, let’s try it all over America. |
| And then he praised ending job-killing regulations like the Wisconsin living wage, the prevailing wage and the right to a weekend, for those people who aren’t poor yet but could be. | And then he praised ending job-killing regulations like the Wisconsin living wage, the prevailing wage and the right to a weekend, for those people who aren’t poor yet but could be. |
| Like Romney, Walker called for an end to Obamacare but this time, refreshingly, skipped the pretense of replacing it with anything. Like Romney, he called for an “all of the above” energy policy, which includes the Keystone Pipeline and to “rein in” the “wet blanket” of “out of control” regulations’ “red tape”, which is why in Wisconsin, the state overrode local governments’ abilities to demand insurance against pipeline spills. | Like Romney, Walker called for an end to Obamacare but this time, refreshingly, skipped the pretense of replacing it with anything. Like Romney, he called for an “all of the above” energy policy, which includes the Keystone Pipeline and to “rein in” the “wet blanket” of “out of control” regulations’ “red tape”, which is why in Wisconsin, the state overrode local governments’ abilities to demand insurance against pipeline spills. |
| Related: Scott Walker can be beaten. One woman did it. She's just sorry his career survived | Related: Scott Walker can be beaten. One woman did it. She's just sorry his career survived |
| All of this, plus tax cuts, over 2.3bn estimated over ten years in Wisconsin! Mitt would be proud. He thinks he can help wealthy citizens and multi-state corporations, and together with the repeal of tax credits for 140,000 lower-income citizens (for some reason!), create jobs at the same time. How many? About 53% less than the 500,000 Walker promised over his first term. You can’t see that promise anymore, because Walker’s website switched it to a picture of him and his family dressed as pirates, next to a campaign donation button. | All of this, plus tax cuts, over 2.3bn estimated over ten years in Wisconsin! Mitt would be proud. He thinks he can help wealthy citizens and multi-state corporations, and together with the repeal of tax credits for 140,000 lower-income citizens (for some reason!), create jobs at the same time. How many? About 53% less than the 500,000 Walker promised over his first term. You can’t see that promise anymore, because Walker’s website switched it to a picture of him and his family dressed as pirates, next to a campaign donation button. |
| And if you’re feeling nostalgic for the weirdness and boobery of 2012 (godspeed Rafalca), you can enjoy the fact that Scott Walker’s veneration of Ronald Reagan verges on a cultic unease far worse than any evangelical paranoia about Romney’s Mormonism. Walker and his wife eat macaroni casserole and red, white and blue Jelly Belly jelly beans and pay musicians to play patriotic songs to honor Reagan on his birthday. It’s also Walker and his wife’s wedding anniversary. He kept a picture of Reagan on his desk in college, apparently because he didn’t realize Alex P Keaton’s uptight conservakid character was being played for laughs. Further, he said the greatest foreign policy decision of his lifetime was Reagan firing striking air-traffic controllers. “We’re not paying the guys routing Delta 1812 from Atlanta to O’Hare. Take that, Ivan!” | And if you’re feeling nostalgic for the weirdness and boobery of 2012 (godspeed Rafalca), you can enjoy the fact that Scott Walker’s veneration of Ronald Reagan verges on a cultic unease far worse than any evangelical paranoia about Romney’s Mormonism. Walker and his wife eat macaroni casserole and red, white and blue Jelly Belly jelly beans and pay musicians to play patriotic songs to honor Reagan on his birthday. It’s also Walker and his wife’s wedding anniversary. He kept a picture of Reagan on his desk in college, apparently because he didn’t realize Alex P Keaton’s uptight conservakid character was being played for laughs. Further, he said the greatest foreign policy decision of his lifetime was Reagan firing striking air-traffic controllers. “We’re not paying the guys routing Delta 1812 from Atlanta to O’Hare. Take that, Ivan!” |
| And just like deficit hawk Mitt Romney, who planned to kick a $10 trillion hole in the budget via defense spending, Walker called on America to robustly ramp up the eternal money saver, national defense. We must “stop China’s cyber attacks, stop their territorial expansion into international waters,” stop Russia from “[encountering] mush” and “pushing” with bayonets, make sure Israel isn’t having a sad, cripple Iran with sanctions and ignore everything about climate change because “the greatest threat to future generations is radical Islamic terrorism and we need to do something about it.” The great thing about ignoring science and practicality while threatening to go to war against more than 1.5bn people around the globe is that, if there are any enemy survivors after the bombing stops, they can sail to the port city of Orlando and gawk enviously at all the free people queuing up for their mandatory drug tests atop a natural gas pipeline | And just like deficit hawk Mitt Romney, who planned to kick a $10 trillion hole in the budget via defense spending, Walker called on America to robustly ramp up the eternal money saver, national defense. We must “stop China’s cyber attacks, stop their territorial expansion into international waters,” stop Russia from “[encountering] mush” and “pushing” with bayonets, make sure Israel isn’t having a sad, cripple Iran with sanctions and ignore everything about climate change because “the greatest threat to future generations is radical Islamic terrorism and we need to do something about it.” The great thing about ignoring science and practicality while threatening to go to war against more than 1.5bn people around the globe is that, if there are any enemy survivors after the bombing stops, they can sail to the port city of Orlando and gawk enviously at all the free people queuing up for their mandatory drug tests atop a natural gas pipeline |
| But don’t sell Walker short on his zero foreign policy experience. There hasn’t been any Romney-in-London event yet, and there won’t be, if Bill Kristol has anything to do with it. Bill Kristol thinks Walker’s showing “basic talent, hard work and real improvement.” And Bill Kristol has only run Dan Quayle’s office, anointed Sarah Palin and been wrong about every single step of the Middle East at every point of the timeline like a Shrödinger’s Cat exercise in being a moron. Only unlike the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment, hundreds of thousands of people are dead. | |
| And all this before the lying to the rest of the nation can begin, under far greater scrutiny. It will be harder to claim that he was “endangered” by pro-union protesters when more media outlets are poring over footage of the event overnight and reporting that he slipped to and from the capitol underground like a sweating skink. It’s going to be harder to fudge the existence of holes in the budget, blame it on unions, then claim to balance budgets by raiding funds and using selective accounting to disappear $3bn shortfalls your budgets create. | And all this before the lying to the rest of the nation can begin, under far greater scrutiny. It will be harder to claim that he was “endangered” by pro-union protesters when more media outlets are poring over footage of the event overnight and reporting that he slipped to and from the capitol underground like a sweating skink. It’s going to be harder to fudge the existence of holes in the budget, blame it on unions, then claim to balance budgets by raiding funds and using selective accounting to disappear $3bn shortfalls your budgets create. |
| It’s going to be harder to suddenly downplay his abortion policy, do a U-turn on ethanol subsidies, support comprehensive immigration reform and then suddenly come out 100% anti-amnesty. (That flip-flopping sound familiar?) And there will have to be more explanations, over and over, for the many indictments that keep raining on people who work for him — not just the ones who trade racist emails. He’s even wrong about whether a taco is a sandwich and will probably lie to Hispanic voters about that too. | It’s going to be harder to suddenly downplay his abortion policy, do a U-turn on ethanol subsidies, support comprehensive immigration reform and then suddenly come out 100% anti-amnesty. (That flip-flopping sound familiar?) And there will have to be more explanations, over and over, for the many indictments that keep raining on people who work for him — not just the ones who trade racist emails. He’s even wrong about whether a taco is a sandwich and will probably lie to Hispanic voters about that too. |
| There’s an old line in history, that militaries start out fighting the current war the way they fought the last one, but it is a peculiarity of both Walker and of his party that the line seems so resonant here. The ideological purification of the Republican Party is so intense that even a campaign as mean-spirited, mendacious and stupid as Romney’s wasn’t enough to keep the party stalwarts in his camp. And his 47% “gaffe” is no longer something to let slip out via a secret video, but something for candidates like Scott Walker to rephrase and use as a stump speech. | There’s an old line in history, that militaries start out fighting the current war the way they fought the last one, but it is a peculiarity of both Walker and of his party that the line seems so resonant here. The ideological purification of the Republican Party is so intense that even a campaign as mean-spirited, mendacious and stupid as Romney’s wasn’t enough to keep the party stalwarts in his camp. And his 47% “gaffe” is no longer something to let slip out via a secret video, but something for candidates like Scott Walker to rephrase and use as a stump speech. |
| Walker can try to win this Republican war of attrition by employing the strategies of the past, but the American battleground has changed, and even the RNC’s 2012 demographic postmortem admitted as much. All he has to do is hope that he can keep a rabid base in check while finessing his fibs to the rest of the country and pray that a more malignant version of Romneying doesn’t leave him just as uncrowned and unloved as the last guy. | Walker can try to win this Republican war of attrition by employing the strategies of the past, but the American battleground has changed, and even the RNC’s 2012 demographic postmortem admitted as much. All he has to do is hope that he can keep a rabid base in check while finessing his fibs to the rest of the country and pray that a more malignant version of Romneying doesn’t leave him just as uncrowned and unloved as the last guy. |
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