Good Riddance: Walker Throws in the Towel

Walker Watch

Paul Whyte

At the end of July, Scott Walker was looking good in the polls. In several states he stood second next to the shock talker billionaire, Donald Trump. Once the debates started, Walker rapidly start losing his foothold with the GOP party. After Walker had slipped all the way to less than 1%, or basically 0%, he announced on Monday, September 21, that he would discontinue his campaign for President.
On September 9, things were already starting to look bad for Walker. According to a Marquette University Law School poll, Walker had a 39% job approval rating where he was behind Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin by 10%.

On September 21, Union members rose up in celebration at Walker’s announcement.

“In the end, even the Koch brothers couldn’t save Scott Walker and his negative, anti-worker message. America heard what he had to say, and decided that a man who could compare decent, hard-working, patriotic Americans to terrorists was unfit for the highest office in the land, or any other office for that matter.
Americans aren’t fooled.They understand that a campaign against unionized employees is a campaign against working families to lower the wages, benefits, and working conditions of all workers.
The early demise of the Wisconsin governor’s misbegotten campaign should serve as a warning to all other candidates for office: You can’t win an election by attacking working people you’re asking to vote for you,” stated Larry Hanley, International President of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU).

To add insult to injury, a fired Walker aide, Liz Mair, took to Twitter to give a run down on why he was more or less forced out of the race. Reasons included: “Misunderstanding the GOP base, its priorities and stances. Pandering. Flip-flopping.” “Hiring staff who did not know him well and did not understand his record or his reputation across all segments in Wisconsin.” “Allowing certain staff (ahem) to marginalize and cut off people in Walker’s orbit who had got him to the governorship and kept him there.” “Becoming so invested in winning, no matter what it took, that he lost sight of his real identity as a political leader.” “Hiring people who spent a lot to build out a massive operation that would not be sustainable unless financing remained amazing forever.” “Treating Iowa as locked down, boasting early of the ability to win even in states like Nevada where winning always looked improbable.” “Not training himself out of tics incl instinctively answering ‘yes’ and ‘absolutely’ to things, comparing lots of things to union fight.” “Not educating himself fast enough on issues outside governor’s remit. Educating himself on some things by talking to the wrong people.”

Another reason Walker may have started to lose his edge after the GOP debates is that he had some of the least time speaking during them. This might be partly due to how the debate was handled, but poll leading Trump spoke for almost 19 minutes during September 16’s debate with Walker coming in at less than half of that with 8 and a half minutes. Trump also dominated for eating up time in the first debate leaving other candidates like Rand Paul with less than half of Trump’s time to speak. While perhaps the other candidates could have been more assertive, Trump’s showboating and lack of consideration to his fellow party members seems to be at least part of the reason he has stayed solidly on top lately.
Apparently yapping jaws more than the others is what wins debates. Walker ranked seventh out of 11 on Google during the debate, keep in mind that Liberals watched the debates too. Walker also came up last for being discussed on Twitter as far as being trended in conversation. Again, it was fully possible that Liberals could have been saying, “at least Walker didn’t win the debate, good riddance.”
Of course after Walker’s poor performance in the debates where he managed to let on his almost creepy obsession with Ronald Reagan over having anything much more meaningful to say that the other candidates, he found himself with contributors questioning where his campaign was going. Walker had already tried to ask Texas billionaire, Doug Deason, for campaign funds earlier in September but found himself on the bottom of the list to other runners like Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and John Kasich.  At the end of this month with practically nil popularity and dwindling funds, there ended the Presidential race for Walker.
While America is at least now safe from Walker’s grasp, it is certain that the next year will be full of surprises and legendary political smack talk, ignorance, ego, revealing of lies or just full on twisting of the truth to make these candidates make themselves look better. The Democratic party will be starting their debates in October, we’re far from seeing some ridiculous things happen.