GOVERNOR WALKER - THE TEA PARTY AND MEDIA'S WHITE HOPE.

Jay H. Ell has already outlined the frantic dash at the start of the GOP Presidential nomination race, (Blogs: The 2016 GOP Presidential Horse Race, The 2016 POTUS Race - It's Hillarious and The GOP Leadership Race and My Fair Hillary), and while the field is very bunched in the early running, media and poll indications are that the race will be fought out between Governors, Wisconsin’s Walker and Florida’s Jeb Bush. (This notwithstanding of the entries of the crazy, Ted Cruz, the serious Marc Rubio and the off beat Rand Paul as well as 14 others) . Walker leads the Iowa polls while the Jeb is narrowly in the lead in New Hampshire - New Hampshire and Iowa being the litmus tests of the hopefuls.

 It remains to be seen whether conservative, Tea Party, white hope Scott Walker can survive the scorching scrutiny of a nearly 2 years campaign when the media decide finally to put him under the microscope. It is early days yet and narrowing the field already is presumptuous to say the least. More likely this could be the start of the “Anyone but Bush” campaign just as in the last Republican Primary we had the “Anyone but Romney” encounters as one after the other Tea Party candidates headed the polls and was replaced the moment they were fully exposed to the cold light of day. The media promote and axe one contender at a time to keep the race going forever. In the end Romney was the only one left standing other than Santorum whom had faded earlier anyway.

It is crystal clear that this is one of the most mediocre fields in history for the Republican Derby - a race of such significance that it is run only once every four years. The most positive comment about this collection of lack luster hopefuls was uttered by the Washington Post’s conservative commentator, Jennifer Rubin, who headlined her piece, “Imperfect Candidates But a Very Flawed Opponent”. The winner of the GOP match up is scheduled to be pitted against the Democratic champion, who by universal consensus will be Hillary Clinton, who apparently is “very flawed”, for the most prestigious race on the political calendar - The President’s Cup. 

AS A CRUCIAL ASIDE.....THE MEDIA

(Appropos Ms. Rubin's last statement that Ms. Clinton is "very flawed" it is interesting to note the way the media distorts its coverage as they selectively at any point in time choose to focus on candidates "weaknesses" and "strengths" mangling reality so as to keep up ratings and sell soap. Read below and see what the media have not as yet told us about Republican Front Runner, Scott Walker. All of the following is crucial to decision making and known right now to a simple observor such as Jay H. Ell. Rather than blurb it out they will let out the story out slowly to keep the suspense going, one way or another, for two years regardless of the truth. Their desire is to create an artificial ongoing close horse race rather than to accent all stengths and weaknesses even when they are evident. If they did they would risk not having a never ending reality show. For the moment the as yet unannounced Presidential Candidate, Scott Walker is the GOP "imperfect" frontrunner whose "imperfections" and qualifications are better than those of a "flawed" Hillary Clinton. 

At this stage Hillary, as the runaway favorite against any GOP candidate, will have any hint of a flaw mercilessly exposed in order for there to be a horse race. It is interesting to note the media's focus on Senator Bernie Sanders, the only Democrat who is running against her to date and who has not even got 1% of the Democratic electorate, being puffed up out of proportion. Hillary who is 50% ahead of her closest Democratic rival Elizabeth Warren will not be able to do much right for the next 18 months. Mercifully for her the electorate seem to be taking less and less notice of what they are supposed to be thinking.  (Blog: Hillary, The Media Run Presidential Race and Her E Mails).

So let us prematurely bring on Governor Walker.

THE  WISCONSIN GOVERNOR 

In horse racing parlance The Wisconsin Governor is “the business” for the GOP standoff.  He certainly looks “the part”. His conservative fiscal and social credentials are impeccable. He may not have the breeding of Jeb Bush but he certainly has the breeding to outstay him. He has that innocent boyish, butter couldn’t melt in his mouth, look about him that belies his rigid fiscal and uncompromising social agenda. And as Jeb himself has tautologously said, to win the Presidential race one has to lose the Primary. If the youngest Bush needed any confirmation of that, the hammering he received at the Conservative Political Action Conference, (CPAC), must have served as authentication. He may well be conservative by liberal standards, even wishy washy on his two supposed sops to the independents, national standards on education and a tortious path for citizenship for the “illegals”, but by CPAC he is no conservative. 

Fiscal Philosophy

Governor Scott Walker needs an introduction because up until now his fame has only spread from Wisconsin to Iowa and among the political junkies who are obsessed with this type of thing. He is a second term Governor in the blue State of Wisconsin who has withstood a recall vote. This he brags as one of his positives but you have to have angered a mass of people, 900,000 to be precise, who took the time and effort to sign petitions and collect signatures for your recall. His current approval ratings have plummeted to the mid  thirties so even Wisconsin have found him out. In Jay H. Ell’s opinion Governor Walker has the resume to triumph in the Primary match up. However, he has precious few credentials to enable him to win the President’s Cup.

In five short years Walker has crammed in all the essentials to make him the pick of the bunch of the Tea Party candidates. He has screwed the Trade Unions and their bargaining rights and championed “right to work” legislation.  This in spite of his pre election promises that he would never sign such devastating fiscal legislation. Recently he firmed up his conservative resume by unambigiously defining where he was in the battle between “the givers” and “the takers”. He took with his left hand, $300,000,000 from “the takers” in the form of the state grant to the prestigious State University of Wisconsin ensuring that “the takers” would have to “give” more to obtain an education. Then he gave, with his right hand $200,000 000 to corporate “givers” to erect a basketball arena. Not too many other illustrations are needed to know where the Presidential hopeful’s fiscal heart lies.

Social Agenda Blends with Fiscal Priorities.

He has decimated social welfare programs including food stamps. He has mandated an expensive drug screening program to test those who get any state benefits including food. The latter screening test has been found not to be  cost effective besides humiliating and degrading - but what should “takers” expect? (In Arizona where this program has been introduced two out of a 108,000 tests were positive). So if you want health care or state assistance to obtain a job for example, pee in a bottle first. His 2015 budget calls for a cut of $15 million from the  senior citizen “takers” of Wisconsin’s drug, (medical of course) program. He denies that he actually cut $500 million from the Medicaid budget in 2011 - 2013. His disclaimer comes in the teeth of his pledge recorded in his own budget documents to do just that. Again it is senseless just to continue this litany as these illustrate enough where the peeing Governor’s bladder lies.

Foreign Policy

If this wasn’t a direct quote one could fairly believe that Jay H. Ell had made it up. The wannabe Presidential Candidate whose lifetime has spanned the Presidencies of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Carter, both Bushes, Clinton and Obama where there have been innumerable wars, treaties, and events that have changed the international landscape, claimed that the most significant foreign policy event of his lifetime was:

“President Ronald Reagan’s move to bust a 1981 strike of traffic controllers firing some 11,000 of them. It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message across the world. America’s allies and foes alike became convinced enough that Reagan was serious enough to take action and that we weren’t to be messed with”. That was his the aspiring Commander in Chief’s inspiring message at the Conservative Republican Club for Growth, (CRCG), meeting.

Other than the obligatory visit to Israel undertaken by all candidates by both parties that is where it begins and ends.

The Good News.

In an interview with Fox News the Wisconsin Governor sought to repair some of the damage his infantile statements had landed him into. He clarified that former Mayor Giuliani was not speaking on his behalf on when he accused President Obama of not loving America. Walker illuminated on his initial answer that he did not know what the POTUS thought on the subject by substituting the narrative, "That he had no reason to question his love for his country."

In even more inane CRCG comment was “explained”. He testified that he did not mean that the Teacher Trade Union Protestors were “like ISIS” but rather his leadership had sorted the Teacher Trade Union out and therefore was the type of leadership needed to take on ISIS!

There is still another statement hanging out there that needs negating or it will haunt him as long he is still around - that he didn’t know whether President Obama was a Christian because he hadn’t asked him. Jay H. Ell is sure the Governor will either “ask him” or add that he has no reason to suspect his Christianity. 

Walker who is spending as much time in Iowa as he is in Wisconsin is learning the drill quickly. Always against the corn ethanol subsidy he has gone 180 degrees on the issue. He appointed a new campaign manager Liz Mair whose position on the ethanol subsidies was the same as his used to be. The Iowa Repblican Chairman said she had to go. So within hours of her appointment out she went. The Wisconsin Governor sure is a quick learner even though he is not so hot at vetting prospective staffers.

BIO

Walker can truthfully argue that he has come by his convictions honestly. There have been no deviations from his path since early childhood. The other right wing candidates are going to have a problem “out righting” him as he is the genuine article. Outside of Governor Perry and Senator Cruz, who believe that the world is even flatter, the Pauls, Rubrios, Huckabees and even Santorum are going to have to rewrite their fundamentalist accreditations to keep pace with this runner.

He has always been profoundly socially conservative as well as having a fundamentalist outlook on life. The New Republican, in an essay entitled, “Scott Walker’s Toxic Racial Policies”, has reported  an extensive analysis of his pedigree and breeding for this arduous race. His father was a Baptist Minister and Scott founded the “Jesus USA Club” at the age of seven. At the Jesuit University Marquette he was remembered as saying repeatedly, “God has told me I am chosen to cut taxes and stop killing babies”. He announced to the world in the College Yearbook in 1990, “I really think there is a reason why God put all these political thoughts in my head”.

In 1990 on the verge of graduating he dropped out of College, (Incidentally he has never provided a plausible explanation for this) and in 1992 entered the Wisconsin State Assembly. During his State legislature period, according to the New Republican, he become the media spokesperson for the Wisconsin Republican Party. He was a regular on two radio talk shows hosted by Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling whose rantings would make Rush Limbaugh blush. To give you a flavor of these two - the former has recently published a book entitled “A Nation of Moochers” and called Michelle Obama a “mooch” while Belling ranted that a black who died in police custody was “a piece of garbage”. In another outburst Belling attacked “the pigs of mothers who are too lazy to put their children in cribs and roll over the top of them while sleeping on a futon on the floor”.

The two broadcasters are joined at the hip and are known as SykesBelling, one dominating the morning airwaves and the other the afternoon. They have morphed into the unelected policymakers of the Wisconsin GOP. Their policy initiatives and endorsement or axing of Republican operatives in Wisconsin are the last word on the subject. A moderate Republican, Dale Schultz referring to the influence of their talk radio maintained that his colleagues wet themselves when it “got going”. Walker has had the undiluted support of these two who affirm that, “Walker keeps in close contact with us.. we make no secret we are very close to Scott”. They attested that Walker communicates with talk radio, “all the time”.

LEGAL PROBLEMS STARTING WITH CONVICTIONS OF SIX ASSOCIATES

Scott Walker is right in the middle of a legal minefield where some of the explosions have already occured. While Governor Christie’s legal and ethical woes have kiboshed any hope he might have had of landing the prize, Scott’s nonentity status has thus far allowed his snafus to slip under the radar. It would be charitable to call his ability to pick administrative staff as “poor”. Twenty - seven thousand of his e mails were released as a result of litigation against his administration. The allegations that allowed this avalanche of compromising material to surface included embezzlement, money laundering that his staffers effected in getting him elevated from Milwaukee County Executive to the Governor’s mansion. 

One of the e mails from his Chief of Staff contained the following: “THE NIGHTMARE - I can handle being a black, disabled, one armed drug addicted Jewish homosexual, but please, oh dear God do not make me a Democrat". Another circulated by his Deputy Chief of Staff compares welfare recipients to dogs - they are mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no friggin clue who their daddies are”. 

This is the least of it as even as the litigation is held up in the courts for the moment it has already resulted in six convictions of his staff and campaign workers.

* Kelly Rindfleish, Deputy Chief of Staff was sentenced to six months imprisonment for working on political campaigns while being a government employee. She has appealed her sentence.

* Tim Russell, the third most powerful member of Governor Walker’s Milwaukee County Staff was sentenced to two years in prison for stealing $20,000 from a non profit that his chief put under his management. 

* Darlene Wink, a staffer, was sentenced to probation for assisting the Walker gubernatorial campaign on Government time.

* Kevin Kavanaugh, a Walker appointee, who ran the Milwaukee County Veteran Service Commission embezzled $51,000 in donations intended for Vets and their families. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

* Bill Gardner a campaign worker laundered tens of thousands of dollars for Walker’s initial run for the Governor’s campaign. He was sentenced to two years probation. 

* Brian Pierick, who was the registrant for the Wisconsin gubernatorial website, was accused of enticing a minor to expose his penis and plea bargained for a community service sentence and a $2000 fine. What might upset the faithful even more is the fact that in the complaint against Pierick he was described as the “domestic partner” of the aforementioned Tim Russell.

The investigation targeting Scott Walker for illegally  coordinating finances with conservative groups for his 2012 recall campaign is currently being reviewed by the Federal Circuit Court. The latter have allowed the investigation to continue while they review an appeal against its continuance.

Another problem, uncovered by Michael Isikoff, has shed light on one his major donors John Menard of Menards and his "anonymous" donations to a PAC supporting Walker. Million dollar anonymity is OK with the Supreme Court's blessing but he has been awarded $1.8 million dollars in special tax credits by a committee that Walker chairs. In the bad old days that would be considered quid pro quo but as a result of the Supreme Court's Citizen United decision you have to be caught handing the money over in a bag in exchange for a written statement in return that you will get that money back with interest before you have problems.

Another wrinkle on the Menard story is that environmental legislation that Menard, personally and his company had been fined under for dumping hazardous waste was repealed by Governor Walker. This will at least cause him major political problems if it too does not qualify for legal jeopardy. 

WALKER HAS MAJOR FINANCIAL BACKING 

One of the Conservative groups that Walker is alleged to have illegally conspired with is linked to the Koch brothers. The latter have been reported  to be very supportive of Walker’s Presidential candidacy. They have also publicly pledged $900 million to the 2016 elections. So the fact that Walker is leading the polls in Iowa the first Republican Primary and is a close second to Jeb Bush in the more middle of the road New Hampshire makes him a force to be reckoned with. Koch money will ensure that he stays the course.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The Washington Post’s senior columnist charitably characterized the Republican Presidential Candidates as “imperfect” and as Scott Walker is a front runner at the moment she can hardly be accused of hyperbole. The “very flawed” Hillary Clinton should not be losing too much sleep over this lot. The reason the Wisconsin Governor is so high up in the ratings is that his “imperfections” are largely unknown while the other hacks’ vulnerabilities have been on parade for years. 

If by some fluke of history Walker survives the Primaries he will be slaughtered in the Championship stakes. Perhaps one of the “horses” carrying a lighter weight will cross the line and be the GOP standard bearer. Realistically, only Jeb Bush could give Hillary a go but he would have his work cut out to get the Independent vote while at the same time persuading the fundamentalist base to come out and vote for him. The latter really have no loyalty to the Republican brand, certainly as personified by a Bush, as the Bush brand was the main spur for the creation of the Tea Party.

Ironically, Mitt Romney would have been the GOP’s best bet as the early polls had indicated. He had the plus that at least, in the end, the Conservatives came out to vote for him. His problem was that he was a certain loser while by some miracle one of the other “Imperfects”, might not be. How anyone of these can conceivably win while the “do nothing” GOP Congress insists on knocking woman issues, welfare programs for the poor and middle class, Hispanics, and LGBTs, while at the same time appearing totally against everything, to quote Jeb Bush, is beyond Jay H. Ell’s comprehension.

However, if and when the media are ready to broadcast all of this to the world, the "imperfect" Walker will be the equivalent of the "flawed" Clinton. The show must go on.