Quote (thesnipa @ Feb 13 2015 10:48am)
He's a conservative who won 3 gubernatorial elections in 4 years in a massively liberal state.
He's got the Koch brothers on his balls like glitter on a stripper.
He's relatively unknown nationwide, which is shockingly a good thing for a Rep. candidate (i.e. no hooker scandals, claims that the earth is 5000 years old, or n-bomb sound bites)
He's a teaparty poster boy outside of the teaparty's homerange and would slay the bible belt.
I think Scott Walker would be a B- candidate at worse. He's had trouble at home with his reforms but it didnt make him any less of a viable candidate as his 2 elections post-education reform shows.
I'm sorry but we've got to deal within the confines of reality here. Wisconsin is a D+2 state that the Republicans have had near-uninterrupted control of the State Assembly for 20 years. The state party has also held the governor's mansion for 6 of the last 8 terms and had the same level control over the rest of the statewide offices that didn't have Doyle or LaFoullette holding them. The state history shows how Walker's alleged cross-over appeal and electability argument are
vastly overstated. He's strung together 6-point wins in midterm years (and a June special) that were extremely favorable to his party. He's never won a November election in a presidential and he probably couldn't. His only instance of any cross-over appeal at all involved said special where he enjoyed a ridiculous 12:1 monetary advantage and where a contingent of voters backed him purely because they philosophically oppose recalls.
Walker, on paper, is a strong primary candidate but he would be a
dreadful general election candidate for his party: moderates despise him, his monetary advantage would be gone, and not only does he have zero appeal to non-whites but he'd drive more of them away. He's also dogged by
legitimate scandals. He might not even pass the smell test once an ounce of scrutiny is finally applied to his record by the national media, as terrible as they are at their job. Unlike the state media the national press would diligently look into each of his many scandals because he's an easy target and they know both parties will be shopping endless stories: John Doe, illegal coordination with the Club for Growth, other campaign finance violations, the WEDC, the Kenosha casino. The list is practically endless.
Walker could be a really big risk for the GOP. It's possible that he could get buried so badly that the GOP would have to triage him like Bob Dole and Clinton could waltz to a 52% win. He could really blow it for them.
This post was edited by Pollster on Feb 13 2015 09:35pm