Saturday, July 19, 2014

The Core Of The Problem is Common Extremism

By Jeff Simpson

Scott Walker, in the midst of a tough re-election fight, where his chances keep getting downgraded, is getting desperate.   Scott Walker has already played some of his trump cards from massive fundraising leads to pushing the limits of coordinating all of the dark money groups to his advantage.   Thinking these two trump cards were all he needed to win the hand, has proven to be a very drastic mistake of his campaigns, at best, he is now is tied with his opponent, political newcomer Mary Burke.  

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  We see how desperate the Governor is with his ridiculous attack ad on his opponent and now he has doubled down on desperation.  Scott Walker now says he wants to eliminate Common Core State Standards and he wants it done in January.    Why now and why in January?  Let's take a look.

With the campaign reeling and support fading, Scott Walker know he needs to shore up his base.   If you recall, in November, a handful of anti-government, anti-intellectual zealots got together and all signed a letter(still not sure who in the group could actually write it) telling Scott Walker to repeal common core.   Scott Walker did his best double speak around the issue at the time and hoped the issue would disappear.

It hasn't.  

Now Mary Burke has actually started to campaign effectively and that left Scott Walker anguished that his career plans of more power might be derailed.  Walker, if he knows one thing, it is elections and the importance of his base.   He knows that all of the "independent" talk amongst the "tea party" is just that and in the end they are just the crazy wing of the republican party.  Scott Walker wants to make sure that every last one of them, and their sons and son - in - laws, all vote for him.

So when they say jump Scott Walker wants to let them know he is listening.   The next question is why January?  This is important issue so you would think he could call them in now, its between hunting seasons so Joel Kleefisch might actually be available.  

If it is in January, he sends a message saying make sure you vote for me as often as possible to make sure I can do this for you to his base!   That and he knows it is a political loser to be put out there on display right before the election.   Not only is it a bad thing its very costly as it would cost the state millions. 

Unfortunately for the people of Wisconsin, millions of taxpayer dollars mean nothing to Scott Walker:
Walker said Friday that he doesn’t know how much it would cost to come up with new standards but he doesn’t think it would be significant.
Whats a few millions dollars of taxpayer money if it will help me get elected?    Luther Olsen said it best(who would have ever thought I would write those words)!  
 “It’s all political and the sad thing is at the end of the day it doesn’t show true leadership,” said Luther Olsen.

In that one sentence Luther Olsen summed up Scott Walker's political career.




PS:  read about Common Core State Standards here.  

2 comments:

  1. " Walker, if he knows one thing, it is elections and the importance of his base. "

    Slight editorial revision here." ...if he knows one thing, it is cheating on elections and the importance of pandering to his base."

    ReplyDelete
  2. No -- the core of the real problem is Wisconsin's racist and bad schools.

    The state's academic standards prior to adoption of common core were the lowest in the nation and were only banded at 4, 8, and 12th grade.

    The were written to be meaningless -- no one could agree if a student achieved them. There were impossible to access. If a student fell behind, it was impossible to catch up (because of the banding and their fuzzy vague nature).

    But Wisconsin's public schools used the worst academic standards in America to create the most racist schools in America and school-to-prison pipeline.

    Common Core is better than what we had and is much more workable than what our college drop-out gov will oversea -- but Wisconsin's crappy public schools are unlikely to deliver them anyhow.

    ReplyDelete