Walker Throws Another Long Time Aide Under The Campaign Bus

David Catanese wrote about how Scott Walker had thrown long time friend and top political strategist, RJ Johnson, under the campaign bus:

Now, three years later, on the verge of a presidential announcement and status as a tenuous front-runner for the GOP, Johnson is on the outs, multiple sources tell U.S. News, sidelined by a new raft of national advisers that Walker has tapped to navigate the gargantuan task of reaching the White House.

Seizing the reins now as expected campaign manager is Rick Wiley, the bald, goateed RNC veteran from Illinois who resembles a cross between professional wrestler Steve Austin and Mr. Clean.

Johnson just a few months ago had indicated his role was still unclear but seemed prepared to sign on for the endeavor in some form.

“What [my] capacity will be when things progress is not completely defined at this point,” he told U.S. News in March. “Things will be more apparent when things progress. I’ll imagine I’m always going to be involved in some capacity.”

But two Republican sources tell U.S. News that Wiley’s emergence as Walker’s new top aide essentially pushed Johnson out of the mix this spring, leaving the governor without the trusted political jedi who waged his biggest battles.

“He’s a casual observer now,” says one Walker supporter outside of the campaign. “R.J.’s always in the governor’s orbit. I just think R.J.’s focused on other things currently.”

Another Wisconsin Republican who has worked for Walker and knows Johnson frames it more harshly: “There’s been internal challenges, not uncommon of a growing organization. And R.J. is out. I’m surprised they couldn’t find a place for R.J. But I think a scenario where Rick and R.J. were going to coexist was always a fantasy.”

Catanese attributes Walker's abandonment of Johnson as turf wars between Johnson and Walker's new top guy, Rick Wiley. Catanese also said that Johnson's dismissal "is just a piece of the growing pains Walker is experiencing as he attempts to transform himself from a battle-tested governor with a close-knit circle to a national leader who can pull together a broad coalition and maintain his image under an unforgiving national spotlight."

These factors might have played in a role of Johnson finding Walker's campaign bus' tire tracks on his back, but they are probably not the only reason.

Walker has a long history of dogging out old friends and new the moment they become a liability or an embarrassment.

Walker threw John Hiller, his campaign treasurer of 18 years, under the bus when it came out that Hiller was part of the John Doe investigation known as Walkergate.

When Walker's lifelong friend and top campaign aide, Tim Russell, was arrested and charged in the Walkergate investigation, Walker turned his back on Rusell, not lifting a finger to help his old chum.

A couple of years ago, after I broke the story about Walker's infamous Black Friday fundraising email, he scapegoated his deputy finance director for it, although he claimed it was for some racist tweets she sent out years before she joined his campaign. It was just coincidence that he only learned of them when the fundraiser story went international.

Most recently, he canned Liz Mair before she even got settled in, just because some Iowan Republicans didn't like her.

And Johnson definitely has the potential to be a big liability.

After Walker officially announces his presidential campaign next week (unless he changes his mind about the date again), the national media will (hopefully) start taking a closer look at Walker and his history - not just the fantasies that Walker tells them, but his actual history, including the Walkergate investigations.

And Johnson's name is rampant throughout the investigations and the tens of thousands of emails, as I have reported here, here and here. It also appears that Johnson might have been part of the current - albeit temporarily suspended - second investigation into Walker's illegal collaboration with the dark money groups that had been supporting him.

While Walker might have thrown another old crony under his campaign bus due to "growing pains," it's just as likely that he is trying to cut loose some baggage that will only hinder his presidential aspirations.

Cantanese On Walkergate

David Cantanese of US News, who has been covering the beginnings of the 2016 presidential election has taken note of Scott Walker and Chris Christie and their respective scandal problems.

Cantanese's take on Walker's problems:

Court documents unsealed in the campaign finance investigation into Walker's 2012 recall show prosecutors believe the governor was at the center of a nationwide "criminal scheme" to violate election laws, by improperly coordinating with outside groups and GOP super strategist Karl Rove.

Though no charges have been filed against Walker or any of his staff, emails now show Walker was in direct contact with R.J. Johnson, an adviser who was also closely aligned with the Wisconsin Club For Growth, an outside group that vigorously supported Walker's re-election.

As TIME's Michael Scherer writes, yes, the laws surrounding campaign finance are Byzantine and not thoroughly understood by the general public. But:

Elections, after all, rarely hinge on legal technicalities. They are about voter impressions, and "criminal scheme" is quite a phrase to overcome in a contested primary."

Yet in Wisconsin, where the voters are, neither Mike Tate, head of WISDEMS, nor Mary Burke, the annointed Democratic candidate, felt that it was worth the effort to educate the public on Walker's scandal.

Oops!

Of Teapublicans And Republicrats

David Cantanese penned a very interesting article which tells us what we really already knew...that the country is shifting to the right:

Card-carrying Democrats and their messengers are still loathe to use the L-word (liberal) and even the most ardent members of the left struggle to make the case the party – as a whole – is moving in their direction.

Sure, there are liberal cultural transformations – like the growing acceptance of gay marriage – that are coursing through the veins of the country. But, if anything, that dramatic change has been spurred by public opinion and at the local level, not a concerted effort by the top of the party of Andrew Jackson. The new liberal litmus test is much more economic-centered, including support for more generous entitlement benefits, higher taxes on the wealthiest and punitive laws that punish nefarious financial institutions.

And despite claims otherwise, Democratic candidates this cycle aren’t centering their re-election bids around their support for the health care law – President Barack Obama’s singular biggest and most liberal domestic achievement. Try to find a television ad in which a Democratic Senate candidate in a competitive race trumpets his or her explicit support for Obamacare.

Perhaps the most glaring evidence that the Democratic Party isn’t truly becoming more instinctively liberal is this simple but glaring fact: It’s difficult to find a party stalwart who will say it is.

“I think it’s a complicated question,” says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. “I don’t think it’s particularly left or moving left.”

Even with all the current advantages the Democratic Party wields on issues, demographics and cultural relevance, “conservative” remains a more politically palatable term than “liberal.”

“You can be conservative in a lot of ways. It could just be being cautious, careful, saving money. There’s a lot of ways it’s a positively balanced word. Liberal has a very political meaning that I think in the current landscape is seen as a more extreme label than conservative,” says Michael Dimock, a vice president at Pew Research who has studied political ideology. “That’s why you see all these groups in Washington using 'progressive' instead of 'liberal.' They see progressive as less of a stark term.”

While it’s true that more Americans are identifying as liberals, the heart of the Democratic Party remains in the middle. In a January Pew Research survey, just over a third of Democrats described themselves as liberal, compared with 63 percent identifying as moderate or conservative.

Cantanese also explains why this erosion to the right is happening and it's a reason we also already knew:

Roger Hickey, co-founder for the liberal group Campaign for America’s Future, contends that while the base is lurching leftward, party leadership is less comfortable with the path.

“The structure of the Democratic Party [is] trying to figure this out​,” he says. “There are the timid Democrats who don’t want to threaten their possibility of getting money from Wall Street. There’s a lot of them, including Hillary Clinton.”

The innate pressure of keeping up with Republicans on the money front is a constant concern, Democrats will admit.

​Bonior, who rose to be the No. 2 Democrat in the House,​ says even those best-intentioned lawmakers who come to Washington heralding liberal values are prone to become overwhelmed by the impact money has on the system. "Progressivity gets lost in a system that is corrupt and broken," he says, citing the gradual but consistent loosening of campaign finance laws. "It’s very difficult. You have to be a very strong leader to overcome that." ​

Therefore, as one left-of-center Democratic consultant puts it, “everything from prosecuting Wall Street to a more robust estate tax ain’t happening.” ​

“It’s the green,” he says.

To put it in other words, instead of trying to win by reaching out to the people, they Democrats are reaching out to the Big Money special interests.. That is why we end up with people like Chris Abele, Lena Taylor and Mary Burke. People that could be called progressive only when compared to the extremists running the Teapublican Party.

And that is also why the Democrats are having such a hard time winning elections. If people have to vote for the Republican, they might as well vote for the one that is honest about it. One expects that a Teapublican is going to be a ill-informed nut job. It is even more disappointing when that nut job is someone that is supposed to be a good guy.

And even if a Republicrat still wins, we still lose. One does not have to go any farther than Abele to see that. It's wrong when the mentally ill are abandoned, when union workers are attacked or when austerity costs us the things we've been fighting for - whether it is a Republican or a Democrat doing it.

The only way to stop this slide to the right is for the good people to stand up. Contrary to what the "professionals" cited in the article say, I don't see the majority of Americans, much less Democrats, to be moving to the right willingly.  It's just that not enough people are saying, "Enough!"

A change won't occur as long as we keep accepting the people being forced upon us. Nothing will change as long as we try to rationalize our bad choices by saying things like "Anyone but what's-their-face."  Nothing will change as long as we rationalize it as the less of two evils.  The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Nothing will change as long as we continue to accept what is happening.

Walker's Chances For POTUS Worsens

I just pointed out yesterday that Scott Walker was not faring well in his chase for the White House, coming in with only 2% in a poll comparing GOP potential candidates.

It turns out that this was a rosy outlook for Walker.

In a post by David Catanese at The Run 2016, he points out that Walker is doing a helluva lot of traveling in an effort to garner support despite the stench of corruption and incompetence that surrounds him.

What really caught my eye was the last line of his report (emphasis mine):

As one national poll demonstrated this week, his support languishes in single digits.  A second national firm didn’t even include him in their survey.

With the way the local corporate media reports it, Walker is destined for office.  The fact that he is so insignificant that he can not even get mentioned in a poll shows that quite the opposite is true.