Walkergate: The College Years

Before there was Walkergate, back in Scott Walker's days at Marquette University, there was Walkergate: The College Years.

Back then, when the Marquette Tribune printed a negative story about him, Walker and his cronies would scoop up the freshly printed papers and destroy them.  But they did not always get all of them.

And now we have photographic proof of the original Walkergate:

Further proof that Walker never had any ethics, or if he did, he killed them off at a very young age.

Walker Returns To The Scene Of The Crime

For those of you who missed the significance of the location of Wednesday night's debate between Scott Walker and Mark Neumann, let me remind the gentle reader that it was held at Marquette University.

Marquette University is, as the reader would remember, is the almost alma mater of Scott Walker, almost being the key word. Walker failed to graduate, leaving school entering his fourth year, even though he only had about three and a half years worth of credits.

At the time of that Walker's non-graduate status came out, I stated that it was my opinion that the fact he failed to graduate was a minor issue, I pointed out that it seemed to me that the more significant issue was why didn't he graduate.

I had repeatedly heard rumors that his departure was related to an election he entered to become student president. I had heard that he was being his usual negative self and was just being a generally unpleasant person. Because of this, and the fact that when the school paper refused to endorse him, he and his cronies snatched up as many copies of that issue of the paper as they could and destroyed them. Despite of, or maybe because of, his shenanigans, Walker had his butt handed to him in a 80-20 landslide, or so the story went. It was shortly after this that Walker left school.

The story said he left in disgrace and embarrassment due to his boorish behaviors and the massive routing.

A few days ago, a faithful reader forwarded an email to me that included this text:

Why did Republican candidate for governor Scott Walker leave Marquette University without graduating?

And was he punished for trying to rig an election in which he was a candidate for student government president?

The circumstances surrounding his departure from Marquette remain murky. The best information about what happened may be in his student records.

At the end of the 1988 or 1989 school year, Walker was a candidate for student government president.

Walker and a few people who were at the University likely know the full story. University records about students are generally confidential. However, Walker could ask the University to make those records public.

A little-noticed allegation raised publicly about Walker about a year-and-a-half ago may be old news. What makes the allegation unusual is that the person who made it revealed his name. Anonymous allegations, especially about political candidates, are generally considered less reliable.

What makes the allegation more unusual is that the name of the person matches that of a person associated with Marquette.

Steven Blackwood confirms that he has written about Walker's time at Marquette. However, Blackwood says he knows nothing about the reasons that Walker left without graduating.

On January 8, 2009 on Milwaukee Rising carried a posting from Blackwood.
Part of the posting is:

"He's a great smoozer.

"Pretty good for a guy who ran for student government President at Marquette University in 1988, losing because, angry at not being endorsed by the Marquette Tribune (the paper liked both candidates), he had his cronies go around and seize piles of the paper and toss the,. (typo) Subsequently, the paper endorsed his opponent. Side note: Scotty never did graduate."

The comments do not say if Walker was expelled or punished in any way. They also did not indicate if others were punished.

Blackwood works at the MU Raynor Memorial Libraries, according to a University website. A search of several websites shows a Steven Blackwood of Milwaukee has donated $1,100 to presidential candidates. However, nothing indicates any donations to any candidates for governor by a person with the same name.

Is this an old allegation that has been discredited? If so, it should not reflect on Walker's qualifications.

Walker can authorize the release of his student records. Will he?

Walker's campaign has not replied to a request for comment.

Being an email that appeared to be circulated, I was skeptical of its veracity. However, I did manage to find said comment, which can be found here and reads thus:

It is unfortunate that Walker’s opponent from the last election, Lena Taylor, actually a normally savvy woman, hadn’t run such a lackluster campaign. Another part of the problem is that Walker, early on, found the value of constantly appearing in the media over the years whether he knew anything or not (often not). He’s a great smoozer.

Pretty good for a guy who ran for student government President at Marquette University in 1988, losing because, angry at not being endorsed by the Marquette Tribune (the paper liked both candidates), he had his cronies go around and seize piles of the paper and toss the,. Subsequently, the paper endorsed his opponent. Side note: Scotty never did graduate.

And yes, there is a Steven Blackwood at Marquette University, and who appears to be active in politics, at least in donations. Now, not being a conservative blogger, I don't have the luxury of being able to do phone calls or open record requests during the work day, so I have not been able to confirm that these are all the same person. But there is, I believe, enough circumstantial evidence to make it considered plausible.

To further increase suspicions, the Democrats had also been doing their homework. They sent out this press release, including this tidbit:

In February, 1988, Walker admitted violating Marquette campaign rules during his run for student government president and the Marquette Tribune deemed him "unfit" for office after finding Walker's campaign guilty of "mudslinging," and after reports that his campaign was throwing out copies of the paper that contained information damaging to Walker.

Walker left the university not long afterward.

Mmm, trying to stifle a voice that was critical of him. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

(By the way, here is the flier that the Dems were distributing at the debate.)

The fact that Walker has refused to release his transcripts, along with this information, raises questions if Walker left school on his own volition, as he claims, or if there was another reason.

Walker should just come clean and release his transcripts. It would be better to be honest about a poor decision than to have it come out this way or leave room for further speculation. But then again, that kind of integrity just doesn't seem to be in Walker's character.

Must Have Been The Six Year Plan

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel brings up the subject of whether having a college degree or not should be a factor in the upcoming gubernatorial race. The reason for this story is obviously because Scott Walker never finished school.

I'll start out the outrage machine by saying that, yes, it should be a factor. I would follow that up quickly that it shouldn't be the only factor, or even necessarily one of the bigger factors, in the race.

Obviously, people could rattle off a considerable list of people who have succeeded in life without a college degree, the most famous being, of course, Bill Gates.

I think what would bear greater meaning is not whether he got a degree, but why he didn't. According to the article, Walker left school because he got a job at the American Red Cross.

I'm sorry, but does anyone really see Walker as being the type of guy who would leave with only a year or year and a half to go to do humanitarian work? Even if that was true, that idealism was very short-lived and he lost that idealistic mentality decades ago.

But I don't think that Walker's excuse passes the smell test.

First of all, Walker refused to release his transcripts. He did release a letter from Marquette University that had this:

Walker released a letter from Marquette that showed he attended the school for four years, from 1986 to 1990, and would have needed to stay there for at least another year to get a degree. He had 94 credits and would have needed at least 36 more. The exact number of credits he needed isn't clear because students must take classes in certain areas of study to get degrees.

Doesn't that sound like a referral from a job from which a person was fired? "Yes, so-and-so worked here from this date to that, and this was their salary." Businesses carefully word their responses like that so that they can't be sued for slander or libel for saying something to the effect that they fired the bum for being a no-good thief who was always trying to grab the receptionist's butt or whatever.

Adding to the suspicious and dubious explanation from Walker's failure to graduate is this:

Walker declined to release his transcripts, but his campaign said he had a grade-point average of 2.59, in the C's. He had just established status as a senior when he left after four years of mostly full-time coursework at Marquette University.Walker's supporters - and even some of his detractors - say it shouldn't matter that he didn't attain a degree.

After four years, he was still at the very least a year from being able to graduate. Now, it takes many people more than four years to graduate from college, especially if they are working their way through school. But there is no indication that Walker was doing that. Was he having problems at school with his grades? The GPA isn't very impressive, but it's not the worst either.

I have heard a couple different stories on why Walker left school so abruptly. I won't go into the details of them, since they are not verified, but this article does give them more credibility that Walker suddenly having a short-lived phase of idealism.

Walker doesn't do himself any favors with this line either:

Walker, for his part, has said at times that he wished he could finish so his children would see that he had followed through. He said in an interview he should be judged on his record of keeping taxes down in Milwaukee County rather than whether he finished college.

It is a common meme for Walker to say he is "holding the line" on taxes, but in the eight years he has been county executive, taxes have gone up some 17%, or nearly $40 million.

And has been pointed out time and time again, by pundits on both sides of the political spectrum, Walker's worst enemies are his own supporters.

Take for example, the quote from State Senator Glenn Grothman:

"There are tens of thousands of people with master's degrees who don't have the common sense God gave a rabbit," said state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), who has a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"Whether you spend two, four (or) six years hanging around a classroom has no bearing on whether you can hold elective office. . . . Anybody who knows Scott Walker knows he could take six months off and sit in a boring classroom and it wouldn't make him one whit more qualified."

I'll let Tom Foley highlight the irony of Grothman proving his own point. But does it really help that one of Walker's staunchest supporters admits that Walker couldn't gain anything from furthering his education?

As I said at the top of this post, I don't think the fact that Walker failed to graduate from college should be the top consideration in deciding whom to vote for. What would be much more germane would be the facts that Walker has raised taxes every year, but has failed to meet even the basic elements of his job, including effectively running programs like mental health services or income maintenance programming, or keeping the county facilities from literally falling apart and making the entire county into a hard hat area.