Is Walker's Campaign Over Before It Starts?

Michael Brendan Dougherty, writing at The Week, discusses Scott Walker's campaign and his chances at winning the GOP nomination. Dougherty notes that Walker was in the driver's seat and looked like he had a real chance but with the clown car turning into a clown microbus and Walker's own inconsistencies and hypocrisies are leaving Walker "diminished."

Dougherty then gives a fairly good, although in no way exhaustive, laundry list of Walker's foibles, flip flops and fails:

First there was his performance at CPAC, which revealed that Walker is almost entirely untutored in foreign affairs. Remember when he said that if he could take on 100,000 protestors in Wisconsin, he could take on ISIS? In which direction is that comparison more idiotic? He's been reading a few books on the subject, though. So there's that.

Walker also slipped into near self-parody when he hailed Reagan's conflict with the air-traffic controllers union as a major foreign policy victory. What's next, fixing entitlements by defeating the electrician's union?

Donors noticed these slip-ups. But Walker also hurt his reputation with less wealthy supporters. Despite portraying himself as a fearless man of the political battle, he engaged in some embarrassing pandering by firing an adviser merely because she had expressed some coherent views on Iowa's pathetic reliance on ethanol subsidies. The supposed fighter caved before the corn lobby, since he sees Iowa as his best shot at establishing himself in the race. The former opponent of ethanol is now a friend of the stuff.

Muddying his positions has been Walker's modus operandi since the beginning of the 2016 campaign. He's made a mess of his stance on immigration. He told Fox News he opposes amnesty, then went to New Hampshire and said he supports granting citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants. He reconciled these positions by saying he wanted to secure the border first, then naturalize those 11 million. And back in 2006 he was for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that had a path to citizenship. So really, who knows?

He's created a similar mess on education. Gearing up to be the conservatives' conservative, Walker is now opposed to Common Core standards, which are often labeled "ObamaCore" by the policy's most active conservative opponents. But as governor, Walker mostly let Core standards come into place, and offered only the most token opposition to them. His approach to this issue is much worse than that of Jeb Bush, who frames his unapologetic and occasionally unpopular support for Common Core in conservative terms of accountability. In the past week, a diverse ideological coalition demanded that Walker stop giving "excuses and half truths" about this issue.

As a Wisconsinite, I can tell you that this is like a breath of fresh air. Not that I am taking any pride in an incompetent, corrupt hypocrite as our governor.

But when you look at the major corporate news sites in Wisconsin, they are gushing all over Walker and his campaign. And even when they force themselves to admit that Walker might have some problems, they bury it at the bottom of the article, knowing that most readers will have moved on to another story before they get that far.

Walker Wants Bigotry To Be Constitutional Right - Sort Of

Scott Walker has spent well over a million of taxpayer dollars in order to preserve the right to be bigoted against marriage equality. When he lost in federal court, he said that “For us, it’s over in Wisconsin."

This did not please the red meat conservative Christians that Walker needs to have any chance at the presidential nomination. So Walker did what he does best - he pandered away to them by changing his tune:

Just before he took the stage, Walker told reporters he's holding out hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule that states can bar same-sex marriages. But if that's not the case, he suggested that voters should seek a constitutional amendment to allow state-level bans.

"I think the appropriate route is for people across America who care deeply about this issue to pursue a constitutional amendment allowing the states to determine what the definition is," Walker told reporters.

On Friday, in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling that Love Wins and that all people can get married, Walker upped his rhetoric even more, surpassing any of his fellow wannabes in the hate:

I believe this Supreme Court decision is a grave mistake. Five unelected judges have taken it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage, an institution that the author of this decision acknowledges ‘has been with us for millennia.’ In 2006 I, like millions of Americans, voted to amend our state constitution to protect the institution of marriage from exactly this type of judicial activism. The states are the proper place for these decisions to be made, and as we have seen repeatedly over the last few days, we will need a conservative president who will appoint men and women to the Court who will faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of our land without injecting their own political agendas. As a result of this decision, the only alternative left for the American people is to support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to reaffirm the ability of the states to continue to define marriage.

Recognizing that our Founders made our Constitution difficult to amend, I am reminded that it was first amended to protect our ‘First Freedom’ - the free exercise of religion. The First Amendment does not simply protect a narrow ‘right to worship,’ but provides broad protection to individuals and institutions to worship and act in accordance with their religious beliefs. In fact, the Wisconsin constitution explicitly protects the rights of conscience of our citizens. I can assure all Wisconsinites concerned about the impact of today’s decision that your conscience rights will be protected, and the government will not coerce you to act against your religious beliefs.

I call on the president and all governors to join me in reassuring millions of Americans that the government will not force them to participate in activities that violate their deeply held religious beliefs. No one wants to live in a country where the government coerces people to act in opposition to their conscience. We will continue to fight for the freedoms of all Americans.

That tough talked lasted for a whole day. On Saturday, Pander Bear Walker had apparently yet again changed his position for the umpteenth time:

On Friday, Scott Walker warned that “five unelected justices” on the Supreme Court had threatened the “millennia”-old institution of marriage by extending it to same-sex couples. In a statement that lapped many of his more cautious rivals, he called for a constitutional amendment allowing states to decide the issue for themselves.

But barely a day later, in front of an audience of 4,000 conservatives in Denver on Saturday night — a Western Conservative Summit that had been ripping the court and lamenting same-sex marriage for two full days — Walker didn’t mention either.

After running through his stump speech without mentioning the Supreme Court’s recent controversial rulings, Walker had another chance with radio host Hugh Hewitt, who asked the likely presidential candidate if he’s “all-in” when it comes to defending religious liberty.

“Yes,” Walker replied, before launching into a brief boilerplate answer about the importance of freedom of religion.

It marked a sharp departure from Walker’s own rhetoric, but also from many of his primary rivals who seized on the right’s frustration with the court to rally conservatives.

About here, I'd make a quip about "would the real Scott Walker please stand up," but he has flipped-flopped so much on so many issues that I doubt he even knows where he stands on any given issue on any given day.

I'm just a little surprised that Walker hasn't talked about banning Skittles yet. You know, people tasting the rainbow making them gay or something like that.