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Scott Walker, God's Gift to the Democratic Party


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http://www.rollingst...20150227?page=2

Scott Walker, God's Gift to the Democratic Party

Matt Taibbi

Beltway Democrats may not deserve good luck, but it looks like they could have plenty in the next presidential race. Heading into the weekend, Scott Walker, a man born to be slaughtered in a general election, is suddenly leading the Republican pack in the Iowa polls.

Walker is surging thanks to his performance at this week's Conservative Political Action Conference, where the union-busting governor inspired raucous applause with his "I was a dick in Wisconsin, and I can be one in Washington, too!" stump speech.

Walker's address was a broadside against a litany of conservative bugbears, from Planned Parenthood to the media to tax day to the subversive act of voting without a photo ID, etc.

But the money line came during a Q&A session. Asked how he would take on radical Islamist terrorists, Walker referred to his experience taking on pro-union protesters in his home state:

If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.

Walker's seeming comparison of peaceful union activists to head-chopping Islamic terrorists drew a predictable response, with progressive groups like American Bridge sending out alerts denouncing his comments, along with outrage from the Democratic National Committee.

But the National Review also called it an "unforced error," with writer Jim Geraghty taking special offense at the fact that Walker had forced him into a place where he had to defend, of all people, union activists. Even Rick Perry, not exactly a kumbaya-chanting paragon of tolerance, chided Walker for crossing a line:

These are Americans... You are talking about, in the case of ISIS, people who are beheading individuals and committing heinous crimes, who are the face of evil. To try to make the relationship between them and the unions is inappropriate.

In response to all of this, Walker's campaign quickly backtracked from his statement, sort of. Campaign spokesperson Kristin Kukowski said that Walker was "in no way comparing any American citizen to ISIS," which sounded like a retraction.

But Walker himself denied making any offensive comparison, and blamed the whole thing on the media. "You all will misconstrue things as you see fit," he said.

This echoed earlier comments, made in the wake of Rudy Giuliani's "Barack Obama doesn't love America the way you do" flap, about "self-manufactured 'gotcha' moments from the media."

Meanwhile, the polls spoke for themselves. Politicians who make major accidental gaffes usually don't see a bounce in the numbers, but what little data there is suggests Walker surged on the strength of this past week's performance. The Quinnipiac poll, admittedly a small sample size and one taken extremely early in the game, shows him at 25 percent and lapping presumptive favorite Jeb Bush, who's now limping along at 10 percent.

This came on the heels of another interesting poll. Remember how much abuse Rudy Giuliani took (even I got into the act) for accusing Barack Obama of not loving America?

Well, the Huffington Post took a poll asking America what it thought, and it turns out that while 47 percent think Obama does love America, the rest think he doesn't, or they're not sure. This remarkable poll also showed that only 11 percent of Republicans believe the President of the United States loves his country.

All of this data speaks to Walker's remark being a smart short-term move, not a dumb gaffe.

Conventional Wisdom would hold that no candidate who's on record comparing hardworking, law-abiding Americans to mass torture-killers would stand a chance in a general election. But in so holding, Conventional Wisdom would be missing the current point of the exercise from Walker's perspective, which is to win the nomination.

And the sad fact is, you can probably win the Republican Party nomination doing things like comparing unionized state workers to ISIS, or hinting that the president hates America.

The entire narrative of modern conservative politics casts the United States as a fast-disappearing Eden of freedom and democracy that's under siege both here and abroad, surrounded by a constellation of enemies united (for some never-fully-explained reason) in their passionate hatred for the simple, God-fearing, freedom-loving American.

It's not just terrorists who hate us for our freedom, but lefty college professors, dilettante Hollywood actors, undocumented immigrants sucking up tax dollars in the form of entitlements, Al Sharpton, Jonathan Gruber, feminists, environmentalists who want to forcibly abort babies to keep more room free for trees, scientists who think global warming is real, the Manchurian President Barack Hussein Obama, etc.

The blurring of lines distinguishing these domestic political irritants and armed foreign murder cults is rhetorically popular and has been for a while. You can hear this pretty much every time you turn on afternoon talk radio. Here's Rush Limbaugh's answer, when asked which is the greater threat, the liberal or the terrorist:

Both of them — both liberals and terrorists — have a lot in common. The one thing that they hate the most is freedom… A leftist and a terrorist — a leftist and a totalitarian — are one and the same.

Fox's Eric Bolling not long ago blasted campus activists for tweeting "Je Suis Charlie" when (according to him) many of those same people were anti-speech zealots who had disinvited speakers to their schools. "The same people want to wear these pins and tweet 'Je suis Charlie,' I am Charlie," he said. "No you're not! You're more Al-Qaeda than you are Charlie!"

And then of course there's Ann Coulter, who famously said this in a tirade against college activists: "Even fanatical Muslim terrorists don't hate America like liberals do."

None of this is saying anything new – people who aren't Fox fans long ago grew used to being called traitors, America-haters, sympathizers with Osama bin Laden and so on.

The problem is that no candidate carrying this narrative around past the convention can win a general election. Even Mitt Romney, a politician so sunny and loquacious that he can make it sound like he's selling you a vacuum cleaner when he's actually calling black voters freeloaders, ended up capsizing his campaign on rhetoric like this.

The announcement that he never intended to "worry" about the 47 percent of Americans he believed incapable of taking personal responsibility exposed Romney as a politician who had no vision for the whole country.

Even if you're lying about it, you have to at least pretend to have a vision for everyone. Yet the Republican Party's own rhetoric sells half the country as a kind of domestic enemy. It's a nearly impossible balancing act for a general-election candidate.

Scott Walker as a political performer is pretty uninspiring. He doesn't have George Bush's pretzel-mouthed Texas charm or Sarah Palin's hockey Mom magnetism. He can't fall back on an ethnic American dream parable like the one Marco Rubio can run on. He's just a doughy, finger-pointing white guy of the type the Republican Party has been churning out to fill state assembly seats or run in back-bench congressional districts seemingly since the beginning of time. He's exactly the kind of politician the modern Democratic Party is set up to beat.

This was supposed to be the election cycle that featured an inclusive new conservative vision, one that reflected the country's changing demographics and would make the Democrats work harder for everyone's vote. Instead, they're churning out the same old us-against-everybody narrative, filled with the same insulting bromides about how they have a monopoly on patriotism and are apparently the only people in America paying taxes.

If that's where this is going – if the Republican Party runs with someone like Walker instead of having the courage to tell their voters to stop calling the rest of us terrorists and traitors – then they deserve to lose again and lose badly. Forget about how offensive it is, that schtick doesn't work anymore, not even for them.

Read more: http://www.rollingst...7#ixzz3T6W4CKRW

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Shut up, Homer! We almost had them thinking he was freaking us out!

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"This was supposed to be the election cycle that featured an inclusive new conservative vision, one that reflected the country's changing demographics and would make the Democrats work harder for everyone's vote. Instead, they're churning out the same old us-against-everybody narrative, filled with the same insulting bromides about how they have a monopoly on patriotism and are apparently the only people in America paying taxes."

This times a freaking million!

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I thought his biggest screw up this week was,,,,when asked about the highlight of Reagan foreign policy (an absolute layup question since the obvious answer is "winning the cold war"), Walker answered some nonsense about breaking the air traffic controllers strike.

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Gotta love it. Thanks for the laugh.

It did have some pretty funny stuff in in. I particularly liked:

...where the union-busting governor inspired raucous applause with his "I was a dick in Wisconsin, and I can be one in Washington, too!" stump speech.

:laugh:

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It's so laughable that republicans should take the advice of any left wing outlet as to who they should nominate. I'm sure these people are going to tell us to nominate someone they are truly afraid of. The media and democrats do this for each presidential election. It seems as though the Republicans listen and of course they lose. Whether Walker is the right person or not, I don't know yet. I do know that taking the advice of liberals in the media is a very foolish thing to do

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I quit read at Matt Taibbi & Rolling Stone.

OMG! You just quoted the most disgustingly bad journalism source in America. Where they have admittedly got caught embarrassingly having smeared an entire fraternity and university over a story they later admitted to having done exactly ZERO fact checking on.

After his comments about how 'rigorous' the standards were at Rolling Stone, i will never again use him as quote worthy.

I openly apologize to this forum for ever having used him in the past.

Is he right? IDK, maybe he is right, but i will wait to make that decision after someone with a shred of integrity says it and publishes it.

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I thought his biggest screw up this week was,,,,when asked about the highlight of Reagan foreign policy (an absolute layup question since the obvious answer is "winning the cold war"), Walker answered some nonsense about breaking the air traffic controllers strike.

Clearly, he didn't hear the question.

Gov. Walker was too busy dodging sniper fire, on the tarmac.

<_<

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Yall tell me if the Left is really laughing at Walker or worried.

Walker has survived 3 Hard Fought Elections in 4 Years in a Liberal Wisconsin.

He has been a thorn in the sides of Dems in doing so.

Taibbi, writing from Rolling Stone, the same Rolling Stone recovering from the "no fact checks" blow up just a few weeks ago is now writing how it is all over for him.

Walker gets trashed over and over from the Left Media. Why so many stories now?

Maybe they are worried about him.

BTW, This story was run on Jezebel, Politico, Daily Beast, and other Liberal News Sites.

It sites an AP Story.

Example: http://www.politico....18.html?hp=r4_3

Daily Beast retracts story on Scott Walker

By NICK GASS

2/28/15 4:08 PM EST

Updated 2/28/15 6:37 PM EST

Another major media outlet has apologized after getting a story about Scott Walker wrong. Last week, it was the New YorkTimes; now, it’s The Daily Beast.

The Daily Beast has retracted an article from one of its college columnists that claimed that the Wisconsin governor’s budget would cut sexual assault reporting from the state’s universities.

The post, published Friday, cited a report from Jezebel that wrongly interpreted a section of the state budget to mean that all assault reporting requirements were to get cut altogether.

In fact, the University of Wisconsin system requested the deletion of the requirements to get rid of redundancy, as it already provides similar information to the federal government, UW System spokesman Alex Hummel told The Associated Press on Friday.

The Daily Beast’s correction and retraction is posted in full below. The “USA Today” story it references, however, is actually an AP article posted on the site:

150228_scott_walker_ap_1160_90x49.jpg

ALSO ON POLITICO

Walker pressed for specifics at Club meeting

JAMES HOHMANN

“A Daily Beast college columnist at the University of Wisconsin based this article off a Jezebel posting which was incorrectly reported. Jezebel updated their post on Saturday with the following after USA Today [sic] published a story debunking Jezebel’s account and clarifying Gov. Scott Walker’s position. ‘UPDATE: After Jezebel ran this item yesterday, a spokesman for the University of Wisconsin came forward—over two weeks after the budget was released—to clarify: the University requested that Gov. Walker delete the requirements because efforts were redundant with their compliance of the Cleary Act. Scott Walker’s camp assures that he’s committed to protecting victims.’

The Daily Beast is committed to covering the news fairly and accurately, and we should have checked this story more thoroughly. We deeply regret the error and apologize to Gov. Walker and our readers. This story should be considered retracted.”

The Daily Beast did not include the last two sentences of Jezebel’s ‘update’, which were added later:

“We reported this piece without full context, and while this piece conveys factual information, omission of that context for that information presents an unfair and misleading picture. We regret the error and apologize.”

Jezebel reporter Natasha Vargas-Cooper tweeted her own thoughts on the ‘update’:

Ran an update on the Walker piece. Find another thing to be outraged about sweet, sweet Walkerites.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)

Also, I'm not gonna apologize for reporting what was in the budget. Because that was in the budget. Ask your gov. to apologize for bad optix— Natasha VC (@natashavc)

At a time when there is HEAVY scrutiny on state/fed/colleges, a proposal to delete standing regulations, requires more tact.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)

Vargas-Cooper apologized for the error Saturday afternoon: (Saturday Afternoon, where no one in the world would see the apology.)

(1) I realize now that it would have been worth a follow up phone call to Walker's office.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)

(2) So, you guys, Walker folk and media pundits alike, I screwed up.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)

(3) I know I said I wasn't going to say sorry but I hope you won't fault me for changing my mind.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)

Read more: http://www.politico....l#ixzz3T9A0qmw0

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The left will tell you who they are afraid of. If they don't fear you they will ignore you. If they fear you they will attack you and make fun of you at every turn. If he wasn't someone they thought they needed to be concerned with they wouldn't be spending this much time on him.

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The left will tell you who they are afraid of. If they don't fear you they will ignore you. If they fear you they will attack you and make fun of you at every turn. If he wasn't someone they thought they needed to be concerned with they wouldn't be spending this much time on him.

Hence the comedy in Taibbi's column.
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Yall tell me if the Left is really laughing at Walker or worried.

Walker has survived 3 Hard Fought Elections in 4 Years in a Liberal Wisconsin.

He has been a thorn in the sides of Dems in doing so.

Taibbi, writing from Rolling Stone, the same Rolling Stone recovering from the "no fact checks" blow up just a few weeks ago is now writing how it is all over for him.

Walker gets trashed over and over from the Left Media. Why so many stories now?

Maybe they are worried about him.

BTW, This story was run on Jezebel, Politico, Daily Beast, and other Liberal News Sites.

It sites an AP Story.

Example: http://www.politico....18.html?hp=r4_3

Daily Beast retracts story on Scott Walker

By NICK GASS

2/28/15 4:08 PM EST

Updated 2/28/15 6:37 PM EST

Another major media outlet has apologized after getting a story about Scott Walker wrong. Last week, it was the New YorkTimes; now, it’s The Daily Beast.

The Daily Beast has retracted an article from one of its college columnists that claimed that the Wisconsin governor’s budget would cut sexual assault reporting from the state’s universities.

The post, published Friday, cited a report from Jezebel that wrongly interpreted a section of the state budget to mean that all assault reporting requirements were to get cut altogether.

In fact, the University of Wisconsin system requested the deletion of the requirements to get rid of redundancy, as it already provides similar information to the federal government, UW System spokesman Alex Hummel told The Associated Press on Friday.

The Daily Beast’s correction and retraction is posted in full below. The “USA Today” story it references, however, is actually an AP article posted on the site:

150228_scott_walker_ap_1160_90x49.jpg

ALSO ON POLITICO

Walker pressed for specifics at Club meeting

JAMES HOHMANN

“A Daily Beast college columnist at the University of Wisconsin based this article off a Jezebel posting which was incorrectly reported. Jezebel updated their post on Saturday with the following after USA Today [sic] published a story debunking Jezebel’s account and clarifying Gov. Scott Walker’s position. ‘UPDATE: After Jezebel ran this item yesterday, a spokesman for the University of Wisconsin came forward—over two weeks after the budget was released—to clarify: the University requested that Gov. Walker delete the requirements because efforts were redundant with their compliance of the Cleary Act. Scott Walker’s camp assures that he’s committed to protecting victims.’

The Daily Beast is committed to covering the news fairly and accurately, and we should have checked this story more thoroughly. We deeply regret the error and apologize to Gov. Walker and our readers. This story should be considered retracted.”

The Daily Beast did not include the last two sentences of Jezebel’s ‘update’, which were added later:

“We reported this piece without full context, and while this piece conveys factual information, omission of that context for that information presents an unfair and misleading picture. We regret the error and apologize.”

Jezebel reporter Natasha Vargas-Cooper tweeted her own thoughts on the ‘update’:

Ran an update on the Walker piece. Find another thing to be outraged about sweet, sweet Walkerites.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)
February 28, 2015

Also, I'm not gonna apologize for reporting what was in the budget. Because that was in the budget. Ask your gov. to apologize for bad optix— Natasha VC (@natashavc)
February 28, 2015

At a time when there is HEAVY scrutiny on state/fed/colleges, a proposal to delete standing regulations, requires more tact.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)
February 28, 2015

Vargas-Cooper apologized for the error Saturday afternoon: (Saturday Afternoon, where no one in the world would see the apology.)

(1) I realize now that it would have been worth a follow up phone call to Walker's office.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)
February 28, 2015

(2) So, you guys, Walker folk and media pundits alike, I screwed up.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)
February 28, 2015

(3) I know I said I wasn't going to say sorry but I hope you won't fault me for changing my mind.— Natasha VC (@natashavc)
February 28, 2015

Read more: http://www.politico....l#ixzz3T9A0qmw0

Do you have a link to the Rolling Stones article to which you are referring?

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This is too funny. Every day Libs prove that Walker scares them %#^*less!! Bwahahahaha

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It's so laughable that republicans should take the advice of any left wing outlet as to who they should nominate. I'm sure these people are going to tell us to nominate someone they are truly afraid of. The media and democrats do this for each presidential election. It seems as though the Republicans listen and of course they lose. Whether Walker is the right person or not, I don't know yet. I do know that taking the advice of liberals in the media is a very foolish thing to do

"taking the advice of liberals in the media?" :laugh:

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I quit read at Matt Taibbi & Rolling Stone.

OMG! You just quoted the most disgustingly bad journalism source in America. Where they have admittedly got caught embarrassingly having smeared an entire fraternity and university over a story they later admitted to having done exactly ZERO fact checking on.

After his comments about how 'rigorous' the standards were at Rolling Stone, i will never again use him as quote worthy.

I openly apologize to this forum for ever having used him in the past.

Is he right? IDK, maybe he is right, but i will wait to make that decision after someone with a shred of integrity says it and publishes it.

Good for you!

Don't expose yourself to such alternative points of view. God forbid you expose yourself a different perspective.

Just keep listening to Fox and all will be well. ;)

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Clearly, the left is increasingly worried about Scott Walker and they should be given their candidate. Frankly, Im not at all convinced its going to take that much to beat a gasbag congenital liar and influence peddler that Hillary has been her entire political life. if I was a democrat and sincerely cared about retaining the WH, I'd be worried as s*** about my own candidate's issues and there are many. She and Bill are 2 peas in a pod. She claims they were dead broke when they left the WH....I guess that explains why they tried to pilfer items from A-F 1 as well as priceless antiques from the WH as if they believed they could get away with it. LOL. Trying to determine whose the bigger scumbag between Hill and Bill is not nearly as cut and dried as one might casually think.

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Clearly, the left is increasingly worried about Scott Walker and they should be given their candidate. Frankly, Im not at all convinced its going to take that much to beat a gasbag congenital liar and influence peddler that Hillary has been her entire political life. if I was a democrat and sincerely cared about retaining the WH, I'd be worried as s*** about my own candidate's issues and there are many. She and Bill are 2 peas in a pod. She claims they were dead broke when they left the WH....I guess that explains why they tried to pilfer items from A-F 1 as well as priceless antiques from the WH as if they believed they could get away with it. LOL. Trying to determine whose the bigger scumbag between Hill and Bill is not nearly as cut and dried as one might casually think.

As big of a liberal as Bill is, he is more or less a pragmatic politician. He did sign the welfare reform act when he saw the polling data. Hillary is a very dogmatic lefitst, much further to the left than he is. She is a threat to win the WH. In a sane world she would have been tossed on the asheap of history long ago but we don't live in a sane world. It's not a lock by any stretch but hell we elected BHO twice. If the republicans will nominate a conservative who espouses limited government and individual freedom, they'll win going away. They nominate somebody like Jeb or Christie and they'll likely go down in flames again.
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