What happened to my poll numbers?
I made that mistake once. After weeks of protests outside the Capitol in Madison, Scott Walker saw the worst job approval numbers ever. They persisted at low ebb to the point that we collected a million signatures to recall him. But .... and here's the big but .....
He had time and money to recover. Recall couldn't even begin until he had been in office for a year and then Walker skillfully manipulated extensions on recall certification and the scheduling of the recall election (scheduled in July after college ended for the summer so students wouldn't be around to vote, people were away from home, and his "numbers" would rebound because the memories of far too many people in Wisconsin had faded).
He needed time to lay low and stop doing things that reminded people that he was an extremist whose radical actions had prompted a recall, had many months to run a long lasting media ad blitz to promote himself with lies and propaganda, and organize a whole lot of help from RW talk radio which saturates the state and our traditional media that pushes Walkers' propaganda. He was also the beneficiary of tens of millions spent by dark money groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth.
And that's before the real recall campaigning even started. Before the recall election itself, our media was saturated with untruthful ads that were never scrutinized or questioned by the media that profited so handsomely from them. When it comes down to it, there is no limit to the resources Walker had at his disposal.
He "won" the recall on compliant media, piles of money, liar ads, and voters with the memory span of goldfish.
Fast forward to his Presidential campaign which started flagging after bloviating pitch-man Donald Trump announced his run and sucked all the media and oxygen from the room. His first debate performance was so poor, he might have done better not even showing up. A series of un-Walker-like bumbling and stumbling along with serial flip flopping on issues has been a boat anchor not thrown to this drowning Presidential hopeful, but seemingly grabbed by him instead of a life preserver.
In a nutshell, Walker has not been Walker and I don't know why.
While sitting in the clown car with other Republican Presidential wannabes who have shared the same declining poll numbers, Walkers' fall has been the furthest. He began at the top of the heap and now finds himself flailing to keep from being demoted to the kids table debates in the future. Right now he's in 10th place in polling.
He recently cancelled 2 speeches in order to concentrate on pressing the flesh in Iowa and South Carolina.
Stacy Day, a spokeswoman for Walker's presidential campaign, attributed the cancellations to "scheduling changes."
Riiiight. Nothing to see here with those major schedule changes.
The latest poll by Quinnipiac University, released Friday, found that in two months the Wisconsin governor has fallen from first in the Hawkeye State to 10th among GOP candidates, trailing not just front-runners Donald Trump, the real estate mogul, and Ben Carson, the retired surgeon, but even second-tier candidates such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
(bolding is mine)
He's tried rebooting his campaign by trying to out-Trump Donald Trump (build a wall to protect us from Canada), by flip flopping on issues (well, he's an old hand at that in Wisconsin), by refusing to answer questions, and, recently, by promising to issue one campaign promise every week. Every one has been a big flop.
An Iowa Republican recently told Politico that Walker has "been on all three sides of every two-sided issue" and "can't seem to find his way on any given issue with a hand-held GPS."
He can get away with that in Wisconsin where our media love him, but not so much with out of state or national press. He probably doesn't have the in studio direct line phone numbers to the local RW radio hosts like he does in Wisconsin. He's a frequent call in guest when he needs to address his base of supporters directly on the spur of the moment, particularly when he needs to smooth over a recent revelation.
He can, however, take comfort in the fact that he isn't alone.
"I don't think there's any particular reason for (Walker's camp) to be optimistic, but I also don't think there's a need to be overly pessimistic," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist and founder of the school's Center for Politics. "I think Walker's consolation is he's got a lot of company in the Republican field scratching their heads saying what happened and what's going on?"
Walker and his backers argue that it's still early, and that most 2015 polls are reflecting shifts in media coverage and attention, not hard voter preferences.
Walker is working hard to diminish his sharp drop in the polls.
"Heck, I was so far down in the polls in the spring of 2011, Time magazine called me Dead Man Walker," the governor told reporters Thursday. "I came back and won the recall with more votes...than we did in the original election. So none of this intimidates us."
Well, buddy, that was in Wisconsin where the media loves you and faithfully stenographed every one of your talking points without criticism or scrutiny. Other media isn't going to be quite so compliant.
There are still 8 debates to go and Walker knows he needs to shine in the next one. He's also starting to spend some of those huge piles of money on ads that are now running.
Here's one of those ads (if you can stomach listening to all the blatant lying). The siren is sounding on my BS meter.:
Here's a 15 second ad:
I have to laugh at the "I can fight and win for you" line. He's not doing this for the peasants, he's doing it for himself and his limitless ambition. And his use of the royal "we" is like nails on a chalkboard to my ears. It's the echo of his moon sized ego.
But, those ads are effective on Republican base voters and even independents who he convinces are the real victims of unions, civil rights laws, evil Democrats and liberals who want to "take yur money and give it to lazy moochers". And the ones that the dark money groups will run will also be even more effective since they can go farther without blowback to Walker. He's committed nearly 20 million so far in just a couple of states and who knows how many tens of millions will be spent by those dark money groups.
I expect that he's prepping hard for the next debate, developing strategies that will promote himself instead of letting Donald Trump suck in all the oxygen. I'll watch that next debate with interest to see what he's got up his sleeve.
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Too many people, though, are making the same mistake I did by counting him out when he's merely down. Walker, always skillful at winning elections, may just get up when you're not looking, throw sand in your eyes and then punch you until you're just a heap of sobbing flesh on the floor. Yes, he fights dirty because he fights to win.
He's got many months to baffle 'em with his own special brand of Walker bullshit and has plenty of resources to stay in until he wins at any cost.
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