Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI)
If your name's not Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, your chances of winning the Florida Republican presidential primary are slim to none. There's no shame in admitting that when a state's sitting senator and former governor are duking it out, one of them is overwhelmingly likely to win. Yet somehow this has become the subject of yet another Scott Walker flip-flop.
In late May, Walker said "I don’t think there’s a state out there where we couldn’t play in, other than maybe Florida," only to turn around the following week and insist that, while Bush and Rubio were leading in the polls, he would absolutely compete for Florida. Fast forward to late July:
During a fundraiser at the St. Louis home of Rex Sinquefield, Missouri’s most active Republican donor, Walker reasoned that it “doesn't make a ton of sense for him to pour cash into Florida” with Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in the race, said one person who was present for Walker’s remarks. Bush is a former Florida governor, and Rubio is senator from Florida.
Instead, Walker suggested he will focus on the Midwestern states with primaries around the same time, the source said — including Missouri, Illinois and Ohio, which are slated to hold their primaries March 15, the same day as Florida’s.
This is not a stupid position to take! And yet it's something Walker doesn't like being quoted on. It's not just that he made that clear in his early June walkback of his late May comments, it's the fact that he's now saying it to private gatherings of Republican donors but not out in public. That's pretty insulting to Republican primary voters, when you think about it—Walker will advertise to his donors that he's a good investment who isn't going to waste their money fighting for an unwinnable state, but unless you're likely to give him a lot of money, he doesn't want you to hear it. And coming from a candidate for whom flip-flopping is seen as a major weakness, this seems like an unforced error.
How long do you think it will take him to walk it back this time?