A number of social conservatives who met privately with Scott Walker on Tuesday say that they came away from the meeting reassured about the Wisconsin governor’s committment to the issues they care about most. “He was well-received in a pretty packed room,” says Tom McClusky of March for Life Action. “I was impressed.”
McClusky is one of many social conservatives who have publicly expressed concern about Scott Walker’s past comments or campaign personnel decisions (including hiring a former Giuliani campaign staffer to run his campaign). But McClusky said he was encouraged by Walker’s 90-minute discussion Tuesday of his track record, agenda, and some more recent campaign hires. Walker’s decision to hire Andrew Bremberg, a former aide to Mitch McConnell and well-respected conservative, to oversee both domestic and foreign policy “really reassured me,” said McClusky. “He’s in a substantive position.”
Asked Tuesday how he would respond to Hillary Clinton’s attacks on social issues, Walker said he would draw contrasts with Clinton on the issues of prohibiting taxpayer-funding of abortion and late-term abortions. “I’m pro-life, and we may disagree on a lot of things, but we can agree on that one,” Walker said, referring to the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, according to Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List.
Walker’s pro-life credentials have been questioned by one Republican rival because of a 2014 Walker TV ad in which the governor defended laws regulating abortion as “legislation to increase safety and to provide more information for a woman considering her options. The bill leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor.”
According to Dannenfelser, Walker brought up the ad during Tuesday’s meeting and “explained his perspective on that–that using the language of the other side to support our own position is a good thing, but you can only do it if people aren’t trying to call you out and quoting you out of context. And I actually liked the way he formulated this in general.”
The group of roughly forty conservatives who met with Walker on Tuesday were predominantly focused on social issues, but conservatives who work on fiscal issues and national security policy were in attendance as well. “I’ve seen him speak before, and I think he’s getting better,” said Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, who was at Tuesday’s meeting. Norquist said he’s been told by Walker aides that the governor intends to sign his ATR’s pledge not to raise taxes.
