Perhaps no one is smiling more about Mitt Romney’s entrance into the presidential sweepstakes than Gov. Scott Walker.
The Wisconsin Republican plans to enter the 2016 contest by mid summer, and Team Walker calculates that a competition between Romney and Jeb Bush for cash and endorsements slows the former Florida governor’s momentum, providing Walker with more room to maneuver. Walker’s supporters also believe that he holds a key advantage over other Republican candidates, particularly the governors.
Walker has earned the admiration of both Establishment insiders who prefer as the GOP nominee a battle-tested chief executive who can get things done and Tea Party activists who yearn for a fighter willing to risk his political standing to achieve conservative reforms. Fred Malek, an influential Republican donor who plans to remain neutral in the Republican presidential primary, said Walker is unique among the GOP candidates who are expected to run for president.
“Walker has the most current record of great success of any of the people in the race, with the reforms he’s brought about in Wisconsin,” said Malek, the finance chairman at the Republican Governors Association. “He has won the favor of the strong conservative wing of the party by standing up firmly to the unions in winning his reforms. And yet, he is not threatening to the moderate wing of the party because of the reasonableness of his approach and positions.”
This week, Walker is scheduled to travel to San Diego to address a gathering of Republican National Committee delegates. Later in January, the governor will journey to Iowa for Rep. Steve King’s “freedom summit,” an event that is expected to draw a cattle call of likely GOP presidential candidates. Walker’s political and foreign travel is likely to accelerate after his new political operation, the precursor to a White House campaign, gets off the ground.
Sources familiar with Walker’s planning declined to elaborate on what legal construct the governor’s new political entity would take. But they signaled that Walker was shying away from forming a traditional, federal political action committee that can accept donations only in limited amounts.
Rather, Walker is leaning toward creating an organization that can raise money in big chunks, such as a political nonprofit or super PAC. That would offer Walker more flexibility in financing his new organization. Walker intends to use the group to take his story national, financing political travel and communication activities to build support for a presidential bid, while cultivating relationships with party operatives and activists important to success in the crucial early primary states.
Rick Wiley, political director at the RNC during the 2012 election, is running Walker’s nascent presidential operation and is hiring a core group of staff and advisers. He declined to comment, but sources familiar with Walker’s planning suggest that the governor is perfectly happy to let Bush and Romney hog the spotlight, while he does his job as governor and builds toward a presidential campaign later this year.
“I love when I read these pieces and Walker’s not mentioned. You do not want to be the frontrunner; you just don’t,” a Walker supporter said. “You have such a genuine candidate here who can talk about his record who’s willing to say and think bold things.”
Bush and Romney have a clear edge over Walker. So, potentially, does New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Bush has access to a deep well of loyal supporters, top fundraisers and political operatives, accrued over 30 years by him and his father and brother, presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Romney has an enthusiastic network of his own that goes back a decade and helped him raise $1 billion for his 2012 presidential bid. And Christie, as RGA chairman, raised a record $106 million to help elect and re-elect dozens of governors.
The party also has defined conservative candidates with the ability to catch fire. Walker has to build a national fundraising and activist network that can compete with all of them in the primary. But the governor could be uniquely positioned to rise, a half dozen GOP operatives with presidential campaign experience told the Washington Examiner, including a few supportive of other candidates.
“A lot of operatives and activists at the national level and early states are bullish on Walker’s chances,” said a GOP operative who advised a 2012 campaign. “His biggest challenge will be building an operation that can go from nothing to something. If he gets through those early states, he needs to show he will have a campaign that can compete in a place like Florida.”
The Tea Party wing of the party likes Walker for holding fast to his conservative agenda in the midst of national Democratic opposition. In particular, Walker pushed legislation to diminish the power of public employee unions in Wisconsin, refusing to back down even after Democrats and organized labor tried to unseat him in a recall election.
That recall helped Walker assemble an email fundraising list described as “hundreds of thousands” deep. He hopes to use the list for small online donations, which can fuel presidential campaigns.
The recall also allowed Walker to establish connections with major Republican donors whose support can be crucial to resourcing a presidential campaign. Although many of those donors could back Walker’s competitors, the governor can court them without having to start from scratch.
He offers them a Republican who has won three tough races in a blue state, while governing as an inclusive conservative. That’s a combination that the Establishment wing of the GOP claims to be looking for in 2016. Republican sources say that, among the party’s contributors who have the ability to write big checks and view Walker fondly are Joe Ricketts and his family and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
In a campaign environment where super PACs can supplement a presidential campaign while raising money in unlimited amounts, the threshold for Walker to be competitive financially could be less early on than it might have been in the past, if he can corral the support of a group of big donors willing to write large checks. In 2012, some candidates stayed afloat almost exclusively because they attracted the support of a single super PAC donor.
“I’m not one that thinks a candidate has to raise $50 million to compete,” said one Republican operative who spoke highly of Walker’s prospects. “If you raise $15-$20 million and have some rich folks with a super PAC, you can go into Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and do what you need to do to win.”
