Fresh off a surprisingly strong reelection, Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker is calling on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to sharpen and shorten his message because just being the anti-Obama Republican isn’t enough to win.
“Narrow it down to a very simple set of messages,” Walker advised during a Washington media breakfast. “He’s got to have a simple message of not only why we need to replace the current occupant in the White House, but why he would be better,” added Walker.
The governor recalled Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1980 and how he slapped then President Carter with sharp lines but also convinced voters that he had an agenda of change and was going to swiftly act on it if elected.
“I don’t know that voters are there yet with governor Romney,” he said.
In key battleground states like Wisconsin, said Walker, who beat back his recall with a larger vote margin that his first election in 2010, Romney can’t win with just Republican votes. He said Romney has to woo independents and disaffected Democrats with a message of “bold action.”
Walker noted that voters are cynical of blanket political promises and will reward those who talk tough and convince voters that they mean business. He recalled how Democrats told him during his recall election they were going to vote for him because he made good on promises to fix Wisconsin’s budget.
“If Gov. Romney looks at Wisconsin and thinks he can win just because I have an ‘R’ next to my name and he has an ‘R’ next to his name, if voters see that as just about being a Republican, that’s not enough to win,” said Walker.
“The way he wins is if voters instead, of just seeing that ‘R,’ think of Republican, think of ‘reformer,’ that they think here is a candidate for president who has a clear bold plan to take on both the economic and fiscal crisis our country faces, I think he’s got a shot,” added Walker at the breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Walker also put in a plug for long-time friend Rep. Paul Ryan, the controversial House Budget Committee chairman, to be Romney’s vice presidential pick.
