Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, both likely candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, are widely seen as ideologically similar and are leading national polls. But on one area — engagement with national news media — their campaigns-in-waiting take a dramatic split.
Walker shot to the top of the polls in January with a fiery speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit. But in the weeks that followed, he found himself buried under a spate of negative media reports on his awkward public comments.
One of them came in his “punt” on a question about his views on evolution while he toured London in February. Later that month, in his speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference he compared his political battle with the Wisconsin teacher unions to the fight with the Islamic State terrorist network.
Walker then seemed to wall off national media, despite making another trip to Europe in April and planning one to Israel in May.
Other than a 15-minute speech, Walker held no press conferences or public events during his European tour. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday he won’t be doing any in Israel, either.
Greg Neumann, a news anchor with an ABC affiliate in Madison, Wis., tweeted last week that during a conference call from Europe with reporters, Walker said he wouldn’t be taking any political questions.
Politico on Monday said Walker is giving the press the “silent treatment.”
It’s a decision not unlike one made by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another possible GOP presidential candidate. During a February trip to London, he unexpectedly canceled three planned press conference after receiving negative press over his comments on government-mandated vaccinations.
“Gov. Walker’s trip to Israel will be a listening tour,” said a spokeswoman for Walker’s Our American Revival PAC. “He is interested in hearing first-hand Israel’s concerns about the future of our alliance and identifying ways to restore the ruptured bonds between our two countries. He is very concerned about the rise of Iran, the spread of radical Islamic terrorism, and the turmoil in Syria and Iraq, and is interested in understanding the views of the Israelis on how we confront these shared challenges.”
Walker did on Monday grant a non-adversarial interview to conservative radio host Glenn Beck, who afterward said, “I loved him.”
His spokeswoman also noted that Walker had public events in New Hampshire last week and on Sunday, where reporters were permitted. She also offered that Walker has granted recent interviews to some local media, including the Boston Herald and the Des Moines Register and had an interview Monday with Fox News’s Megyn Kelly.
Still, Walker’s aversion to the national press at large stands in contrast to Bush, who is known to be highly accessible to politics reporters. Bush is scheduled for his own tour of Europe in June and is scheduled to appear at several public events and take questions from reporters.
“With the caveat that reporters obviously exaggerate the importance of [themselves], you’d think Scott Walker would want the media to aggressively cover his international trips burnishing his national security credentials,” said one national politics reporter, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about a subject he covers. “New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie did himself no favors by suddenly walling himself off from the press during his disaster of a trip to London.”
The reporter said Bush’s openness with the press will likely work to his advantage. “These kinds of interactions can humanize the candidate in their media coverage,” he said.
