Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin this week found himself the target of derision from both left- and right-leaning media groups — the cumulative result of what critics call a series of “missteps” that have plagued Walker since he emerged in the top rank of 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls.
Walker has been getting a hard time at the hands of mainstream and left-leaning media. But the downfall of a prominent Walker staffer — one day after she was hired — has intensified the fire from the right flank as well.
Since a very well-received speech at January’s Iowa Freedom Summit catapulted him to the top of the 2016 field, Walker has become a frequent media target. In February, the durable governor, who gained a national reputation for his struggles against the Badger State’s government employee unions, got surprised by a question on the theory of evolution during what was expected to be a foreign policy forum at Chatham House in London.
“I’m going to punt on that one as well,” Walker said. “That’s a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other.”
U.S. newsrooms were deeply unimpressed with the governors’ response.
“Scott Walker dodged a question on evolution. That was dumb,” the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza said.
“How does serious person duck evolution?” National Journal’s Ron Fournier asked.
Huffington Post political reporter Christina Wilkie characterized the Republican governor as “boldly uninformed.”
Walker later addressed the issue on social media.
“Happy to field a variety of questions today at the Chatham House. Regarding one in particular,” he tweeted. “Both science & my faith dictate my belief that we are created by God. I believe faith & science are compatible, & go hand in hand.”
Not long after his evolution “misstep,” however, Walker endured yet another round of media criticism when he declined to answer whether he believes President Obama is a Christian.
“I don’t know,” Walker said in response to a question from a Washington Post reporter. “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that. I’ve never asked him that. You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that. How [could] I say if I know either of you are a Christian?”
Again, media organizations laid into Walker.
“Despite frequent reiterations from the White House and the president himself that he is a practicing Christian, raising questions about his faith has become a routine talking point on the right,” MSNBC reported.
For many journalists, Walker’s declining to profess his faith in another person’s faith compounded another suspicious silence: His refusal to weigh in on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s remark questioning Obama’s love for America. The Huffington Post wrote, “Not only does Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) not know whether President Barack Obama loves America, he also appears to be unaware that the president is a Christian.”
The Los Angeles Times asked, “Why couldn’t Scott Walker agree that President Obama is a Christian?”
“Wisconsin Gov. (and prospective 2016 presidential candidate) Scott Walker is 0-for-2 when it comes to answering easy questions about President Obama,” the Times op-ed noted.
Walker’s putative missteps continued after the Christian question — and right-leaning media chimed in against him beginning with Walker’s reported flip-flop on supporting Iowa’s ethanol subsidies.
“Walker seems to be stepping back from his principled opposition to the federal ethanol mandate,” Breitbart reported. “Instead, he’s engaging in the time-honored art of pandering to Iowa’s corn farmers, promising to keep the mandate for now, and phase it out at an undetermined future date.”
A post on RedState listed the apparent ethanol flip-flop as one of the “12 Reasons Why Conservatives Should Reject Scott Walker.”
The Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney and Philip Klein also dinged the supposed 2016 candidate for his ethanol shift, with the former saying that the change of heart reveals something “unflattering” about the governor’s character and the latter asking, “If Walker can’t stand up to Iowans, how can he stand up to the Islamic State?”
But the dustup this week over Republican consultant Liz Mair, some conservatives say, goes beyond standard campaign gladhanding to cast doubt on Walker’s reliability. Mair, who was part of the governor’s campaign team when he won his 2012 recall election, resigned as his head of online communications after Iowa Republicans complained about a few seemingly disparaging Tweets about the Iowa caucuses she made back in January.
“One of my clear rules is, if you’re going to be on our team, whether on the paid staff or a volunteer, what I always say is you need to respect the voters. Because, really, if you think about campaigns, it’s not about the candidate or the staff. It’s about the voter,” Walker said in a speech Thursday, referring to the Mair flap.
“It’s about how to help people’s lives be better. One of the things I’ve stressed … in the last few days as I’ve looked at the possibility of running is you have my firm commitment that I’m going to focus on making sure that the people on my team, should we go forward, are people who respect voters,” he said.
The rapid cutting loose of Mair (her hiring had been announced Monday) drew serious heat from conservative media personalities.
“It is evident Walker needs to win Iowa and staffers aren’t more important than the candidate,” conservative author Jonah Goldberg said in a National Review column. “But principles are. If Walker didn’t want a critic of the Iowa caucuses on his payroll he shouldn’t have hired one. But he did.”
RedState chief Erick Erickson said Mair’s resignation — and Walker’s failure to stand up for her against criticism – gives credence to the narrative that the Republican governor is “not ready for prime-time.”
“Given Liz’s work history, I will put it to you this way — Team Walker has botched this,” he wrote.
The Week’s Michael Brendan Dougherty was harsher in his diagnosis, referring to Walker as a “gutless wonder.”
“Until this week, Walker supporters could have pointed to his white-knuckle fight with Wisconsin’s public-sector unions. Now his critics can point to the way he cowers before a few rotting corn stalks,” Dougherty wrote.
Walker’s team, for its part, is unfazed by the mounting media criticism.
“Governor Walker’s focus isn’t the DC chattering class — it’s on improving the lives of all Americans through big, bold reforms like the ones he’s championed in his state. Without a doubt, Governor Walker is one of the most tested governors in the country and has achieved real results in the face of intense scrutiny,” AshLee Strong, press secretary for Walker’s Our American Revival PAC, told the Washington Examiner’s media desk.
“From turning a $3.6 billion deficit into a surplus, to achieving record employment, to signing $2 billion in tax cuts into law for Wisconsinites, the governor takes challenges head on and turns them into opportunities,” she said.
