ANOTHER “ETCH-A-SKETCH” CANDIDATE?
|| By FITSNEWS || A leading Iowa “Republican” blog is taking after Wisconsin governor Scott Walker for the malleability of some of his positions … raising the specter of a “flip flop” problem.
“Walker’s campaign in Iowa is moving so fast that it will make your head spin,” Craig Robinson of The Iowa Republican wrote this week. “But that’s not all that is moving at a fast pace for Walker. Some of his long held positions seem to be on the move lately as well. In the span of just a few weeks, Walker has apparently flip-flopped on a number of issues.”
Got a pen handy?
According to Robinson, issues on which Walker has flip-flopped include immigration, “right-to-work” legislation and ethanol subsidies. Specifically, he’s accused of going from 1) supporting “pathways to citizenship” to opposing them, 2) opposing “right-to-work” status to supporting it (signing it into law, in fact), and 3) opposing ethanol subsidies to supporting them.
Just to be clear, we’re not saying all of Walker’s flip-flops are bad. We support right-to-work legislation – which prevents Big Labor from bullying workers into joining unions. And while we’re not fire-breathers on the issue of immigration – we view U.S. president Barack Obama‘s recent power grab on this issue (and subsequent GOP capitulation) as a decidedly negative and costly outcome for our country.
Ethanol? We’ve made our view abundantly clear … we oppose so called “environmental” subsidies that have raised food prices while doing nothing but harm to the environment. And Walker’s “flip-flop” to supporting these market-distorting mandates is profoundly disappointing.
“It’s one thing to state a position that you know will be popular in a room of farmers,” Robinson wrote. “It’s another thing to explain how you can be totally opposed to the ethanol industry while running for governor, but be in lock step with the same industry when you run for president ten years later.”
True that …
But this cuts deeper than specific issues … it’s about a pattern (one which helped doom the 2012 candidacy of former GOP nominee Mitt Romney). And Iowans are noticing it.
“Walker is making Romney look like a model of consistency,” Robinson wrote.
Ouch …
To be fair, that comment strikes us as a bit hyperbolic given how Romney was constantly changing his positions. Hell, that’s how he earned the nickname “Etch-A-Sketch” – which is how one of his own aides referred to him.
But Walker – one of the early “Republican” frontrunners – needs to be very careful moving forward. “Flip-flopper” is a terrible label to have, and even if he does win the GOP nomination it could wind up haunting him in general election campaign (as it haunted Romney). More immediately, Walker certainly doesn’t want to be equated with Romney when he heads to early-voting South Carolina, a state which has consistently rejected the liberal Massachusetts politician.
We can see the Palmetto State television spots now … “one flip-flopper cost ‘Republicans’ the White House, now we want to nominate another one?”
Yeah …
Don’t get us wrong: People respect leaders who change their minds on specific issues based on data, personal experience or some other credible rationale. No one’s going to argue with a candidate who acknowledges that they were wrong in the past – and clearly articulates why they have reconsidered their views. What they do not like is opportunistic chameleons – politicians who change their views purely for political gain. Oh, and the more issues a candidate “flip-flops” on, the more difficult it is for voters to trust them.
Again, ask Romney …
14 comments
Well he can’t tell you what he would do, because he might not get elected. Better to go the Romney route. Keep them guessing.
He has a Mitt Romney problem AND a Scott Walker problem. No wonder he looks so out of it all the time.
“Excuse me, Mister. I was thinkin’ about numbers and stuff and next thing I know, I’m in the middle of this here cornfield….”
-Gov Scott Walker
While Ted Cruz said emphatically that he opposed ethanol subsidies. In Iowa no less. Maybe he is willing to take a firm stand. WOW ! A Republican that stands for something. There really are a few.
Too bad he’s a secret communist/socialist who was born to foreigners.
So someone else got the Bush smear email I guess. Did you read the Washington Post this morning by chance? It was all right there. Word for word. So I know this comes from the Bush campaign. So now you’re printing out Bush smears verbatim? Anyone wonder why Bush is so nervous about Walker, so early? This does not give a lot of confidence in Bush’s campaign if he’s so scared of someone so early.
You can’t blame Walker for being a flippy flop – he didn’t finish that class in college. Come to think of it, he didn’t finish college.
It is hard to believe that Romney flip flop work for him. It might work for Walker but for me I’m done with Walker. This is a flip flop for me cause I was for Walker before the corn ethanol flip flop. Was uncomfortable with Cruz but now rethinking that.
This whole boomlet for him is nothing more than are reaction to Jeb Bushs emergence as the leading Republican candidate.
It’s obvious Walker was nowhere near ready for the Big Leagues this early in the process.
He apparently thought he would start slowly build momentum from the rear of the pack to peak around primary time,instead here he is a year BEFORE all that under scrutiny he wasn’t prepared for and called upon to build a campaign from scratch much more rapidly than he was prepared to do.
He will either rise to the challenge and quickly or Republican Anybody But Bush types will find a new flavor of the month.
What brand of hair dye does this motherfucker use?
“What they do not like is opportunistic chameleons – politicians who change their views purely for political gain”
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Wake Up! Grow Up! They are POLITICIANS. You know like our founding fathers created. Red state candidates have to move to the middle for the general election. Blue state candidates move to the right for primaries.
If candidates didn’t do that they would never accomplish anything. Scott Walker is conservative, but you have to compromise if you want to achieve anything. He took on tough battles, but you can’t take on every battle.
Walker is a governor in a purple state, just like Romney was governor in a blue state. They have to sell themselves as reasonable to win as governors, but then have to become extremists to appeal to deep-red GOP primary voters.
It’s a built-in problem for today’s GOP. If Walker is the nominee, he’ll flip again for the general election. Of course all the pundits will say he is pivoting and act like he’s a genius for basically showing he has no principles.
Walker is one of the worst candidates in recent memory. The only thing he has going for him is people like Jindal and Rubio, who are even stupider and take some of the attention off him.
Jeb camp getting nervous much?