Tag Archives: scott-walker

Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources is now pretending not to know about climate change.

The crisis of affordable housing (after climate change, natch).

It’s not for lack of local media coverage. Follow the news from New York City to Seattle, and you can’t avoid stories about skyrocketing home prices and rent along with record rates of homelessness. The bestseller Evicted followed low-income residents in Milwaukee who were tossed out of their homes for missing a rent payment.

Add up each local crisis, city by city, and it’s clear that the country has a national crisis that requires a national response. Yet affordable housing passed without much notice in the 2016 election. Interviewers and debate moderators never asked about housing. Republican presidential candidates, including President-elect Donald Trump, a high-end real estate developer, ignored it altogether.

To be sure, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders issued modest proposals on housing policy. But they gave housing little attention on the campaign trail.

So will 2017 be the year that our political system wakes up to the housing crisis? The signs aren’t promising. Trump and congressional Republicans want to cut housing aid, which has already been squeezed by cuts from the Budget Control Act of 2011.

But maybe it’s the year that progressives in Congress propose a national strategy to provide high-quality, affordable housing to all Americans. It’s a political cause in dire need of a champion.

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Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources is now pretending not to know about climate change.

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Donald Trump Abandons Pledge to Support GOP Nominee

Mother Jones

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After previously pledging to support whoever becomes the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump said Tuesday that promise no longer stands. Instead, Trump said during CNN’s town hall in Wisconsin, “we’ll see who it is.”

Trump repeatedly noted in Tuesday that he does not need the support of Ted Cruz or of any of the GOP contenders who have dropped out, including Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, saying he doesn’t want to make anyone “uncomfortable.”

“I don’t want his support, I don’t need his support, I want him to be comfortable,” Trump said of Cruz.

Cruz, who appeared first during the town hall, was also asked whether he would support Trump if he is the nominee. Cruz refused to explicitly answer the question.

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Donald Trump Abandons Pledge to Support GOP Nominee

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Wisconsin Poised to Gut Its Campaign Finance and Anti-Corruption Laws

Mother Jones

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Scott Walker’s presidential bid may have failed, but the Wisconsin governor and his Republican allies are making a massive push to transform the way the state conducts elections and investigates illegal campaign activity. If they’re successful—and by all indications, they will be—by the end of this week, they will have uprooted Wisconsin’s anti-public corruption laws and lifted restrictions on the money pouring into state elections.

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Wisconsin Poised to Gut Its Campaign Finance and Anti-Corruption Laws

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Donald Trump: The 14th Amendment Is Unconstitutional

Mother Jones

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After launching his presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists,” Donald Trump is now following up on his nativist rhetoric by taking aim at the Constitution.

On Tuesday, when Bill O’Reilly challenged the presidential hopeful’s proposal to end birthright citizenship in light of the 14th Amendment, Trump hit back: “Bill, I think you’re wrong about the 14th amendment and frankly the whole thing about anchor babies.”

“I can quote it, you want me to quote you the amendment?” O’Reilly responded. “If you’re born here you’re a citizen. Period!”

But Trump insisted he and his lawyers have found some disturbing holes in the amendment, which unequivocally states that anyone born in the United States is in fact an American citizen.

“What happens is, they’re in Mexico, they’re going to have a baby, they move over here for a couple of days, they have the baby,” Trump said, while trying to break down his legal take. “Bill, lawyers are saying, ‘It’s not going to hold up in court, it’s going to have to be tested.'”

“I don’t think they have American citizenship, and if you speak to some very, very good lawyers, some would disagree,” Trump added. “But many of them agree with me—you’re going to find they do not have American citizenship. We have to start a process where we take back our country. Our country is going to hell. We have to start a process, Bill, where we take back our country.”

O’Reilly pointed out that if Trump wanted to end birthright citizenship he could push for an amendment to the constitution—a position held by the former reality TV show star’s fellow GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker—but in a slight capitulation, Trump acknowledged that that would probably “take too long” and said he’d rather use his potential presidency to “find out whether or not anchor babies are citizens.”

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Donald Trump: The 14th Amendment Is Unconstitutional

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I Read Scott Walker’s Health Care Plan So You Don’t Have To

Mother Jones

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It’s health care day for Scott Walker. Today he released “The Day One Patient Freedom Plan,” a title that’s apparently designed to give the impression that his plan would start on Day One of his presidency. Yuval Levin comments that Walker’s proposal “will be familiar to health wonks,” and it’s true. It’s the usual conservative mish-mash of HSAs, high-risk pools, tax credits, interstate insurance sales, tort reform, and block-granting of Medicaid.

Oh, and Walker’s plan won’t require any tax revenue. This is….a little hard to believe since a quick swag suggests that the gross cost of Walker’s tax credits will run about $200 billion per year. I figure the net cost, once you account for the end of Obamacare subsidies and other current outlays, is still in the neighborhood of $100 billion or so.1 That’s a lot, so I assume Walker explains pretty carefully how he’s going to pull this off without any new taxes.

Indeed he does. Here’s the answer: “We would simplify and reform how the federal government helps people access health insurance.” Gee, I wonder why no one’s thought of that before?

So far, there’s nothing very interesting here. Every Republican candidate is going to release a plan very similar to this. But there is one other thing I was curious about. It turns out that protecting people with pre-existing conditions is really popular, and this means that Republicans all feel like they have to support the idea. But how? Apologies for the long excerpt, but I want to make sure you see Walker’s whole answer:

No individual should fear being denied coverage, or face huge premium spikes when they get sick and then try to change jobs or insurance plans. My plan would address these concerns. It would make additional reforms to insurance coverage laws to ensure individuals with pre-existing conditions would be protected, not only when moving from employer-based plans to the individual market, but also when switching between plans. This would make insurance coverage more portable, permitting individuals to own their coverage, regardless of how or where they purchase it.

Provided individuals maintain continuous, creditable coverage, no one would see their premiums jump because of a health issue or be shut out of access to affordable health insurance because of a new diagnosis or a pre-existing medical condition. Newborns, as well as young adults leaving their parents’ insurance plans and buying their own, would have these same protections. Unlike the ObamaCare approach, my plan would protect those with pre-existing conditions without using costly mandates. By relying on incentives rather than penalties, individuals would be free to choose.

This is literally a non-answer. We do know a couple of things: (a) if you let your insurance lapse, you’re screwed, and (b) Walker will somehow prevent insurance companies from raising your rates if you maintain continuous coverage. He provides no clue just what kind of insurance regulation would accomplish this, and for a good reason: I doubt there is one. Obamacare accomplishes it via community rating, which requires insurance companies to cover all comers at the same price, but Walker surely rejects this approach. What he replaces it with remains a mystery.

One other thing worth noting: Walker’s tax credits would, at best, pay only for catastrophic coverage. Maybe not even that. Nor will his plan cover everyone. Nor is it likely to cost nothing. Nor does it have any concrete proposals to reduce the cost of health care. If you think that’s OK, then Walker is your guy. If you think everyone should be able to receive affordable routine health care, and you’re willing to pay for it honestly, you might want to stick with Obamacare.

1Don’t worry about the numbers. They’re just illustrative guesses on my part. I’m sure experts will weigh in eventually with better estimates.

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I Read Scott Walker’s Health Care Plan So You Don’t Have To

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Debate Liveblogging: The First GOP Presidential Debate of 2015

Mother Jones

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WRAP-UP: Marian, who seems to be more in touch with the common man than I am, thinks Rubio was the winner tonight. He seemed fine to me: plenty conservative, but also serious and wonkish. But the big winner? I’m not sure.

So who was? I don’t think there was a big breakout. But I do think there were two losers. First, Donald Trump. His schtick might be entertaining in small doses, but when you hear it repeatedly in response to question after question, it just seems juvenile. This was just not a good format for his brand of performance art.

The second loser was Walker. Not because he made any big mistakes, but because he didn’t really do anything to break out, and he needed to. This is not a huge deal: I don’t think he did himself any real harm, and there are plenty more debates to come. But he needs to up his game.

Jeb Bush was very presidential sounding, but mostly treaded water. For him, though, this isn’t so bad. Unlike Walker, I don’t think he really had to do any more than that.

Tonally, this debate was like night and day compared to the earlier debate. There was plenty of skirmishing, plenty of barbs, and much more energy. The actual substantive disagreements—Rand Paul aside—were pretty slight, but the candidates made the most of them.

There weren’t a whole lot of memorable zingers. Even Trump seemed off his game, even defensive at times (when he was asked about his contributions to Hillary Clinton, for example). Walker had his bit about Hillary’s email server, but it sounded too robotic to draw blood. Still, I’m sure it will get plenty of cable news air time, since there wasn’t a lot of competition. Mostly, I suspect the bits that will be on a 24/7 loop are the direct arguments between the candidates.

Summary: Trump and Walker probably lost a little ground. Maybe Christie too. Rubio gained a bit of ground. Bush stayed even. The rest probably will stay about where they are, which is so low that it hardly matters if they gained or lost a percentage point.

Prediction: Someone will drop off the top ten, and Carly Fiorina will be on the big stage next time. Personally, I think she did well, but not great. (Maybe because I live in California and remember her Senate run in 2010.) But the media seems to have decided very quickly that she did superbly. That will be enough to give her a bump in the polls.

Debate transcript here.


First off, I want to apologize if anyone gets seasick from the graphic at the top of this post. Sometimes politics requires sacrifices, I’m afraid. And I have to look at it too.

10:56 – Carson: “It’s time to move beyond” talking about race. Huge applause.

10:54 – Megyn Kelly is asking about God. But someone apparently came up during the commercial break to ask about veterans. So now she asks Rubio what he thinks about God and veterans. Kinda falling off the rails here.

10:52 – Kasich: “I do believe in miracles.” He’d better.

10:41 – Walker on recent cyberattacks: “It’s sad to think about, but probably the Russian and Chinese governments know more about Hillary Clinton’s email server than do the members of the United States Congress.” Zing! It got good applause, but wasn’t that a little too obviously a preplanned zinger?

10:37 – An Iranian general visited Russia. What would Trump do in response? No answer, but it would be totally different from what Obama is doing. BTW: the part of the Iran deal that Trump doesn’t like involves 24-day notice for inspections. Trump twice called it 24-hour.

10:35 – Walker gives a total non-answer about #BlackLivesMatter and civil rights.

10:32 – Kasich gets a surprising amount of applause when he gives a fairly tolerant answer about gay marriage.

10:31 – Trump’s defense of his big mouth: People’s heads are getting cut off. We don’t have time to be nice.

10:30 – I guess this debate is going two hours, not 90 minutes. Crap.

10:29 – Megyn Kelly asks Trump, “When did you actually become a Republican?” Trump says he has evolved. “You know who else evolved? Ronald Reagan.” Well, true enough.

10:26 – Rubio says he has never advocated a rape or incest exception to a ban on abortion. Is this true?

10:24 – Huckabee says “Iran got everything, we got nothing” from the Iran deal. With the exception of stopping Iran’s nuclear program for at least a decade, I suppose that’s true.

10:20 – Walker: We need to kill the Iran deal, put in place even more crippling sanctions, and then persuade our allies to go along. And how will we manage that? Crickets.

10:16 – Trump: Only four out of hundreds of his companies have gone bankrupt. So there. By the way, “this country, right now, owes $19 trillion, and they need someone like me to straighten out that mess.” Big applause. Crikey.

10:12 – Huckabee says his consumption tax is great because it will tax “illegals, prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers,” who are all freeloading off the system right now. Um….

10:11 – Christie: “I’m the only guy on this stage who’s put out a 12-point plan on entitlements.” Unsurprisingly, this got no applause. I guess 12-point plans aren’t what they used to be.

10:10 – Walker has exactly the same economic plan as Bush!

10:07 – How will Bush get 4% growth? Answer: lift our spirits, fix the tax code, get rid of regulations, repeal Obamacare, build the XL pipeline, fix the immigration system.

10:05 – Carson plays the Alinsky card on Hillary.

10:04 – Ben Carson doesn’t think Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. I wonder who he’s betting on?

9:51 – Trump says he gives money to lots of politicians because he gets favors in return. “I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them and they are there for me.” So how about Hillary Clinton? What did he get from her? “I said, be at my wedding, and she came to my wedding. And you know why? Because she had no choice.” Ha ha ha. I wonder how long it takes before this routine gets old even with his supporters?

9:50 – Trump is asked why he supported single-payer health care 15 years ago but doesn’t anymore. He says it’s because 15 years ago was a different era. Huh? Word salad follows.

9:49 – Asked about health care, Trump says he was against the Iraq war. Okey dokey.

9:47 – Carson: “Carson doesn’t believe in fighting stupid wars.” Apparently this means he’s in favor of waterboarding.

9:45 – Bush: “We need to take out ISIS with every tool in our arsenal.” That’s all the detail we get from Bush.

9:41 – Cruz: “We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorists as long as we have a president unwilling to utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorists.’ ” Yeesh. Apparently the way to defeat ISIS is to have a president who makes clear that joining ISIS amounts to signing your own death warrant. That’s all the detail we get about defeating ISIS.

9:37 – Chris Christie wants more surveillance, not less. Rand Paul supports the Bill of Rights. Christie: “When you’re sitting in a subcommittee blowing hot air, you can say anything you want.” Paul: “I don’t trust President Obama with our records. I know you gave him a big hug. If you want to give him a big hug again, go right ahead.” Christie: “The hugs I remember are the hugs I got after 9/11.” Megyn Kelly finally steps in and breaks up the fight.

9:36 – Well, everyone is opposed to illegal immigration.

9:31 – No one really wants to criticize Trump for saying illegal immigration is all due to the fact that our government is stupid.

9:26 – Chris Wallace wants to know if Trump has any specific evidence that the Mexican government is sending criminals over? Trump says that “border patrol people that I deal with, that I talk to, they say this is what’s happening, because our leaders are stupid.” The Mexican government is much more cunning than ours. “That’s what’s happening whether you like it or not.”

9:25 –Trump seems to think that Republicans didn’t really care about illegal immigration until he came along. Um….

9:20 – Rand Paul: “We didn’t create ISIS. ISIS created ISIS.” Roger that. Then Paul suggests that the way to beat ISIS is to stop funding their allies. I’m not sure what he was getting at with that.

9:18 – Huckabee thinks the next president should just ignore the Supreme Court and ban abortion. Again, huh?

9:17 – Scott Walker defends his opposition to a life-of-the-mother exception for abortion because there are always ways to protect the mother. “That’s been proven.” Huh?

9:11 – Megyn Kelly wants to know why Trump insults women so much. Trump is Trump in response. He’s kidding! He’s having fun. America’s problem is too much political correctness. That’s ridiculous when America is losing to everyone—everyone!—and needs to be made great again. If you don’t like it, tough.

9:09 – Rubio: “How is Hillary Clinton going to lecture me about living paycheck to paycheck? I was raised paycheck to paycheck.”

9:06 – Rand Paul barges in to attack Trump. “He’s hedging his bets because he’s used to buying politicians.”

9:04 – First question: a handraising question. Is anyone unwilling to pledge to support the eventual nominee? Only Trump raises his hand. He’s not willing to make the pledge unless he’s the nominee.

8:55 – To my surprise, Carly Fiorina has been anointed the big winner of the happy hour debate. I can see the case for her being the winner by a bit—she was competent and on message and made no mistakes—but not by a landslide. But apparently the punditocracy has spoken. Fiorina is ready for the big show.

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Debate Liveblogging: The First GOP Presidential Debate of 2015

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Four Years Ago Scott Walker Promised This Woman He’d Bust Wisconsin’s Unions

Mother Jones

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The super-PAC backing Scott Walker has many wealthy backers, but its single biggest contributor is Diane Hendricks, who ponied up $5 million. A billionaire through the roofing supply business she and her late husband founded, Hendricks has been one of Walker’s top benefactors since he first ran for governor. In 2012, Hendricks was the biggest donor to Walker’s campaign to stave off a union-led recall effort, and now she’s stepped up for him again. Out of the $20 million raised by the pro-Walker group Unintimidated PAC, 25 percent came from Hendricks.

If there was any question that Walker and Hendricks are on the same page, here’s a video of the two chatting in 2011 shortly after he took office.

“Good to see you!” Walker says, dashing through the door and hugging Hendricks and kissing her on the cheek.

Hendricks asks Walker about the possibility of turning Wisconsin into a “completely red state.”

“Oh, yeah,” Walker responds, going on to lay out his “divide and conquer” strategy for attacking public sector unions.

Despite her massive contribution, Hendricks still has some close competition as the group’s biggest funder. Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder and Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts, gave $4.9 million. And Joe Ricketts himself tossed in another $100,000.

Richard Uihlein and his wife Elizabeth, the founder and president of Illinois box company Uline, respectively, gave $2.5 million to the super-PAC as well.

Rounding out the list of seven-figure donors was Access Industries, a New York City holding company run by Len Blavatnik. Blavatnik is a Ukranian-born businessman who in April was named the “richest man in Britain” with an estimated net worth of $20.1 billion. Blavatnik, who is a US citizen, is also known for his lavish donations to universities including Oxford and Tel Aviv University. On Thursday, the super-PAC supporting Lindsey Graham reported receiving $500,000 from Blavatnik’s company.

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Four Years Ago Scott Walker Promised This Woman He’d Bust Wisconsin’s Unions

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4 Years Ago Scott Walker Promised This Woman He’d Bust Wisconsin’s Unions

Mother Jones

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The super-PAC backing Scott Walker has many wealthy backers, but its single biggest contributor is Diane Hendricks, who ponied up $5 million. A billionaire through the roofing supply business she and her late husband founded, Hendricks has been one of Walker’s top benefactors since he first ran for governor. In 2012, Hendricks was the biggest donor to Walker’s campaign to stave off a union-led recall effort, and now she’s stepped up for him again. Out of the $20 million raised by the pro-Walker group Unintimidated PAC, 25 percent came from Hendricks.

If there was any question that Walker and Hendricks are on the same page, here’s a video of the two chatting in 2011 shortly after he took office.

“Good to see you!” Walker says, dashing through the door and hugging Hendricks and kissing her on the cheek.

Hendricks asks Walker about the possibility of turning Wisconsin into a “completely red state”.

“Oh, yeah,” Walker responds, going on to lay out his “divide and conquer” strategy for attacking public sector unions.

Despite her massive contribution, Hendricks still has some close competition as the group’s biggest funder. Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder and Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts, gave $4.9 million. And Joe Ricketts himself tossed in another $100,000.

Richard Uihlein and his wife Elizabeth, the founder and president of Illinois box company Uline, respectively, gave $2.5 million to the super-PAC as well.

Rounding out the list of seven-figure donors was Access Industries, a New York City holding company run by Len Blavatnik. Blavatnik is a Ukranian-born businessman who in April was named the “richest man in Britain” with an estimated net worth of $20.1 billion. Blavatnik, who is a US citizen, is also known for his lavish donations to universities including Oxford and Tel Aviv University. On Thursday, the super-PAC supporting Lindsey Graham reported receiving $500,000 from Blavatnik’s company.

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4 Years Ago Scott Walker Promised This Woman He’d Bust Wisconsin’s Unions

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Scott Walker Is Starting to Look Like a Loser

Mother Jones

It seems that Scott Walker may be having problems. First, there’s this from our own Russ Choma about Walker’s fundraising woes in Texas, home to America’s biggest treasure trove of conservative zillionaires:

The union-busting Wisconsin governor may be a conservative darling, but he’s way behind the curve when it comes to courting Texas’ biggest money men. Bill Miller, a top Texas lobbyist who regularly advises megadonors on their contributions, says he’s heard almost no buzz from the donor class about Walker….”No one is asking about him,” Miller says. “None of our clients. We have a huge client base. It’s oddly quiet for a guy that’s supposedly top three among the potential nominees.”

….Walker campaign aides say he has been to Austin, Houston, and San Antonio as well, and the response has been “enthusiastic.” Future trips to Texas are planned, they say. But if there’s an on-the-ground fundraising operation for Walker, Miller isn’t the only one who has missed it.

….”Scott Walker has no visible organization in my part of the state. He really doesn’t come up,” says Gaylord Hughey, a lawyer who’s known as the “don of East Texas” by Republican operatives. Hughey has worked as a bundler for the campaigns of George W. Bush and John McCain, and he’s currently signed up to raise money for Jeb Bush. “Among the sort of really hard R Republicans, Scott Walker is probably big,” he notes, “but to the business donor group, he has not really resonated.”

Hmmm. Maybe Walker isn’t mean enough for Texas? That’s probably not it. In fact, Paul Waldman thinks the guy is so mean it’s turning into a problem of its own for Walker. Exhibit A: Walker is hell-bent on demanding drug tests for all welfare recipients:

This is why Scott Walker is never going to be president of the United States.

First, some context. The drug testing programs for welfare recipients are usually justified by saying they’ll save money by rooting out all the junkies on the dole, but in practice they’ve been almost comically ineffective. In state after state, testing programs have found that welfare recipients use drugs at lower rates than the general population, finding only a tiny number of welfare recipients who test positive.

But this hasn’t discouraged politicians like Walker….The test is the point, not the result. Walker isn’t trying to solve a practical problem here. He wants to test food stamp recipients as a way of expressing moral condemnation. You can get this benefit, he’s saying, but we want to give you a little humiliation so you know that because you sought the government’s help, we think you’re a rotten person.

….What does this have to do with Walker’s chances of winning a general election? What George W. Bush understood is that the Republican Party is generally considered to be somewhat, well, mean….So when Bush campaigned as a “compassionate conservative”…he was sending a message to moderate voters, one that said: See, I’m different. I’m a nice guy.

….And Scott Walker’s attitude is nothing like George W. Bush’s. He practically oozes malice, for anyone and everyone who might oppose him, or just be the wrong kind of person.

So money in Texas-sized chunks is looking like a problem for Walker in the primaries, and his Cruella de Vil-sized malice is likely to be a problem in the general election.

The conventional wisdom about Walker—which I’ve agreed with in the past—is that he’s the candidate best suited to appeal to both the Republican base, thanks to his hardcore meanspiritedness, and to business-class Republicans, thanks to his executive experience and relatively mild demeanor. The problem is that it’s a tricky act to make both of these personas work at the same time, and so far Walker doesn’t even seem to be trying. He’s just sticking with the Mr. Mean persona, and it’s not clear if that’s even enough to win the primaries, let alone get him into the White House. He’s going to need to change his tune if he ever wants to hear the Marine band playing “Hail to the Chief” for him.

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Scott Walker Is Starting to Look Like a Loser

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Scott Walker Has a Texas-Sized Fundraising Problem

Mother Jones

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Before most GOP presidential contenders set foot in Iowa or New Hampshire, they typically first hit another pivotal state: Texas. The Lonestar State is the undisputed center of the Republican Party’s donor base, so almost all of the GOP hopefuls have trekked regularly there and established extensive fundraising operations in Texas. But there’s one big exception: Scott Walker, who formally announced his presidential bid on Monday.

The union-busting Wisconsin governor may be a conservative darling, but he’s way behind the curve when it comes to courting Texas’ biggest money men. Bill Miller, a top Texas lobbyist who regularly advises megadonors on their contributions, says he’s heard almost no buzz from the donor class about Walker. In the past, Miller has worked with major political benefactors including the late Bob Perry, a Texas home builder who gave more than $70 million to conservative causes over the years and was the major funder behind the 2004 Swiftboat Veterans for Truth group. This year Miller says he’s talked to clients about many of the Republican candidates, but not Walker.

“No one is asking about him,” Miller says. “None of our clients. We have a huge client base. It’s oddly quiet for a guy that’s supposedly top three among the potential nominees.”

Walker has previously received backing from the Koch brothers, and is said to be among the top contenders for support from their extensive donor network during this election cycle. But, if he’s unable to make inroads in Texas’ donor world, it could hurt his chances at the presidency—if only because his most formidable opponents will have the state’s deep reserve of money behind them.

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Scott Walker Has a Texas-Sized Fundraising Problem

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