I suspect Brandon Finnigan, writing at The Federalist, may be thinking that way: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s recall was a deadly error for state Democrats and labor activists. It made a college dropout into a potential Republican rock star.
It seems like every new challenge builds the cult of Walker. Every visual overstep by his foes, like the recent protests at his parents’ house, or recent perceived gotchas, simply bring more money and more ground troops to Team Walker.
Sure seems like it, doesn’t it? But read the whole thing.
Jeb Bush is a waste of money and time. Nobody wants a third Bush presidency, and his immigration creds aren’t good anyway. Christie is a RINO joke (regardless of his attitude about teachers, which I have commented favorably on in the past) and Rubio has fubared himself too many times in the past. Cruz? Hmm.
Cruz needs some seasoning in an executive position. We don’t need another senator in the White House, we need a governor. But Cruz would make an interesting Vice President — because he’d be President of the Senate. And if he would take the Nelson Rockefeller attitude about the job, he’d be a great influence there, regardless of its partisan makeup. And eight years of a Walker-Cruz administration might well give him the experience he needs (and I feel that he lacks) to be President in his own right.
But Walker?
The [recall] victory itself was a massive confidence-booster among conservative Republicans disillusioned with their party’s performance in Congress: they finally had a guy who fights. Even after the sting of the presidential race, a sizable portion remembered the man with the “throne of skulls.”
And this is a great point: Walker is already vetted.
The ferocity of the anti-Walker attacks during the recall attempt cannot be understated: no stone was left unturned, no “scandal” or slip of the tongue left unmentioned, and this may only help candidate Walker going into 2016. The Democrats spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours digging, scooping, ad-cutting, and hammering. They threw the kitchen sink at the guy in 2012, threw their neighbor’s sink at him in 2014, and now nobody on the block will let them inside to pee. Out of useful topsoil, what do they do now?
Bottom line, Scott Walker is who Mitch Daniels wants to be when he grows up. Okay, maybe that’s harsh 🙂