Quote:
Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA
Well, let's keep my comments in that regard in some perspective as well.
Never mind who the candidate is, going all negative attack dog on someone that has only 4% negative reaction within the party core sounds like a pretty bad idea, especially when few candidates have a strong core of their own.
I mean, if there was something (or if something emerges) to provide some traction to get a running start on such a move, maybe it makes more sense. But to invest time & energy into trying to villianize a guy who really has none of that taint yet? That just seems ... well it just seems like a bad play. That's a move for a spoiler with a grudge, not a move for someone who actually wants to win anything themselves.
Also, I'd say the average voter DOES know at least one thing more about Walker than "he pisses off Dems" (although Lord knows that's worth quite a bit for a lot of us): we know he took the fight to unions, especially public-sector unions. These days, as hard as genuine conservatives are to come by, that's pretty much the stuff of which icons are made.
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Jon, do you know what constituted "taking the fight to the unions"?
Walker: "Hey we need a bunch of concessions from the teachers to pay for these tax breaks I gave out, let's bust the public unions; oh but leave the fire and police unions alone because they donated to my campaign."
Teachers: "Hey, the economy sucks and we all have to sacrifice. That's cool, we're willing to do that. We're willing to take the pay cut, the change in pension contributions, etc. But we think your proposal to remove collective bargaining rights for everything except COLA goes too far."
Walker: "Sorry, you giving up everything else isn't enough. We need to break the unions because of reasons."
That's it. That's what "taking the fight to the unions" consisted of. Break the ability of "liberal" public unions to bargain for anything, ever. It's coincidence that the firefighters' and police unions, which backed Walker in his election campaigns were exempted.
It's even MORE coincidental that the state troopers' union, one of those that supported Walker, is getting around a 17% pay increase this year. The public unions whose collective bargaining rights were stripped? ~1% in 2013 and 2014, nothing budgeted for 2015 and 2016.
Remember, the state was allegedly in dire fiscal straits. That's what made Act 10 supposedly necessary. Where did the money come from for a 17% pay raise for a group that happened to be political supporters?
This is the problem, Jon. When you pick candidates - I really don't care which party - solely or primarily based on whether or not they "piss off" people whose politics you don't like, you open the door for cronyism. Maybe it's cronyism you like, where if it were the other party handing out those favors you would be appalled, but it's still cronyism.
I'll agree with you on one thing, though. Should a Republican get elected, I would LOVE to see Walker serve in the Cabinet. I mean that honestly.
We'd finally be rid of him in Wisconsin.