"He (Walker) is an ideological outlier whom history will judge as the extremist he is"
An autocratic King Scott damaged state
Enter Scott Walker. Riding a wave of public indignation, the young assemblyman from Wauwatosa began to run for county executive even before Ament had resigned. Walker presented himself as articulate, energetic, a good family man and a devout Christian - all of which he most assuredly is. He also displayed a waspishness, a willingness to attack, that set him apart from more conciliatory candidates like the late Jim Ryan, his chief rival. Voters picked the new guy over the nice guy, and Scott Walker took office in May 2002.
Wisconsinites have seldom elected a government official who took such a dim view of government. As Milwaukee County's chief executive, Walker showed little interest in the details of service delivery and even less in the nuances of public policy. His priority, even his preoccupation, was to cut public spending where he could and to freeze it where he couldn't, all in the interest of lower taxes and smaller government.
The connection between what you get and what you pay for was totally severed, with predictable results: $200 million in deferred park maintenance, a transit system in a death spiral of fare increases and service cuts and an increasingly threadbare safety net. None of it mattered as long as Walker could claim he was holding the line on property taxes. The savings were modest when applied to the average Milwaukee home, but voters who had grown distrustful of government were sufficiently impressed - or sufficiently tightfisted - to re-elect Walker not once but twice.
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Without the balance provided by political opposition, the essential Scott Walker emerged: an ideologue, a true believer, a man as untroubled by doubt as any divine-right monarch. The 52% governor was soon behaving like a 100% king, enacting, with his legislative lieges, an agenda that was simply breathtaking in its scope and bluntness.
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I sometimes think of Walker as a black-and-white TV in a world filled with color. He gets only one channel, and it's tuned to a program called "Scott Knows Best." If nearly half of us don't want to watch, he can safely dismiss us as moral relativists who dwell in the outer darkness.
Much more at link: http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/an-autocratic-king-scott-damaged-state-vm5j9m0-156490065.html
John Gurda is and always has been a true Wisconsin treasure.
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