http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-18/scott-walker-s-consultant-debacle-says-plenty-about-the-fight-for-iowa
What Scott Walker's Consultant Debacle Says About the Fight for Iowa
Mar 18, 2015 8:31 AM CDT
For the third time this month, he deals with a potential political problem in Iowa by caving to the demands of Iowans.
David Weigel
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's hiring of Liz Mair, a respected Republican political strategist and pundit, was problematic from the start. On Monday evening, just hours after CNN reported that she'd joined the team, conservatives and pesky Democrats were asking questions about Mair's punchy tweets. Yes, she'd consulted for Walker during the 2012 recall campaign that effectively defanged Wisconsin's left. She'd also occasionally criticized the importance of the Iowa caucuses, saying they pushed the GOP into unelectable positions.
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At the time, those tweets fit right into the roiling conversations of social media. On Tuesday morning, when the Des Moines Register reported on the tweets, Mair's role with the Walker campaign was still safe. But the problems piled up, and the worst of them was a quote Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann gave to the New York Times. "It’s obvious she doesn’t have a clue what Iowa’s all about," Kaufmann said. "If I was Governor Walker, I’d send her her walking papers."
Within hours, the Walker network was doing just that. While Kaufmann had left the door open for a conversation with Mair—he told the Associated Press he wanted her to apologize and learn about the state—the Beltway-based strategist was not connected with the GOP chairman. It was hard to see what they'd break farm bill-subsidized bread over, anyway. Mair resigned late Tuesday night with a short statement about how "the tone of some of my tweets concerning Iowa was at odds with that which Gov. Walker has always encouraged in political discourse." Rick Wiley, a top political strategist for Walker, put the decision in that context.
"We accept those who have a variety of viewpoints on issues but what we ultimately must have is absolute respect for people across the country," said Wiley in a statement. "Our American Revival is an organization formed to promote bold reforms across the country and we’re going to continue advocating for those ideals.".......................
While those words hit the wires, Mair was tweeting what she couldn't all week: the reasons why she'd written the tweets.
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