What Scott Walker's Consultant Debacle Says About the Fight for Iowa--Liz Mair

[riversedge]

Last edited Thu Mar 19, 2015, 11:43 AM - Edit history (1)

Walker dissed the Kenosha casino deal--now this.




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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[riversedge]

1. "that Walker is an Iowa-pandering wimp."

Scott Walker caved to Iowa Republicans and fired Liz Mair, prompting Tim Carney and others to observe that Walker is an Iowa-pandering wimp.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/18/huffpost-hill_n_6897724.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

[riversedge]

2. Another article: Scott Walker, the gutless wonder of the 2016 presidential race

@WisDems-->Scott Walker, the gutless wonder of the 2016 presidential race http://theweek.com/articles/545019/scott-walker-gutless-wonder-2016-presidential-race … @GOP #wipolitics #tcot


Scott Walker, the gutless wonder of the 2016 presidential race

March 19, 2015

Sometimes the most inside-baseball political stories tell you something essential about a presidential candidate. That's what happened this week to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who apparently wants to win the Iowa caucuses so badly that he's willing to torch his staff and his reputation to do it.

The Walker campaign recently announced that it had hired Liz Mair, a highly regarded Republican consultant. Mair has also played pundit at times, and is generally more pro-gay rights and pro-immigration than the average Republican. But that's typical of Republican consultants in general. It is assumed that policy is set by the candidates themselves, not by the people advising them on their social media accounts.

However, Mair's hiring was subject to an unusual amount of scrutiny. Muckrakers on the right pointed out that Mair supported "amnesty" for immigrants who had entered the country illegally, or something like it. The Des Moines Register ran an article highlighting some sharp remarks Mair had made about Iowa's distorting influence on national politics, with its first-in-the-nation status forcing candidates to embrace Iowa's agricultural subsidies and a federal mandate that requires fuel-inefficient ethanol to be mixed with all gasoline. And finally, Jeff Kauffman, Iowa's GOP chairman, suggested to The New York Times that Walker should give Mair "her walking papers."
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Mair was gone. Officially, she resigned.

[unionthug777]

3. is it just me?

I love hearing/reading about how that POS fails....especially when conservatives talk bad about him..

[lutefisk]

4. So, Walker is "gutless" and a "wimp" and now Spencer Black says "spineless"

I don't know- can a guy be a gutless, spineless, "unintimidated" wimp all at the same time? I don't think so. I think
"Walker the Wus" isn't really so "big and bold" after all.

I really admire Spencer Black. He used to be my representative in the assembly, and damn, I wish he were my governor!
Spencer Black: Spineless Scott didn't have the backbone to tell voters the truth LINK to Cap Times column