Wednesday, January 28, 2015

2016: Scott Walker versus The Establishment

By Douglas V. Gibbs

This writer has already established that Scott Walker is the best candidate to represent the Republican Party for President of the United States.  He is fearless, stands on his principles, and in the State of Wisconsin, as governor, he endured attacks by the left and the labor unions that put him in a position to face three elections in four years. . . and Scott Walker prevailed, in a blue State, because of the positive results of his conservative policies, and his willingness to stand firm while under fire.  Governor Walker is the closest we've gotten to a potentially constitutional president since Calvin Coolidge.  He is able to articulate conservatism in a manner that convinced a blue State to elect him governor.  Scott Walker is the best GOP candidate for 2016's presidential run. . . and the establishment already has their knives out for him.

At the Iowa Freedom Summit, in front of over 1,200 people, Scott Walker confirmed everything we have been saying about him. Armed with his executive experience as governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker delivered a heart-pounding speech that silenced critics that say he does not have the charisma to run for president, articulating conservatism to a conservative crowd with a passionate argument for small government.

The speech was so powerful that even the establishment took notice.

In Wisconsin, as governor, Walker rolled up his sleeves and went to work against progressivism. . . and he did the same on stage in Iowa.  With sleeves rolled up, as he marched across the stage, Walker took on the purveyors of big government head-on, challenging them, blasting their failed policies, and in his speech he explained how he took on big government in Wisconsin, and won.  He touted a long list of conservative reforms he's pushed through in blue Wisconsin, successfully turning that State around, so that the folks in Wisconsin could leave the recession behind, while the rest of the country still broils in a weak economy, with a record number of people not in the workforce.

Fire.  Scott Walker's fire on the stage in Iowa is something that has not been seen for some time.  The good ol' boy Republicans, fighting with democrats over control over a big government, were pushed aside in his speech.  Walker's speech was not about how the GOP can repeal and replace, or how they would handle the reins of a big government, but how to reduce government, how to return the American System to one that is limited in its powers, as the United States Constitution intends.

Walker's speech was filled with excitement, power, and promise. . . something that has been absent from many of his own speeches, and definitely something that has been absent from the Republican Party for some time.  The speech was so rousing, it drew the crowd to its feet multiple times.

"There's a reason we take a day off to celebrate the 4th of July and not the 15th of April," he said, almost yelling as his voice grew hoarse. "Because in America we value our independence from the government, not our dependence on it."

Walker recounted his three electoral victories over Democrats, including a recall win.  He discussed his victory over the labor unions, defying tens of thousands of protesters, leading Wisconsin to State-level education reforms, and a surplus budget.  He went over them all, exciting the conservatives in the crowd as he recounted his victories in Wisconsin: Voter ID laws, education reforms, tax cuts and defunding Planned Parenthood.

By the end of the speech, Walker revealed he is a major player in the 2016 Campaign, and he dispelled any notions that he lacks charisma.

When he said he won reelection as Milwaukee County Executive in an area where President Obama won by a two-to-one margin, some in the audience gasped.

"If you get the job done the voters will actually stand up with you," he said before contrasting his record with Washington's failures.

The preacher's son also reminded the listeners what the battle for America is all about.  He spoke of his faith, reminding the crowd whence his strength truly comes from.  And he thanked Iowans who prayed for him as he faced death threats during his fight against the public sector unions, including one that promised to gut his wife "like a deer."

Walker made sure to establish his Iowa roots — saying he'd lived there until third grade until his father got a job as a minister in Wisconsin — before promising to return "many more times in the future."

Republican Establishment favorites Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush did not attend the event in Iowa, but their names came up often in the speeches by the various candidates.  The absent Republicans were criticized for their leftist stances on education (Common Core) and the immigration issue.  The Republican presidential candidates speaking in Iowa were conservative, or at least much more conservative than the pair of Republicans that were absent, and the response by the crowd revealed the desire of the voters that it is time for the GOP to quit fighting to gain control of a big government, and instead return to the principles of limited government the Republican Party platform is supposed to call for.

Along with Scott Walker, another conservative firebrand, and a person considered to be a Tea Party guy, Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas, also challenged the establishment.  “In a Republican primary, every candidate is going to say, ‘I’m the most conservative guy who ever lived,’ “ he said. “You know what? Talk is cheap.”

Rising to his own challenge, Mr. Cruz called for “the locusts” of the Environmental Protection Agency to be stifled and for padlocking the Internal Revenue Service, then redeploying its agents to secure the Southern border.

“If you said you opposed the president’s unconstitutional executive amnesty, show me where you stood up and fought,” he said of President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. “If you said you oppose Common Core, show me where you stood up and fought.”

The establishment's presence was not completely absent.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was on hand to defend the moderates and leftists of the Republican Party, cautioning against requiring a candidate to pass conservative litmus tests. “If that’s the standard we hold each other to, as a party we will never win another national election,” he said.

Governor Christie's rhetoric ran hand in hand with the general mood of the Republican Party for the last fifty years, save for the Reagan era, falsely believing that moderation wins, and conservatism loses.  The question for Christie is simply, "when faced with the most radical progressive in recent history, Barack Obama, how did moderates McCain and Romney fair against him?"

Rick Santorum, the winner in the 2012 Iowa caucus, and a noted conservative in the party, called for policies that will return strength to the middle class, and encouraging small business creation.  “What percentage of American workers own their own businesses?” he asked. “Less than 10.”

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a man capable of seamlessly bouncing between conservative and establishment moderate, who won the 2008 caucus in Iowa, stressed that the falling unemployment rate did not represent an economic recovery for many people. “A lot of people who used to have one good-paying job with benefits now have to work two jobs,” he said.

After the smoke cleared in Iowa, it became clear to the GOP Establishment that conservatism has placed a firm foothold in the Republican Party, the deepest footprint since Reagan ignited conservatives in 1980 and 1984, putting the party’s less conservative candidates into a position of defense, likely wanting to scream as Mr. Christie did, "If we are too conservative, we can't win!"

Jeb Bush, speaking on Friday in San Francisco, reminded the voters of who the establishment truly is, explaining to the crowd why he believes we need immigration overhaul. “We need to find a path to legalized status for those who have come here and have languished in the shadows,” Mr. Bush said.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry challenged Bush's remarks on immigration, recalling Mr. Obama’s refusal to take a helicopter ride with him to the Rio Grande Valley last year to see unaccompanied minors crossing the border, a flow that Mr. Perry blamed on White House policies.  After being accused of being soft on immigration during the 2012 Presidential Campaign, it seems Mr. Perry has definitely changed his stripes.

“For the sake of the nation, we did not stand idle against this threat,” he said, referring to his stance against illegal aliens as Governor of Texas. “So here is what I say: If Washington refuses to secure the border, Texas will.”

Representative Steve King of Iowa, speaking at the event in San Francisco, spoke only briefly about immigration, but the opposition had no problem trying to label the entire Republican Party as being in tune with Mr. King’s record of unvarnished comments about illegal aliens, including his recent comment regarding one of Obama's "guests" at the State of the Union address as “deportable.”  A statement that may have been accurate, but was probably better left unsaid at that point.

In Iowa, Donald Trump, who perennially floats himself as a presidential contender, took pointed digs at the two absent Republicans, Romney and Bush.

“It can’t be Mitt because Mitt ran and failed,” Mr. Trump said. And to cheers, he said, “The last thing we need is another Bush.”

I agree, Mr. Trump.  Though I have defended Bush on some of his policies, the length of the war in Iraq, and his domestic policies, were hardly in line with conservative principles, or the philosophies and principles provided by the U.S. Constitution, and those that crafted the document.  It has been a long time since we've seen any candidate that truly stood with the Constitution.  What we need is another Calvin Coolidge. . . and his name is Scott Walker.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary



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