Scott Walker Governorship is "How To Gameplan"

June 10, 2014

"Scott Walker and his governorship ought to be the modern-day blueprint for the Republican Party on how to win, how to win in other states, how to win the presidency."

"And then after they do that, how to fix what's wrong with the country," said Rush Limbaugh, on his show yesterday. It was his first show after a week's vacation, so he had a big backlog of material, and one might infer that this idealization of Scott Walker is something he really wanted to say. Evidence against that inference: 1. It began the third (i.e., the last) hour of the show, and 2. Limbaugh was obviously reading a script at this point — you can tell because he gets slightly robotic and stumbles over a word now and then — so maybe this was fallback material to use when the spontaneous stream-of-consciousness runs short.

Let's continue the script:

A conservative triumphing and winning in Wisconsin is huge. That was one of the bluest of blue states. It's home to some of the most fringe, left-wing radical movements that there are in this country. 

Especially here in Madison, I need to say.

They weren't able to beat Scott Walker and two recall efforts, failed miserably. 

Now, this part must be ad lib, because he's got the facts wrong. There was only one recall election against Scott Walker, and under state law, there can only be one per term. 

Rush observes that it's that other governor, Chris Christie who gets all the media, and people might say that's because "nobody cares about Scott Walker."

Well, the people of Wisconsin know about Scott Walker, and the people living there have elected him and have fought against efforts to recall him. He's had to fight like hell. It has not been easy. But it's the blueprint, it's evidence. I've interviewed him for the Limbaugh Letter. I've been chronicling this. I have been pointing this out to people. When he survived the most recent recall and when he announced the latest budget, which included tax cuts, a budget surplus, I said, "This should be the biggest story in the Republican Party today." And it was right before the Republican governors convention. And if you didn't hear about it on this program, you didn't hear about it.

So Rush is really championing Walker. If you read the whole segment at the top link, you'll see it's his usual idea that Republicans win elections through principled conservatism and not by charming the media. The media are now shining their light on Chris Christie, but only, the theory goes, so he'll get the nomination, at which point they'll do what they can to wreck him, and, representing nothing principled, he'll have nothing to offer the voters.

"Nobody" may care about Scott Walker now, but if and when he gets the nomination, "nobody" will care about Chris Christie. That's the Limbaugh line on 2016.

Posted by Ann Althouse