We’ve known for a long time what assets Scott Walker brings to the Republican race for president: youth, conservative record, swing-state political success and heroic (to his party) recall victory over Democrats and labor.
But this summer we’re getting a much better sense of his soft spots, weaknesses and political challenges, thanks to the rise of Donald Trump and the crucible of a national campaign.
Here is a look at three of them:
Personality.
“Aggressively normal” was how Walker billed himself in his closing statement at the first GOP debate Aug. 6. But his debate performance was so aggressively normal it barely registered. In post-debate polls of GOP voters, hardly anyone thought Walker had the best debate and hardly anyone thought he had the worst debate. He didn’t make an impression, which was a bad outcome in a giant field where every day is a war for attention. The fiery speech he gave in Iowa last January was Walker’s answer to those who said he was too bland to get GOP primary voters excited. But the Cleveland debate and the suffocating effects of Trump’s outrageous personality have revived those doubts.
Walker’s imperturbability has been a strength in the past and may prove to be so again in the fight for his party’s nomination. But it comes with a kind of flatness. Walker is avidly trying to signal to rambunctious Republican voters that he, too, shares their anger and urgency and frustration, but his emotions are so contained he has trouble communicating it.
The mild-mannered Walker invested early in an “above the fray” approach to quarrels within the party, promising over and over not to attack his fellow Republicans. That was always going to be hard to stick to, but will be even harder if he’s running from behind.
Positioning.
Walker’s most promising attribute in the early polling was his potential to appeal across party factions from tea party to evangelicals to business conservatives to establishment insiders. If not your first choice, he hoped to be your second choice, no matter where you might fit in the spectrum of Republican voters. But Walker has been squeezed from all sides in a mammoth field. Voters who want an anti-establishment street fighter have a more obvious choice (Trump). So do voters who want a red meat conservative (Texas Sen. Ted Cruz), a more moderate conservative (Ohio Gov. John Kasich), a non-politician (business executive Carly Fiorina, neurosurgeon Ben Carson) or a big Republican name (former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush).
It’s telling that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who like Walker has crossover appeal inside the party, has also been struggling to carve out his place in a deeply fragmented free-for-all.
But Walker seems to be struggling more than Rubio has over his own political identity. He has been aiming for that sweet spot in the GOP race: warrior but winner, audacious yet proven, uncompromising yet respectful, anti-Washington yet experienced. The challenge is striking that balance without appearing too changeable or calibrated, as Walker has on the issue that Trump placed front and center in the Republican contest: immigration.
Performance.
Which brings us to perhaps to the biggest question mark about Walker in the nomination fight — his performance on the campaign trail.
Trump has hurt Walker in a variety of ways. He has taken market share away from him (and from other GOP candidates). He has soaked up most of the attention and coverage. His personal qualities as an in-your-face outsider make low-key career politicians like Walker seem tame and scripted. And Trump’s success has caused Walker to react in counterproductive ways.
Let’s just take some examples from the past few weeks. Walker couldn’t offer a concise and consistent response to Trump’s call to end birthright citizenship. He strained to play up his own anti-establishment credentials, telling voters in New Hampshire he had to battle a timid party establishment back home that didn’t want to take on the unions. It turned out he was only talking about a couple of GOP state lawmakers. And he called for President Barack Obama to cancel a state visit from China’s president, despite his own history as Wisconsin governor of pursuing trade with China.
Some persistent Walker habits have dogged him. One is offering suggestive but ambiguous answers to hot-button national issues he is not used to discussing, then leaving the world free to interpret them for days without clarification. Another is his instinctive aversion to getting crosswise with his party’s conservative base, which has helped push him to the right in this race.
Of all these challenges, what’s Scott Walker’s biggest problem when it comes to winning the GOP nomination?
Is it personality? His style and demeanor are what they are. They aren’t going to change. And they come with pluses as well as minuses.
Is it the way he’s positioned at the crossroads of a giant GOP field? The field is a given; its size and competitiveness represent a challenge as well as opportunity. Like his personal attributes, Walker’s political profile as both a conservative warrior and a career politician has its pluses and minuses.
The variable that Walker has the most control over is his performance as a candidate.
There would seem to be time for him to rise again in this race. But he’ll probably need to break a cycle in which the way he handles questions is a bigger story than his record or agenda, and shifts in his positions are a bigger story than his views on issues.
He’ll also have to do better in debates. Expect Walker in the next debate Sept. 16 to try to maximize his allotted time on stage instead of giving time back and waiting until his closing remarks to deliver his essential sales pitch to Republican voters.
Aside from Trump, the GOP presidential field has lost its structure this summer, with the so-called top-tier (Bush, Walker, Rubio) blending into the so-called second-tier (Cruz, Fiorina, Carson, Kasich, etc.).
That represents a step backward for Walker. But it also means the race is as wide open as ever. The front-runner in the polls is a celebrity candidate who faces major obstacles to winning the GOP nomination, from high negatives among the public to the stiff opposition of party leaders and elites.
What Republican in the field right now doesn’t have a huge hill to climb?
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