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Scott Walker Tag

The Wisconsin "John Doe" investigations of conservatives has ended in fiasco ... for prosecutors. John Doe No. 1, clearly aimed at Scott Walker, focused on Walker's time as Milwaukee County Executive. Despite enourmous efforts led by Democratic prosecutor John Chisholm, no evidence of wrongdoing by Walker was found. John Doe No. 2, focused on alleged illegal coordination between conservative activists and the Walker campaign during the 2011 Recall Election, was far more notorious. Prosecutors, again led by Chislhom, used SWAT-like raids on homes, seized electronics and electronic records, and pretty much terrorized almost the entire conservative activist community in Wisconsin. Prosecutors denied that Walker was the target, something belied by the intimidation of all those who surrounded him. John Doe No. 2 ended with a stinging rebuke to prosecutors by the Wisconsin Supreme Court:

At the RedState gathering, I had an opportunity to sit down with Republican Presidential contender and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Rather than focus on policy, I decided to talk to Governor Walker about his bitter battle with the Wisconsin unions and how those encounters affected him personally. "Those are the sorts of battles, maybe not as high profile as it was then, but essentially that the president goes through all the time," said Walker.

Speaking on the soap box at the Iowa State Fair Monday morning, Governor Scott Walker was welcomed by an all too familiar crowd -- union hecklers. Rather than ignoring the front row rabble-rousers, Governor Walker confronted them directly. "I am not intimidated by you, sir, or anyone else out there. I will fight for the American people over, and over, and over, again. You want someone who's tested? I'm right here. You can see it. This is what happened in Wisconsin. We will not back down. We will do what is necessary to defend the American people going forward," said Walker.

Scott Walker was at or near the top of just about all polling until the Fox News debate. Now he's dropped in the rankings as Donald Trump has maintained his margin in most polls, though there's some evidence of weakening. Walker is now second or third in Iowa, where he consistently led, and is back in the middle of the pack nationally. Nate Silver notes:
Scott Walker: This one surprised me a little, but the polling is clear. Walker is the only candidate who lost ground in every single post-debate poll. In Iowa, where Walker had been leading, just 5 percent of voters said his performance was the most impressive of all the candidates. Walker’s debate night was bad enough that he has lost his edge in Iowa to Trump.
Perhaps I was wrong when I commented after the debate:
Scott Walker: A very workmanlike performance. Weaved his way around questions to answer the questions he wanted to answer, refocusing on Hillary when he could. Often had time left because he answered so succinctly. Not sure this will light his campaign on fire, but in playing the long game, he didn’t hurt himself.
That workmanlike debate performance let a huge debate audience, and intense media focus, get away. While we and our readers are very familiar with Walker, most people are not.

The seventh installment of RedState's annual conference concluded Sunday morning. 700 conservative activists from far and wide descended upon the Intercontinental Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. RedState Gathering was two and a half fun-filled days of high profile Republican speakers, bourbon, drama, and turkey sandwiches. The impressive list of speakers included ten governors, six Congressmen, a handful of conservative media folks, and spokespeople from various activist organizations. Most of the Republican Presidential field attended. After current GOP front-runner Donald Trump was uninvited to a reception at which he was scheduled to speak Saturday evening, the conference found its way into national headlines.

What did RedState Gathering goers think about Donald Trump's rescinded invite?

As we reported early Saturday morning, outgoing RedState Editor in Chief Erick Erickson uninvited Donald Trump. Remarks Trump make during an interview with CNN were, "a bridge to far," according to Erickson. Several RedState Gathering attendees shared their thoughts on Trump's forced absence with Ryan Lovelace of the Washington Examiner:

Scott Walker appeared on CBS This Morning Friday to talk about his campaign and how he did in the debate. Oddly enough, as soon as Walker started talking about Hillary Clinton, Norah O'Donnell wanted to shift the conversation to Donald Trump and obviously wanted Walker to answer for Trump's words and actions. Walker handled it well and tried to steer the conversation back to his campaign but O'Donnell persisted. She clearly wanted Walker to comment on Trump. Partial transcript via NewsBusters:
Rather than accept Walker’s rejection of Trump’s language, the CBS host continued to press the governor over Trump’s comments and demanded that he “denounce” his opponent:
You know that your own party did a full dissection of what happened in the last presidential campaign about how the Republican Party does among women and how they do among minorities. If you have the leading candidate in the Republican Party saying those things about women, when it was the largest gender gap in history in the last presidential election, can you denounce those comments here today, or is it just part of a freewheeling debate?
Here's the full video:

While the ire of the media has been focused mostly on Donald Trump for the past few news cycles, Scott Walker is still getting some scorn. This column by Dana Milbank at The Washington Post could all but be a campaign poster for walker, with a few wording changes:

Why Scott Walker is so dangerous [to liberals]

Why Scott Walker is so dangerous:
“First off,” Scott Walker proclaimed, “we took on the unions, and we won. We won!” Taking on the unions is usually first off for Walker, the Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential candidate. It is the very rationale for his candidacy. And on Thursday, he took a detour from the campaign trail to appear here before the annual meeting of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators dedicated in large part to defeating unions.... Walker then went on to celebrate his triumphs over the demonstrators who objected to his dismantling of Wisconsin’s public-sector unions, portraying the pro-union forces as violent thugs....

During the summer of 2013, we began to see immigration amnesty activists use the Why do you want to deport my daddy? tactic against Republicans. The tactic involves sending children to confront candidates -- with the video rolling. It all was a set up, in the hope the candidate would do something stupid or mean. Most famously, Speaker John Boehner was confronted by well-coached children while eating at his usual breakfast spot: A similar confrontation just happened to Scott Walker, and it was all a set up by a "social justice" activist group seeking to stop deportations. The Washington Post reports, Scott Walker tells undocumented worker that immigrants must follow the law:

Governor Scott Walker appeared on the Kelly File Thursday night and commented on the shooting in Chattanooga. His response was starkly different than Obama's. Transcript via Mike Miller of IJ Review:
Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker joined the growing chorus of those calling on President Obama to acknowledge that America is at war with radical Islam on Thursday, saying we need to call it what it is.
We need to acknowledge that we’re at war and radical Islamic terrorism is our enemy. It’s not enough just to have containment anymore. When you talked about the policies that prohibited our military personnel from being armed at an establishment like this; those are outdated. [W]e’re facing an enemy in radical Islamic terrorism that’s willing to take the fight to us. We need to make sure that our men and women in uniform not only have the resources to protect us and keep our country safe, [but] they need to have the resources to keep themselves safe.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has effectively killed the "John Doe" case which led to home raids and intimidation of a wide range of Wisconsin conservative activists. The decision is embedded at the bottom of this post. Here is the key finding, which completely shreds both the legal theories and motives of the prosecutors, completely vindicates the targets, and praises those who fought back legally against prosecutorial misconduct (emphasis added):
¶133 Our lengthy discussion of these three cases can be distilled into a few simple, but important, points. It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. In other words, the special prosecutor was the instigator of a "perfect storm" of wrongs that was visited upon the innocent Unnamed Movants and those who dared to associate with them. It is fortunate, indeed, for every other citizen of this great State who is interested in the protection of fundamental liberties that the special prosecutor chose as his targets innocent citizens who had both the will and the means to fight the unlimited resources of an unjust prosecution. Further, these brave individuals played a crucial role in presenting this court with an opportunity to re-endorse its commitment to upholding the fundamental right of each and every citizen to engage in lawful political activity and to do so free from the fear of the tyrannical retribution of arbitrary or capricious governmental prosecution. Let one point be clear: our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation.
Andrew Grossman, who filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case and who has served as counsel to Eric O'Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth (two of the targets of the investigation) in various federal civil rights litigation against the prosecutors, provided me with the following statement:
Today's decision puts an end to one of the worst abuses of power ever seen in Wisconsin law enforcement. The next step will be holding those responsible accountable for their actions. The Court's recognition that the John Doe was a politically motivated "dragnet" of Gov. Walker's allies provides strong support for Cindy Archer's civil rights action against the Milwaukee prosecutors and lawsuits by potentially any of the other John Doe targets.

Scott Walker announced his run for president yesterday in a speech that was well received by many on the right. Yet before he even announced, some pundits were calling him the front runner. On the FOX News program Political Insiders, analysts Doug Schoen, Pat Caddell and John Leboutillier cited a Real Clear Politics poll which puts Walker way ahead of the other candidates in Iowa. Leboutillier notes that Walker understands the mechanics of a primary and the metrics associated with political advertising. Caddell suggests that Walker's message is compelling, his victory over big unions is very compelling for Republican voters, and that he shouldn't be underestimated. They also address the ascendancy of Trump in the polls, but suggest things will shift once the Republican debates begin. Watch the whole segment below:

Friday afternoon, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker utilized his social media accounts for a pre-campaign digital roll out. Teasing the news on Twitter just moments before, Walker's staff directed Twitter followers to Instagram.

Time has really flown by, hasn't it? Would you believe the famous recall election that Scott Walker won in Wisconsin was three years ago? As you may recall, it was a big night at Legal Insurrection with fireworks and music on the site. Our Wisconsin Recall Tag has the history. Wisconsin first lady Tonette Walker tweeted out this reminder yesterday: Here's a great video from the Walker team to commemorate the event:

We previously covered Cynthia Archer, Wisconsin Dems used battering rams against Scott Walker supporters – literally Archer was a woman whose home was raised by paramilitary-style commandos working at the behest of Milwaukee County Prosecutor John Chishom as part of "John Doe No. 2." Archer's only alleged crime was being a former aide to Scott Walker, and being conservative. That flimsy pretense was enough enough to make her a target in the second (hence, John Doe No. 2) secret investigation of Walker, based on the allegation that there was illegal campaign coordination among conservative groups and the Walker campaign during the Recall election. We have covered the legal proceedings extensively. The federal and state courts have rejected the prosecution's theory in the face of lawsuits alleging, among other things, that the laws on campaign coordination and the investigations violated freedom of speech. The key case as to the investigation now is on appeal in the state court system, and the John Doe No. 2 investigation is on hold. Our John Doe (WI) Tag traces the history of the cases. But lost in this legal wrangling is the damage done to real people, such as Archer. She explained what happened to her to David French in National Review:

After the Charleston shootings, there was a renewed push by President Obama for restricting access for law-abiding citizens to guns. Scott Walker wasn't having any of it. He signed into law a loosening of waiting periods that have been on the books for decades. From FOX News:
Wisconsin Gov. Walker ends decades-old waiting period for handguns Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed two bills loosening his state's gun laws on Wednesday, including one ending the state's 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases. The timing of the bill signing comes amid a renewed debate over gun control and race relations after the fatal shootings at a Charleston, S.C., black church on June 17; a white man faces multiple murder charges. But the measures on Walker's desk predated the massacre and passed earlier this month in the GOP-majority Legislature with bipartisan support. The second measure would allow off-duty, retired and out-of-state police officers to carry firearms on school grounds.
CNN covered the topic too, and to their credit, they were fair:

We interrupt your regular programming about Jeb Bush and Donald Trump to bring you this report about the Republican nomination for 2016. Scott Walker now leads the field. Jonathan Easley of The Hill:
Walker leads nationally in new poll Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker leads a tight field of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, according to a new survey from Public Policy Polling. Walker is alone in first place in the poll with 17 percent, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 15 percent, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) at 13 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 12 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 11 percent. That’s a big jump for Bush, who was at 11 percent support in the same poll last month. However, Bush will begin his quest for the GOP nomination with a negative favorability rating among Republicans, according to the poll. Only 37 percent said they have a positive view of Bush, against 40 percent who have a negative view. Bush is dragged down by those who identify as “very conservative,” with only 32 percent of those saying they have a positive view of Bush. Bush is the top choice among self-described “moderate” Republican primary voters.

It seems that attacks on Scott Walker seem to boomerang and simply add to his political persona of being a regular guy. Did you hear the one about how Scott Walker never graduated college? #Fail. The latest attack on Walker is that he has "up to" $50,000 in credit card debt to -- wait for it -- Sears.   We don't know exactly how much because financial disclosures only are made in broad ranges, so it could be as little as $10,000. Regardless, it's SEARS! The Daily News does the hit on Walker, from the angle of it proving he's not really a fiscal conservative:
"Owe, no! 2016 hopeful Scott Walker has tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, owing money to a list of banks and stores including Sears and Barclays, a new report alleges."
Hello, it's SEARS! The Daily Beast actually puts it in proper context, Scott Walker Is Just Like You! In Debt:

Megyn Kelly interviewed governor Scott Walker on her show last night and covered a wide variety of topics. The first subject was Hillary Clinton, who Walker suggested is out of touch with the American people. Other topics included Walker's strategy for winning independent voters in Wisconsin, the GOP's prospects for 2016 and immigration. Here's the video: Scott Walker's name was in the news yesterday for another reason.