On the budget, Walker proclaimed the state “broke” when he took over from former Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and then proceeded to slash spending on education in a more far-reaching way than just the higher fringe benefit costs imposed on teachers. And yet, current official estimates suggest the state in 2015 will face a budget gap as large as or even larger than Walker inherited from Doyle.

Don’t forget that in Doyle’s time, the state was mired in the devastating great recession, while Walker should have benefited from the recovery. Instead, his upcoming tax-cut-fueled budget crisis feels more like a calculated, ideological strangling of government’s capacity to perform.

On the minimum wage, voting rights, marriage equality, reproductive rights, pay equity, environmental regulation, consumer protection, you name it, Walker adheres to a tea party playbook, not the majority wishes of his constituents. He must actually believe in those policies, or at least has rationalized them in his relentless, career-long pursuit of the next political job.