Asked about 2016, Scott Walker said: 'I’m not announcing for anything.' Scott Walker wants national role

Scott Walker has more political capital than any Republican in America after surviving this month’s recall election. Now he intends to spend it.

“A wise governor told me a long time ago, political capital you don’t get more of by keeping it. You get it by using it,” Walker told POLITICO this week.


The Wisconsin governor, who does not rule out running for president in 2016 after winning his June recall election, wants to help elect as many GOP candidates as possible in 2012. He’s told Mitt Romney’s campaign that he will travel anywhere the presidential candidate thinks he can help. Walker plans to forcefully fundraise for the Republican Governors Association, which spent around $15 million supporting his last two campaigns. And the governor sketched out plans during a Monday interview to support a batch of candidates this year in the Badger State.

“I have not made any plans for the future, and my wife would kill me if I announced anything before that,” he said.

Asked about 2016, he added: “I’m not announcing for anything.”

( PHOTOS: Scott Walker's career)

But the post-recall Walker, only 44, does intend to speak out more on substantive issues. He will weigh in on health-care mandates after the Supreme Court’s expected Thursday ruling, for example, and he’ll keep calling for budget and pension reforms.

“I’d like now and into the future to play a bigger role not only in Wisconsin and the Midwest, but nationally,” he said. “I’d like to have an impact.”

Walker knows he’s a hot commodity after winning a recall in which Democrats and labor unions spent millions trying to oust him for taking the fight to public sector unions — that conservative crowds go gaga at the mere mention of his name. His challenge now is to capitalize on the stardom while convincing whiplashed Wisconsinites that he wants to bring the noise level down enough at home to get stuff done. As he gears up to run for reelection to a second full term in 2014, Walker can’t be seen as drifting away from his state.

Walker spoke by telephone from Chicago. Overlooking Lake Michigan, right above Millennium Park, he was there for a speech at the Commercial Club.

“Certainly political capital-slash-celebrity attention, whatever you want to call it, certainly is part of the reason why I’ve been reaching out to CEOs,” he said. “There’s a lot of folks who probably would have taken a call from me before but are even more inclined now and are interested in what we’re doing because of all the attention.”

Walker explained that he can afford to be more politically active on a national level while effectively governing.

“The nice thing in Wisconsin’s case is pretty much from now until the end of the year there is no legislative action,” he said. “Lawmakers don’t come back officially until January.”

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to predict and hope that the Milwaukee County district attorney’s ongoing John Doe criminal probe — which has led to the indictment of several former aides from Walker’s time as county executive — will eventually ensnarl Walker himself. The governor vehemently denies wrongdoing.

Republican National Committee Chairman and ex-Wisconsin GOP Chair Reince Priebus said Walker offers a “very valuable” contrast against President Obama that will make him a useful surrogate outside the state.

“In a time when people are hungry for real and authentic people to lead, Gov. Walker is the poster child for such a person,” Priebus said in an interview. “It resonates all through the Midwest.”

Walker appeared with Romney last Monday when he visited Janesville and plans to accompany the presumptive GOP presidential nominee again whenever he returns.

“He’s going to be most effective probably traveling with the governor and making sure that the energy that we had for the recall is replicated in November,” said Ted Kanavas, Romney’s Wisconsin campaign co-chair. “I don’t think we’re going to have any problem doing that…The governor’s cache working with Gov. Romney is going to be a big part of our success in the fall.”

Walker cannot remember who taught him the use-it-or-lose-it school of thinking when it comes to political capital, but he remembers first hearing it at an RGA meeting shortly after his November 2010 victory. It might have been Indiana’s Mitch Daniels or Texas’ Rick Perry, he said, but New Jersey’s Chris Christie and Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty were there too.

“He’s always been a great team player, not only for our governors but for the party in general,” said Phil Cox, the RGA’s executive director. “What’s most important is that his reforms are emblematic of the type of change going on with other Republicans governors across the country…He is incredibly sought after to lend his voice and credibility to candidates and politicians across the country.”

As for his political network, Walker says he regularly talks with fellow governors — before and after the recall — specifically naming Christie, Daniels, Mary Fallin (Okla.), Nikki Haley (S.C.), and Terry Branstad (Iowa). As a member of the RGA’s executive board, Walker said he talks with Chairman Bob McDonnell (Va.) “quite a bit.” He also keeps in close touch with freshman Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a tea-party favorite.

But in 2012, Walker said he is “first and foremost” focused on Wisconsin races, and his June victory provides a window into where and how he can help state candidates up and down the ballot. His seven-point victory in that race over Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett — carrying 60 of 72 counties and expanding his margin of victory from 2010 — makes him bullish about GOP prospects in November.

The Republican predicts big swings in the polls before November but believes the Badger State could go red this fall for the first time since 1984. A Marquette University Law School poll released last Wednesday put Obama ahead of Romney by six points, 49 to 43 percent.

But it’s still an uphill climb, at least on the presidential level for Democrats in a state that Obama won by 14 points in 2008. The dynamics of the recall race were also unique.

But Walker says there’s a “real opportunity” for whoever prevails in the four-way Republican primary this August to pick up the Senate seat opened by Democrat Herb Kohl’s retirement and he’ll actively campaign for the winner. Until then, he is trying to “referee” what has become a nasty intraparty battle.

Walker said he is eager to help reelect freshmen House Republicans Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble, despite new legislative maps he signed into law make them safer. An analysis from Walker’s pollster found that he carried Ribble’s new district with 61.5 percent in the recall.

Republicans lost control of the state Senate when Democrats defeated an incumbent on the same day Walker survived the recall, though the result is being challenged and a recount is ongoing.

Either way, Walker predicts his party will not only reclaim the majority in the upper chamber this fall, but might end up with one or two additional seats. There’s an open seat he feels great about, and Walker said he carried two or three other districts now held by Democrats.

A map of the recall results serves as a key for where Walker might be most helpful in the four months preceding the general election.

Priebus said Walker could offer a game-changing boost in rural southwestern Wisconsin, near the borders with Iowa and Illinois.

“These were areas that Tommy Thompson used to carry [when he ran for governor in the 1990s],” he said. “For the last 10 years, we’ve had trouble in Southwest Wisconsin and along the [Mississippi] river. If you look at the map, Walker did enormously well [there]…A Democrat cannot win without that area.”

Stephan Thompson, the executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said it’s hard to overstate how much the recall fight helped battle-harden their infrastructure for the fall. The GOP made 4.5 million-plus voter contacts in six months, more than they ever had before a normal November election.

“Usually this time of year, you’re just looking at opening offices and bringing in staffers,” said Thompson, Walker’s deputy campaign manager in 2010. “A lot of stumbles that you usually have early on are not happening right now.”

Democrats say they also mobilized for the recall and stress that they remain relatively confident the president will carry Wisconsin, even if by less than their 2008 margin. They argue that a significant chunk of those who voted for Walker were voting against the recall process. Party operatives said Walker will have minimal coattails because his name won’t be on the ballot.

Moreover, what makes Walker a hero on the right makes him a poster child of overreach to the left. If he is really vocal, labor organizers might be more active.

University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Barry Burden said the recall solidified Walker’s standing as the leader of state Republicans.

“Not that it will be easy sailing, necessarily, but he’s in charge,” Burden said. “I don’t know who represents the Democratic Party in Wisconsin anymore.”

Democrats in and out of Wisconsin also say the John Doe investigation ensures that an ethical cloud will hang over Walker from which lightning could strike at any point.That’s the biggest X-factor that could stunt the governor’s emergence as a long-term leader of the conservative movement.

Walker stresses that his office initiated the investigation while he was still a county executive. He said he got upset when he saw Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, level criticisms that he says have been debunked during a post-recall appearance on CBS.

“They’ll repeat the same things over and over, no matter how many times they’re proven wrong,” Walker said. “It’s just one of those ridiculous things…Most people who comment on it don’t know anything about the particulars.”

Walker used his post-recall victory speech to invite Democrats over to the governor’s mansion for beer and brats. Protesters were outside the next week, and a news helicopter flew overheard trying to get footage. The goal was not to solve any long-term problems but to get the polarized state’s leaders socializing again. Walker says he hopes good things can grow from the get-together.

Walker spent a fun Sunday after the recall out on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He’s flying East a few days before the July 13 National Governors Association meeting in Williamsburg, Va., to take his sons Matt and Alex to Norfolk for a visit to the USS Wisconsin.

Walker has come to symbolize bold, if-not-always-popular reform. A National Review story this week, for example, describes Puerto Rican Gov. Luis Fortuño as “the Caribbean’s Scott Walker.”

“I don’t think there’s anybody who’s going through anything tougher, so we can give some insights and lessons learned,” he said. “There’s things I’d do better. Those are lessons I’d love to pass onto anybody.”

This article tagged under: Republicans

Wisconsin

Scott Walker