Since his emergence as a top-tier contender in January, Scott Walker has moved closer and closer to Ted Cruz’s end of the GOP-spectrum, and as he tries to gain traction in Iowa, to throw off the holding pattern created by Trump’s rise, and to break through the scrum, there may be fewer and fewer issues that differentiate the two.


Take, for example, how the two are approaching the candidacy of Donald Trump. Cruz has lavished praise on The Donald; this morning, Walker told Fox News that his position on immigration is similar to that of Trump’s (the most notable aspect of which, of course, is to build a wall and make the Mexicans pay for it, though I can’t imagine that’s what Walker was referring to). Then, the Wisconsin governor took a page from the Cruz playbook, telling Glenn Beck that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is part of the problem in Washington. “We were told if Republicans got the majority in the United States Senate, there would be a bill on the president’s desk to repeal Obamacare,” Walker said. “It is August. Where is that bill? Where was that vote?”

But Walker made the biggest splash today when he said he is in favor of ending birthright citizenship.


Walker’s campaign followed up with the following clarification: “We have to enforce the laws, keep people from coming here, enforce e-verify to stop the jobs magnet, and by addressing the root problems we will end the birthright citizenship problem.” That doesn’t do much to clarify what the governor said; in fact, it confuses the issue further.


I asked the Walker campaign if the governor thinks enforcing the laws and e-verify — addressing the “root problems” — would sufficiently curb illegal immigration and, as a result, that there wouldn’t be many children born to illegals and granted birthright citizenship, or whether the governor meant something different. A spokeswoman for Walker tells me that “by addressing the root problems we will the birthright citizenship problem.”

Walker, of course, is in Iowa today, a state he has to win, or come very close to winning, if he has a path to the nomination. He’s drifted downward in the polls there as a result of Donald Trump’s rise, and, while the particular numbers don’t matter so much, it’s a trend that’s surely worrisome to the campaign. It remains to be seen whether a drift toward Cruz territory will re-ignite the passions of voters in the Hawkeye State.