Scott Walker, who represented suburban Milwaukee in the Legislature and served as Milwaukee County executive before becoming governor, has never been accused of showing undue interest in rural Wisconsin.

Walker gets far more excited about jetting off to New York, or Florida, or Texas, or Arizona, or California to beg for campaign donations than he does about visiting New Holstein, or Florence, or Texas (the one in northern Marathon County), or Argyle, or Calumet. And his policies show it.

The governor focuses on running for president (unsuccessfully), currying favor with conservative elites (ardently) or promising taxpayer funds to Taiwanese corporations (extravagantly). He doesn’t bother with issues that matter to the small towns and rural stretches of Wisconsin, unless a campaign donor or a lobbyist for some out-of-state corporation encourages him to pay attention — and even then it is only to do the bidding of the interests that pay his way politically.

So it should come as no surprise that Walker’s big move as regards rural Wisconsin is a promise to keep working to transfer regulatory authority over factory farms — concentrated animal feeding operations — from the Department of Natural Resources to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.