Walker says his focus as governor is on substance, not longevity. Walker: 'I'm not an old white guy'

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker acknowledged in an interview Friday that he’s open to a presidential bid and pointedly declined to pledge to serve a full four-year term if he’s reelected next year.

Walker insisted he was visiting Iowa in May only because he was invited by Gov. Terry Branstad. But when pressed about his White House ambitions, the Wisconsin Republican said: “Would I ever be [interested]? Possibly. I guess the only thing I’d say is I’m not ruling it out.”


Perhaps even more notably, Walker wouldn’t commit to serving throughout a second four-year term. He said his focus is on substance, not longevity.

“For me, it’s really a measure of what I’ve accomplished and what more I could accomplish if I was in a different position,” Walker told POLITICO at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he spoke Saturday morning.

( WATCH: Live coverage of CPAC 2013)

The governor’s 15-minute speech focused on his efforts to end what he called a culture of government dependency, such as requiring able-bodied adults to look for work or enroll in job training in order to receive food stamps.

“This president and his allies measure success in government by how many people are dependent on the government. We measure success in government by just the opposite: by how many people are no longer dependent on the government,” Walker said to rousing applause. “Because we understand in this country that the American dream is not to grow up one day and depend on the American government, it’s about empowering people through the dignity of work.”

In the interview Friday, the governor noted that he ran for Milwaukee County executive during his state legislative term and then sought the governorship in the midst of his tenure as county executive. Walker, though, said that he wasn’t just “being glib” when he professed his love for his current job in the fashion that is typical for presidential hopefuls.

( PHOTOS: 2016 Republican contenders)

“I had to work pretty damn hard to be governor twice,” he said with a smile, alluding to both his hard-fought 2010 election and the even tougher recall he survived last year.

Walker didn’t dispute that his controversial effort to rein in public employee unions had made him a polarizing figure, but predicted he could improve his image with additional achievements.

“Results,” he said, when asked how he could bolster his standing with voters. “You get results. To me, results trump anything.”

He said his focus would be chiefly in the fiscal sphere and that he wanted to improve Wisconsin’s economy, reform state government and continue his education reforms.

Walker has already won praise from national conservatives. Citing the governor’s Medicaid plan, which rejects the federal expansion but would cover more Wisconsinites through the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, and his push for tax reductions and additional welfare restrictions, The Weekly Standard wrote last month that “Walker may be the closest thing to the anti-Obama that exists in a state capitol today.”

And, thanks to national profile he won from the public employee fight and failed recall, Walker has become an in-demand fundraiser for GOP causes. He addressed a retreat for some of the RNC’s biggest donors last weekend outside of Miami and raised money Friday night for Virginia gubernatorial hopeful Ken Cuccinelli.

Yet Walker would begin the early jockeying of the 2016 race without the buzz of a Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) or mega-fundraising base of a Jeb Bush or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. He’ll need to work the cattle call and TV talk show circuit hard to win support.

And there’s something else about Walker that could limit his prospects: he’s a white male at a time when some Republicans think they’re all but doomed if they don’t add some diversity to their ticket in 2016.

( Also on POLITICO: Mitt Romney at CPAC: ‘Learn from my mistakes’)

The governor cautioned against Republicans making a pure identity politics play, but he also noted that he would different in another important way from two of the potential Democratic nominees in 2016.

“If that happened it would be great, but we’re not the party of silos,” said Walker of having a minority carry the GOP banner. “Any of the reaction, or overreaction, to what happened in November shouldn’t be driven by, ‘There’s a set formula that we’ve got to flip on this issue, flip on that issue, put a couple people on [the ticket] who look differently.”

But Walker, 45, used the question about diversity to note that the Republican challenge isn’t merely that it’s a party dominated by white males.

“It goes to old white guys” he said, adding: “I’m not an old white guy.”

Raising two potential 2016 Democratic heavyweights, Walker said: “When you think of names like Clinton and Biden — those are people from a bygone generation of politics. So I think a new fresh face, be that somebody who is ethnically a minority or a new face to the national scene. Ideas matter more than just how someone looks … what really matters is our nominee should be someone who’s optimistic, relevant and courageous.”

That mantra – optimistic, relevant and courageous – has become Walker’s new shorthand for how the GOP needs to heal itself and perhaps is the makings of his own eventual presidential message.

He said he’d expand on its meaning in his speech Saturday, but emphasized the “relevant” part of the triumvirate in the interview.

“We need to talk about things that people are talking about – not sequesters, not fiscal cliffs, not monthly jobs reports,” said Walker, an argument that has become fashionable in the ranks of GOP governors since last fall’s election results and the drumbeat of stories since about Washington’s gridlocked politics.

But the Badger State chief executive said the GOP challenge is no mere “communications issue.”

“Relevance is not just [that] we need a slicker job of explaining it or putting better commercials out,” he said. “I think it goes deeper than that. Relevance is taking those principles and applying them to things that are relevant where people’s lives are.”

Entitlement reform and the long-term debt, for example, should be put in terms grandparents and their grandchildren can understand, he said: how bringing down spending will ultimately improve the economy so future generations may find better job prospects and enjoy a better quality of life.

“Put things in those terms and then I think you make it a moral, not just a fiscal, issue,” he said. “People want to act on it.”

Walker showed little interest in discussing the culture wars and particularly gay marriage, something the governor acknowledges those same future generations feel differently about than their elders.

“I do think it’s generational,” he said about views on gay rights, calling younger Americans “more open and accepting on that issue.”

But he also called its importance among youth “overblown” and said he still opposes same-sex marriage.

“I think most people in college might tell you, ‘Yeah, I don’t care what somebody does in that regard but what I care about is whether I’m going to have a job in a couple of years when I graduate.’”

Walker seems to think the best way for the GOP to address its generational challenges on culture is to simply focus on other matters.

“I’m certainly not branded by those,” he said of how Wisconsin voters see his stance on social issues.

Indeed, Walker rejects the choice between the libertarian-at-home, restraint-abroad calls advocated by the likes of reformers such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — and the change-nothing approach pushed by traditional conservatives.

On defense, Walker said the GOP should reject isolationism but also not be trapped by dogma from an earlier era.

“We’re not fighting the Cold War anymore and I certainly think, not just in the war on terror, but increasingly in places like, not just the Middle East, but Russia and even other areas, there are new and extreme threats,” he said, citing cyberterrorism as one issue that can’t be addressed by masses of troop divisions.

While wanting to move forward and position himself for future prospects, Walker couldn’t resist looking back at last year’s campaign and reprising the frequent criticism he leveled at Mitt Romney’s campaign.

The Wisconsite explained how the 2012 GOP standard bearer could have better handled Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment.

“Most of those people are already with us,” noted Walker of the business owners and entrepreneurs Romney held up for having “built that.”

Romney would have been better off talking to those who “don’t have a chance to build it,” said Walker.

As for Romney’s” 47 percent” comment, Walker pointed out that many people receiving government benefits during the recession don’t want to turn to such welfare.

Recalling the reaction from Romney’s high command to his shots at them, Walker laughed: “Got a lot of screamers out of Boston.”

Emily Schultheis contributed to this report.