Scott Walker's supporters urge a return to core beliefs

WASHINGTON — With Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential poll numbers in free fall, longtime observers and supporters in his home state say they know why: The Scott Walker they know isn’t the same one they see on the presidential trail.

They say Walker has changed positions to score political points. He supported a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, then came out against it. He opposed government mandates to include ethanol in fuel, then supported a mandate while courting votes in Iowa, where nearly half the corn produced goes into ethanol production.

When the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in June, Walker called for a constitutional amendment to allow states to ban it. A month later, he said it wouldn’t be a top priority if he is elected president. Last month, he said he supported Donald Trump’s call to end birthright citizenship, then said he supports birthright citizenship as provided by the 14th Amendment.

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“I fear what happened when he decided to run for president is he decided to act like a politician instead of a leader,” said Rick Esenberg, founder of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative think tank and legal organization based in Milwaukee.

He and other Walker supporters in Wisconsin say that as Walker prepares to debate other GOP presidential candidates Wednesday in Simi Valley, Calif., he needs to get back to being the governor who did exactly what he thought was right, even if it looked like political suicide.

“I think he started to overthink things... and when he did, the case for him to be president of the United States just becomes weak,” said Esenberg, who has supported Walker in Wisconsin elections but hasn’t decided if he’ll support his presidential bid. “Then he just becomes another guy, and he fades into the background.”

Green Bay-area Republican Rep. Reid Ribble, a close friend of the governor who has been called a whip for the Walker presidential campaign on Capitol Hill, put it more diplomatically.

“He needs to get back to his core,” he said. “Get back and really study what you believe about any issue so that it’s internalized and it’s actually a true belief and then you can communicate it honestly.”

Walker spokeswoman AshLee Strong pointed to comments made by campaign manager Rick Wiley to WisPolitics.com last week that suggest Walker plans to get his campaign back on track by focusing more on his record in Wisconsin and on policies he would put in place as president. In addition, Walker will try to pivot away from national media questions he feels are a distraction, Wiley said.

“The plan is in place, and he knows what the plan is," Wiley told WisPolitics.com. "It's a matter of us going out and executing a plan and not being distracted by poll numbers."

Walker’s supporters in Wisconsin hope that’s the case. They say the governor’s lack of grounding in firm beliefs tied to policies leaves him vulnerable to shifting political winds — particularly those fanned by Trump — and has allowed national media to knock him off message, damaging his campaign.

Jerry Bader, a regionally syndicated, conservative radio talk show host based in Green Bay, cites Walker’s comments on Meet The Press last month that building a wall along the U.S.-Canada border potentially is a “legitimate issue” to consider. Bader said he believes Walker was worried what people might think of him if he said illegal immigration is a problem only along the border with Mexico.

“He didn’t want to be called a racist, so he says one of the most irretrievably stupid things I’ve heard in politics in my entire career,” Bader said. “You’re not going to be labeled a racist if you ... just say, ‘Look, when we have millions of people pouring over the northern border, I’ll deal with that problem.’”

Rohn Bishop, treasurer of the Fond du Lac County Republican Party, thinks Walker may have “panicked and overreacted” to Trump’s rhetoric. He said that during Walker’s tenure as county executive in heavily Democratic Milwaukee County and then in the governor’s office, he’s enjoyed a good relationship with Latino voters and been more moderate on issues they care about.

“I don’t think it’s in Scott Walker’s bones to be against the 14th Amendment and want to build a giant wall and throw everybody out,” said Bishop, who has been on the county party’s executive committee since 2008. Bishop worked to support Walker in all three statewide elections in Wisconsin — as governor in 2010, during the attempt to recall him from office in 2012 and for his re-election last year.

“He doesn’t seem to be quite himself,” Bishop said.

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Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican and former plastics executive who was elected at the same time Walker first won the governorship in 2010, said he’s “completely sympathetic” to the challenges Walker faces in dealing with intense media scrutiny and his need to answer so many questions on such a broad range of issues in a short period of time.

“There but for the grace of God go I,” Johnson said, adding that he had nothing critical to say about Walker’s presidential campaign. “This is a really tough and brutal business, so my advice would be to be yourself. Convey the person of integrity that you really are, articulate your positions in terms of why you’re running and just hold on.”

He and the others hope Walker can turn it around, even as he has tanked in polls. A CBS News/New York Times poll released Tuesday found support for Walker has slipped to 2% nationally among Republican primary voters, down from 10% last month. In Iowa, where Walker led the GOP field in polls for much of the year, he has tumbled to 10th place, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Friday.

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Nik Nelson, cofounder and CEO of OpenBox Strategies, a digital marketing company that serves Republican campaigns in Wisconsin, says Walker should turn questions around on reporters. On the Canadian border question, for example, “I think you would get a lot of traction out of saying, ‘Why are you asking me about that?’” Nelson said.

He added that Walker’s Midwestern nice isn’t translating on the presidential campaign trail, and he needs to inject some “verve” and “bombast,” albeit without raising his voice.

“I think he needs some... time with a style coach, someone who specializes in speech to say, ‘How can we really present this message?’” Nelson said.

Ribble says the answer is simpler: Walker needs to stick to his guns and stake out positions without regard to their popularity.

“My advice to Scott Walker is to be Scott Walker, to be the same candidate that ran in a recall election and ran for re-election as governor — to be that Scott Walker,” Ribble said. “And if he gets back to who he really is, and he puts himself in charge of the communication here, he’ll be fine.”

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