The trouble with ScottWalker

He’s solid, steady, reliable—and dull as duty

ONE OF the many Republican winners election night was Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s fighting governor, and not for the first time. Governor Walker now has survived not just one or two attempts to unseat him over the past four years, but three: a recall election, a re-election challenge, and now this third try to oust him. Which failed again.

There’s just something about this governor’s reforms—like balanced budgets and a fairer shake for the state’s taxpayers when it comes to negotiating with Wisconsin’s powerful public-employee unions—that infuriates the vested interests that comprise the Democratic establishment.

So now Scott Walker is being talked up as a presidential candidate. But whatever midwestern virtues he represents (like prudence and frugality), this governor has also got a midwestern aversion to pizzazz. It may just be our Southern prejudices showing, but a president needs more than all those dull-as-duty values to lead this ever dynamic country; he needs a sense of style, a talent for expressing great ideas, an ability to inspire the rest of us . . . .

A winning presidential candidate needs a cavalier’s dash and cheer. Think of Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. But in Scott Walker, we’ve got only a list of the Puritan virtues. Think of Robert A. Taft or Calvin Coolidge, upright citizens both but glamourless. Instead of dash, both personifed drab.

This very midwestern governor by the name of Scott Walker has all the pizzazz of weak tea, and about as much charisma as your accountant. And it’s hard to see how he could be expected to develop some razzmatazz between now and the next presidential election, which is only two years away.

Scott Walker’s great strength is his solid midwestern character; it’s also his great weakness.