I say, "That's the #1 thing people say: Scott Walker? But he didn't finish college!" and Bob says, "That's ridiculous!" and "Who cares?"
Much more about Scott Walker... and Deflategate and "Selma" and "Serial" in the hour-long Bloggingheads show, here:
But I thought that reaction to the lack of a college degree was especially striking.
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We have a president with two college degrees. A. Lincoln did not have a grade school diploma.
Can you connect the two?
Here comes the Popping of the Higher Education Bubble?
Paullie "The Beard" Krugman has a Ph.D. and a big prize in Economics, and he could not and would not do what Scott Walker has done for Wisconsin.
Brother Dave Gardner, the late Southern stand-up comedian, once said that "a liberal is someone educated beyond his ability to understand".
Your colleagues are right to hate you.
mediamilwaukee.com/news/uw-system-face-300-million-budget-cut-changes-tenure-shared-governance
"That's ridiculous!" Not if he gains traction.
"Who cares?" Anyone to his left will, when the time comes.
Advocates of equality won't be able to resist condescending.
I had no idea that he was only one semester short.
Bob Wright doesn't care because he foolishly thinks Scott Walker doesn't have a chance at the nomination. If Scott Walker is the nominee he'll change his tune in a nanosecond.
Remember what happened to Sarah Palin? And she at least finished her degree.
As with Romney's religious affiliation with the Mormon Church, Walker's lack of a college degree will, at the margins, highly motivate some number of people to vote for him, and some number of people to vote against him.
My sense is that in both situations, you're talking about a net of less than 2% in either direction.
But I suspect there will actually be more people who'd view "no college degree" as a feature (not a bug) than viewed "Mormon Church" as a feature (not a bug). I'm not sure but what it's not a small plus for Walker -- especially in the GOP primaries, which aren't dominated by coastal credential snobs, but maybe in the general election as well.
I tried to look up how many credits short he is, and I've seen 17 or 19 and then also 34. So it might be a semester, but it might be two semesters.
What chance does Walker have when the economy of his state underperforms both the nation as a whole and similar neighboring states?
I can see the rationale for Perry, but what is the rationale for Walker?
Perry can say, 'I will make the country grow like Texas'. What can Walker say?
Kasich has a better case.
Really? No comment?
"The UW System could face a budget cut resulting in $300 million in lost revenue – although the number is still uncertain – as well as sweeping changes that might imperil the engrained traditions of shared governance and tenure."
Seems to me that if the "credential snobs" try to exploit this, there will be backlash.
A large number of us out here are tired of being ruled by Ivy League educated elites from both parties. We all know accomplished and intelligent people who never became credentialed. We are looking for someone who has done things...not talked about doing things. Walker is actually a pretty good candidate at this point. That being said...
Bolton/Ernst in 2016
I don't think the lack of a degree will matter that much as long as he doesn't come across as a dumbass in the debates. But it doesn't help either, since otherwise he is just a career politician with limited education and limited life experience outside state politics.
Seems to me that if the "credential snobs" try to exploit this, there will be backlash.
The Left's childlike faith in credentialism is touching and a bit sad.
How about you just say "I apologize to GWPDA"?
If I had a choice between a lap dance from a stripper with a college degree or one without, I am fine with either. Or the one with the better breasts: college-degree tits dripping in oil are no better than non-college-educated tits in the same oil, unless the tits are just better in a non-educational way.
I do not believe that a college degree makes one woman's breasts better than the other, and those who believe so are feathery elitists. And certainly not feminist. Either.
Now, in the Champagne Room: do I want the Real Lawyer, or the Jail-house Lawyer?
Extrapolate to the Presidency.
I am Laslo.
Next time the press asks Tom Brady why his balls are so soft he should use the Bob Dylan defense, "The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handle."
Brady's real concern is winning the Super Bowl. If the Pats lose again Brady will be 3-3 in Super Bowls. It will be close to a reverse Elway, who played in five, losing the first three and then winning the last two.
The Patriots, as a team, will be playing in a record tying 8th Super Bowl. They are 3-4. Pittsburgh is 6-2 and Dallas is 5-3.
Win or lose, Montana is a better QB than Brady and Bill Walsh is a better coach than Bellichick.
The Left's childlike faith in credentialism is touching and a bit sad.
I know! Just ask Antonin Scalia.
Does "he was one (or two) semester(s) shy of graduating" imply that this is all he'd need, now? Or do time limits require a certain amount of starting-over and trying to get as many of the classes on one's transcript to count for transferable credit? Do universities even accept credits that are several decades in the past?
Watergategate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB9JgxhXW5w
I agree strongly with AA about the potential for backlash. I've followed Walker closely, not only through this website, and at this point I favor him strongly.
Not having a college degree is a ***HUGE*** asset vetting-wise, nowadays. This way we're sure that no Lena Dunham will come forward and charge him with campus rape.
LOL @ Ann "I am not a Scott Walker partisan." Bullshit, come on now, it's OK to be a supporter, why deny the obvious?
He did well in Iowa they say but i think Walker is a very dark horse in this race. For one thing, the amount of money needed to run a serious campaign is staggering at that level and will be a tough nut for him. I am not saying it can't be done, i am saying it's going to be very tough.
Prejudice about his lack of a college degree is like racism, people with any sense won't say it out loud.
He hasn't gotten the full treatment from the national MSM yet.
I never anywhere have seen Walker's lack of a degree belabored to the extent it is on this blog. I have seen it mentioned; that's it.
Ann Althouse said...
Seems to me that if the "credential snobs" try to exploit this, there will be backlash.
1/26/15, 9:27 PM
True. The snobs forget that the job doesn't require credentials.
His win will be an avalanche if all voters who don't have a college degree vote for him.
bbkingfish said...
I never anywhere have seen Walker's lack of a degree belabored to the extent it is on this blog. I have seen it mentioned; that's it.
Althouse is trying, desperately, to turn a modest liability into an asset. The state's economy seems to be a much bigger liability for Walker.
Walker's primary credential appears to be that he is an unusually reliable culture warrior. This will be an asset in the primaries but a liability in the general election.
Perhaps we can find an online bookie to set up a bet on the odds of Walker's lack of credentials being used against him in a general election. I would be betting the "yes" line, no matter what the odds.
Such a shame Intrade was forced out of business.
Especially when gambling, like marijuana, is going mainstream nationwide.
I've half a mind to buy one of those dying casinos in Atlantic City and start an Intrade look-alike. But half a mind is not enough.
of course not having an education doesn't bother rank gopers...he just needs to do what the kochs tell him to do, right?
You are literally the only person I've ever seen bring that up.
When Scott Walker's name has come up (and there is no enthusiasm for the seemingly-annointed Hillary, so it does come up), I have never heard ANY PERSON mention this. And I am talking to doctors and PhDs and advanced degree holders.
You know why? Because our society is overloaded with advanced degree holders who are completely incompetent in the real world.
Further, the world has completely changed. Most of us have met individuals with BAs who are barely literate. A college degree doesn't mean much any more.
He has a masters degree.
Isn't that enough?
John Henry
MaxedOutMama said, "When Scott Walker's name has come up (and there is no enthusiasm for the seemingly-annointed Hillary, so it does come up), I have never heard ANY PERSON mention this. And I am talking to doctors and PhDs and advanced degree holders."
Candidates look good and pretty for a while until they threaten to actually win. Other candidates get stories about them and hold those stories until they can have maximum impact.
Walker has this weird thing, lacking a college degree. It looks cute, and maybe even like an asset, until, as we can see from above comments, Walker looks like a threatening candidate. Then "no college degree" will become a talking point, a way to disqualify him.
Leftists will try to kill Walker's candidacy based on his lack of a degree.
Consider Herman Cain. "The Pew Research Center reported that, of the Republican candidates, "Herman Cain was the most covered candidate in 2011".[23]"
Why? Because he's black and conservative, and successful, and a good speaker. They had to kill his candidacy with some woman who claimed Cain was pretty much a rapist.
That's what'll happen to Walker. Maybe some woman will crawl up to the podium.
What kind of human would run for high office in this world?
By the way, Robert Wright is exactly what I'm talking about. He says "it's no problem" and "who cares?". Let's see what he says if/when Walker looks like a potential POTUS candidate.
Walker is an unknown outside Wisconsin, which directs a first inquiry to be his credentials. Then many write him off without seeing what he can do with his BOLD approach to change.
Christy has made his authenticity a plus. Walker must match that with being Midwestern a plus. Who needs New Jersey ways unless you admire corruption as an art form.
Lack of an Ivy League degree means his campaign is probably stillborn. I don't say that as a "credential snob." I do say that the big-money donor class of people who bankroll campaigns in the critical early stages most certainly are. They don't give a damn about a candidates positions! He's a politician! Positions are irrelevant! What's most important is whether he is one of them! You know, an ILGOB; a member of the club. My money for my tribe. This is human nature.
Bob's claim "That's ridiculous!" and "Who cares?" may well be true, but it is also irrelevant to the question of how Walker will be attacked by the people Bob likes.
The people who will mercilessly attack Walker as a doofus may indeed not care that he didn't graduate from college.
Ann Althouse said...Seems to me that if the "credential snobs" try to exploit this, there will be backlash.
I certainly hope so, some liberal attacks go nowhere (like the attempt to make Rubio seem like a weirdo because he drank water on camera), but when it comes to being nasty, they are clever and relentless. I expect he will be portrayed as an inbred retard in overalls spitting tobacco juice for most of the campaign.
I think the combination of no degree, trying to remove degree credentials from teaching, and a $300 million cut to the University system is not what most people think will make us economically competitive in a global market.
Then again, the boomers have a lot of votes and are past giving a shit about the next generations so like in Wisconsin he might have a chance nationally.
If he can get the old people to cling onto their benefits at the expense of future generations he has a chance.
Walker's opponents won't be so obvious as to come out and say "he doesn't have a college degree, so he's an idiot!" as that will turn off the voters who themselves don't have degrees, or who do but hate elitism (and considering Democrats tend to dominate among the least educated, that would backfire). Instead, I'd expect the attacks to be more subtle--charges that he is "unserious" or that his programs are "poorly thought out" or "simplistic". They'll go at his intelligence, and leave it to the voters to connect the dots with his lack of college degree.
Remember, they were able to peddle this with Bush, despite Bush having a super-elite educational background. They'll try the same with Walker, unless he can establish his first impression with voters as witty and a bit wonkish.
"The people who will mercilessly attack Walker as a doofus may indeed not care that he didn't graduate from college."
I'm sure they don't care--this is all just politics. For them, the issue is that Walker is right wing, and therefore has the wrong ideas, and while that could be explained by a lack of education they would have the same problem with him if he were Phi Beta Crapper.
They will try to use the issue subtly, though, assuming it may matter to persuadable voters, or that it may buttress the attack they WILL go for, which is that he is unsophisticated, simplistic, or stupid. And I wouldn't be surprised if the first version of that attack comes at him from within his party during the primary, because with Republicans like that who needs the Democrats?
I'd say that Walker with no college degree is perceived by the elites in the same way the following were:
LBJ-some Texas teachers college
RMN-Whittier and Duke
Jimmy Carter-Annapolis
If it isn't an Ivy, it is the same as no college degree at all.
I'm pumped for, in the following order:
Rand
Scot
Kasich
I'm tired of the Ivy League running things.
"bbkingfish said...
I never anywhere have seen Walker's lack of a degree belabored to the extent it is on this blog. I have seen it mentioned; that's it."
Google "Walker No Degree" and you'll get 135,000 hits. WashPost, NYT, politifact, JS Online, HuffPo, Kos... No google Walker No Degree and one of the above Media outlets. You'll see multiple entries.
You are a reliable idiot.
"Walker's opponents... "
It seems to me that Walker's opponents are right here in this thread, telling you what their arguments will be: Wisconsin's economic performance has been lackluster to poor, his attacks on the public unions have had no real benefit, he's preparing to gut the state university system, and SECRET ROUTERS!!!!
The granting of credentials is a vast business in America, to the tune of several hundred billion dollars each year. The credential industry - colleges and universities - will fight tooth and nail to prevent someone without their credentials from becoming president. The Ivy League, granters of credentials for the new Mandarin class, is especially vulnerable.
The last four US presidents have all graduated with one or more Ivy League degrees, and yet none of them were as good a president as Ronald Reagan who graduated from tiny Eureka College, or for that matter, Harry Truman who was the last president without a college degree. I doubt that I'm the only person who is seeing an Ivy League degree as a negative when it comes to hiring (or electing) someone. There's too much a sense of entitlement and arrogance in them.
Somebody needs a friend.
Here.
28 years of Ivy League presidents. How'd that work out?
AReasonableMan said...
What chance does Walker have when the economy of his state underperforms both the nation as a whole and similar neighboring states?
Care to guess why?
Rusty said...
Care to guess why?
I'm asking not guessing. What is the rationale for Walker's candidacy other than ideological purity, which is both cheap and largely useless?
Palin doesn't lack for ideological purity.
I agree with those who say Walker's lack of a college degree is a wash. But, it looks like it was more than a semester, which would be 15 credits, as I recall from many years ago.
On the deflated footballs, I'm not much of a football fan but I've seen enough of it to ask the following question: since the ref retrieves the football after every play and sets it in position for the next play, if there was something illegal about the football, wouldn't the ref be obliged to call for another football? Just asking.
For perspective, from Wikipedia, since 1900, our presidents have had college and/or graduate degrees from:
T. Roosevelt: Harvard.
Taft: Yale/Cincinnati Law.
Wilson: Princeton/Johns Hopkins PhD.
Harding: Ohio Central College.
Coolidge: Amherst.
Hoover: Stanford.
F. Roosevelt: Harvard.
Truman: None.
Eisenhower: West Point.
Kennedy: Harvard.
Johnson: Southwest Texas State University.
Nixon: Whittier/Duke Law.
Ford: Michigan/Yale Law.
Carter: Annapolis.
Reagan: Eureka College.
Bush-41: Yale.
Clinton: Georgetown/Yale Law.
Bush-43: Yale/Harvard Biz.
Obama: Columbia/Harvard Law.
Truman, LBJ, and Reagan leap out from this list as having consequential presidencies despite their thin-to-bare degreed status.
Truman was an accidental president, unpopular during most of his one-and-three-quarter terms, who barely won an improbable reelection; by 1948 there were certainly more important things than Truman's college status for American voters to be focused upon, for he had a controversial record.
LBJ, according to biographers from Goodwin to Caro, suffered from lifelong insecurities associated with his education at a state teacher's college from tiny San Marcos, and it fed his paranoid reaction to, among other, the Kennedy clan and their cool credentialed kids, whom LBJ collectively labeled "the Harvards."
Reagan is, I think, the obvious example for Scott Walker to look to emulate. Reagan struck a nice balance between (1) respectful acknowledgement of and appreciation for academic degrees and credentials (see, e.g., selection of Bush-41 as his Veep) and (2) modesty about his own academic credentials (without apologizing for or belittling them). Then he'd deftly change the subject back to matters of substance.
But it remains to be seen whether Scott Walker, on a national stage, has communication skills in any respect comparable to Reagan's.
I'm sure his own campaign, and his primary opponents, and the Dems, are all focus-grouping the question even as we speak.
LBJ's alma mater was actually "Southwest Texas State Teacher's College" when he attended it, IIRC. It was changed to Southwest Texas State University later, and it's now Texas State University (although that's a subject of wide and continuing confusion even within Texas). But you won't find LBJ's presidential library there: It's at UT-Austin, next door to the law school and the football stadium. LBJ showered UT with praise and cooperation before, during, and after his presidency, and showed but little love to his own alma mater.
I hope Walker's not nursing that kind of grudge and insecurity, but I have no reason to suspect that he does.
Now that I'm pondering it, I'll offer one more comparison of Walker's situation now to Reagan's in 1980:
Jimmy Carter's campaign was premised on his "outsider status," his leadership of the "new Southern Democrats," his appeal beyond the coastal Democratic elites to traditional Democrats in the south. He ran as the peanut farmer from Plains. But he also ran as a "nuclear engineer" from the United State Navy's justly respected nuclear submarine service, headed by the legendary Adm. Hyman Rickover. And Carter picked up a fair number of Rickover's worst traits, including micromanaging. America watched, appalled and confused and increasingly dismayed, as their president could do nothing about the Iranian hostages, could do nothing about the Russians in Afghanistan, could do nothing about the Arab's oil embargo, but went instead on TV to talk about wearing sweaters and slogging through our national malaise. Jimmy Carter was the POTUS who thought his job included reviewing the weekly time assignments on the White House tennis courts.
Reagan campaigned, and won big, as the anti-Carter. He used his own strange set of credentials, academic and otherwise, to their best advantage. When people mocked him for only being a movie actor, he'd point out that he was also a labor leader as president of the Screen Actors Guild. He used his Eureka College background in about the same way Abraham Lincoln used his rail-splitting background, to illustrate a hard-earned but classically American hardship-to-success story.
So can Scott Walker do the same? Election results in Wisconsin suggest that he's able to win there, repeatedly, despite his lack of a college degree. So we'll see.
If I'm not mistaken,Harry Truman didn't have a degree either having withdrawn from Spalding's Commercial College in Kansas before completing it. I'm not sure how many credit short we was.
Will we hear from all the cons who fussed about BHO's GPA, and/or questioned if he deserved to be called a "professor?"
/sarcasm
PBJ,
Given that Walker is not trying to conceal the fact that he didn't finish college, nor trying to claim a job title he didn't hold... your sarcasm is totally misplaced.
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