Madden said:
Look, I mean, I think too much was made of that. I think one of the lessons that Scott Walker has to take on this will be the test of whether or not his candidacy is up to par. Is when you are -- when you're in Madison, Wisconsin, and you make a mistake nobody notices. When you are a potential presidential candidate everybody notices, the Democrats jump in, and three or four other campaigns that see to their advantage will seek to elevate that....LOL. We were laughing in Madison, Wisconsin, where for the last 5 years everyone has been jumping on every damned thing that could possibly be jumped on. The idea that Scott Walker has been hanging out in a cushy locale not really getting tested is beyond ludicrous. The national arena is certainly much larger, but I think, with the greater number and multiplicity of voices, it's easier to get through the process of explaining and contextualizing inept remarks.
In any case, it's ridiculous to say that nobody notices, unless Madden is himself making a politically inept remark and revealing that he thinks the people out here in the hinterlands are nobodies. Wisconsin people notice like hell. And anything — anything — that could be used against Scott Walker has been used. If you don't believe me, Google the phrase "kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb."
On "Face the Nation," Peggy Noonan was asked about Chris Christie, and she said:
One of the joy of politics, he's a natural campaigner. Can I point out Chris Christie has the opposite problem of Scott Walker. Scott Walker gets to say things in Wisconsin, the press doesn't notice. Chris Christie is across the river from Mark [Halperin of Bloomberg Politics]. He's across the river from the mainstream media. And they kill him every day.Mainstream media, such coasties.
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I don't think it's a matter of "they notice in NJ but not when it's far away in the midwest" so much as it's "they notice when there's presidential buzz around you." We don't get much news about Cuomo outside of New York or whoever is governor of Connecticut (I'd have to look that one up!) because neither has presidential buzz. Walker's getting noticed now, same as Christie has been since 2012.
Althouse: "...unless Madden is himself making a politically inept remark and revealing that he thinks the people out here in the hinterlands are nobodies."
Of course that's what he meant. And he really is echoing what many of even your conservative commenters are saying. Not ready for prime time.
I've met Walker three times. He's ready.
Far from the Madden crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
The easy false designation of Madison, Wisconsin be a politically conservative rural area is stunningly ignorant.
I guess being a coastie means never having to say you're sorry.
We in the middle NEED the coasts. They act as magnets for all of our sociopaths and jerks, so that we don't have to live with them and have them running our towns and ruining our lives.....
The rest of the country doesn't care about Wisconsin politics. From what little people do know of it, it's rancorous and mean spirited beyond what's in Washington today. Why anybody would want to import its central actor to make the Capitol even worse is beyond me.
From what I understand, he hasn't really materially improved employment or the economy in WI--he's just fought. And people who like him seem to like fighting for the sake of it.
nobody notices
The middle of the country is a bunch of nobodies to the folks on Face the Nation. And "The Press" only exists in NYC and LA. So glad that our betters can tell us low sloping forehead types what to think.
Non-coasty = "nobody." Sorry.
Walker dealt with opposition in WI, therefore he's ready for prime time? Umm, no. Sorry.
Non-nobodies will start to take a closer look now, including national GOP. Answers to Wallace (e.g., on immigration) suggest Walker has a ways to go.
He's got the wishful-thinking segment of the base; can he expand?
In any case, it's ridiculous to say that nobody notices, unless Madden is himself making a politically inept remark and revealing that he thinks the people out here in the hinterlands are nobodies.
Of course that's what he believes. That's the prevailing narrative for the so-called "media elites". We all know that the narrative is what matters. Everything that happens has to be examined and explained in terms of the all-powerful narrative, which of course sees everything from the left.
Peggy Noonan makes up for a bit it in this blog post about Walker's remark re Reagan's handling of the striking air traffic controllers -- that it had significant foreign policy consequences. Apparently the Club for Growth didn't see the connection. Maybe they'll see it now.
http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2015/02/28/walker-reagan-and-patco/?KEYWORDS=peggy+noonan+and+Scott+walker
Troubled Voter = profile not available.
Funny how that always works out.
Coastal media are already doing the job WI journalists failed to do:
"Scott Walker chopped down a cherry tree and NOBODY NOTICED."
@EMD...what's supposed to be in a profile I would have? What bearing does a blogger profile have?
...unless Madden is himself making a politically inept remark
Nailed it. He's a 'Republican strategist', those strategists have a record of losing, and not just losing, but stumbling around in a clueless daze before falling on their face. Walker's biggest problem is going to be the incompetence of Republican strategists.
Madden was one of the Top Men on the Romney campaign so I wouldn't place much stock in what he thinks.
Google the phrase "kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb."
52 actual results. Is that a lot?
Strangely this neophyte Walker has sucked all the Media oxygen out of the room. He gets himself the limelight of another Hit Headline or two every day, to be followed by several days of analysts admitting the headlines were BS and the stories were nothing burgers.
Christie is quite literally a bigger target than Walker. It is far easier for the Daily Show writers to make fun of obesity rather than baldness.
"Troubled Voter said...
The rest of the country doesn't care about Wisconsin politics. From what little people do know of it, it's rancorous and mean spirited beyond what's in Washington today. Why anybody would want to import its central actor to make the Capitol even worse is beyond me.
From what I understand, he hasn't really materially improved employment or the economy in WI--he's just fought. And people who like him seem to like fighting for the sake of it."
So much stupid in so little words. Wow.
Coastism, especially Manhattanism, dominates the mainstream media, including even Fox News.
@curious George. Please expand on that. Thanks.
Dear Troubled Voter,
You are a Moby or a concern troll or something. Please go away.
Manhattanism is overly broad. One must deignate upper West side ism or Upper East side ism or, God forbid, Greenwich Village ism with a Brooklyn gentrification.
deja vu all over again:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/amandacarpenter/2008/10/28/romney_supporters_trashing_palin
Note: If you respond to a commenter that I have to delete, I have to delete you too. Sorry.
Email me if you don't understand.
The acumen of Republican political strategists can be understood by reviewing the McCain and Romney campaigns - both disastrous.
As for Noonan, she voted for Obama.
It's probably accurate to say that Walker is not widely known by the average citizen outside the Midwest.
It's not accurate to say that the national media or national Democrats are tougher than what Walker has faced so far. They are not. They are petty and weak.
You need to add a 'coasties' tag. I think it would get a lot of use in the next two year.
I love being a coastie. Such a superior feeling.
tits.
Is there a way to buy an Honorary Coastie title...like the rich Americans bought aristocrats titles in the late 1800s. Eldridge Gerry could figure that out.
Molotov!
Contrast today's Milbank column about Jeb Bush with his Walker column of last week:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jeb-bush-cpac-pinata/2015/02/27/69eb764c-bec5-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html?wprss=rss_dana-milbank
One of the things that makes Milbank a hack, rather than just an editorial writer with whom I disagree, is that he writes in bad faith. He highlights the extreme elements of the GOP (as he sees them), but he will never characterize the Democrats using the more extreme elements of their party.
So where does "coastie" begin and end? I mean, obviously it begins at the ocean's edge, but how far inland does it go? New Orleans is closer to the coast of the Gulf than D.C. (as is Houston, I think?) and "coastie" attitudes probably predominate in Chicago. Philadelphia is probably "coastie" but Pittsburgh may be too far inland.
If "coastie" is a cultural thing, rather than purely geographical, then we have to include some genuinely inland places (Madison, Ann Arbor, Minneapolis) and exclude some that are coastal or near-coastal (Pensacola, Mobile, Jacksonville).
Was Mitt Romney a "coastie" and if so, was it because of his residence in Massachusetts, or his being born a Romney? Besides Jeb Bush and Christie, which other candidates are "coasties"?
"One of the things that makes Milbank a hack, rather than just an editorial writer with whom I disagree, is that he writes in bad faith. He highlights the extreme elements of the GOP (as he sees them), but he will never characterize the Democrats using the more extreme elements of their party."
This is because the Left (both extreme left and mid-left) think the GOP mainstream is far more deferential to the GOP extreme than the Democratic mainstream is to its own extreme. They'll point out that GOP leaders are afraid to criticize Rush Limbaugh (for example, Michael Steele's walkback in 2009, and Romney's tepid response after the Fluke dustup). When conservatives point to incendiary figures of the Left, like Ed Shultz or Bill Maher, liberals point out that no one knows who those people are.
There is a double standard there, though. Some of Biden or Wasserman-Shultz's comments get minor play in the media, while a Republican saying something similarly stupid or offensive gets a big news cycle devoted to it (with numerous questions for other Republicans to rebut the comment).
Traditional guy wrote:
"The easy false designation of Madison, Wisconsin be a politically conservative rural area is stunningly ignorant"
I've seen Austin, TX, characterized the same way.
Brando wrote:
"This is because the Left (both extreme left and mid-left) think the GOP mainstream is far more deferential to the GOP extreme than the Democratic mainstream is to its own extreme."
This is where the bad faith comes in, Brando. I assume Milbank knows that the extreme left of the Democrat party is largely made up of people who call themselves "community organizers", and that the Democrat party has selected a "community organizer" for president. Twice. Obama is much further to the left than either of the Bush presidents, McCain, or Romney is to the right.
At this stage, the candidates are fighting for position at the feeding troughs of the big donors.
If Walker keeps tripping over his tongue, he eventually will have to convince the GOP money men that what appears to be hopeless stupidity actually is brilliant strategy.
That will be a tough sell, and folks inclined to support Walker may start looking for another prospect to carry the Conservative banner.
Perhaps they can find a promising high school dropout, with an even simpler worldview than Walker's, and even simpler, easier-to-digest prescriptions for what ails us. Maybe they can find someone who has been able to evade the influence of all human knowledge, and can satisfy the standards of even the basest of the Republican base. Anything but another Bush.
An example of the provincialism of the NY/DC/LA chattering classes. They didn't know anybody who voted for Nixon, or Reagan, and probably Walker in 2016.
Media elitists pissing on "flyover country" while exposing themselves as ignorant bigots.
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