Governor Walker asks what's your favorite Christmas movie?

What’s your favorite movie to watch over the holidays? pic.twitter.com/4YJKRudmHY

— Governor Walker (@GovWalker) December 19, 2017

(I'm just a longtime fan of the charming blandness of Scott Walker tweets. No political message intended.)

Donald Trump, Scott Walker, and the notion of gutting a woman.

I was surprised to see:

Donald Trump and his allies have escalated a feud with Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly, with top deputy Michael Cohen retweeting a tweet from an account named “surfersfortrump” that said, “#boycottmegynkelly @realDonaldTrump we can gut her.”

Those of us who have been following Scott Walker are very familiar with his frequent citation of one of the threats he received during the Wisconsin protests, directed at his wife Tonette, saying he wanted to "gut her like a deer."

WaPo has a long article on Scott Walker's wife Tonette.

The tin-eared headline is: "Scott Walker’s wife, toughened by life, adds steel to candidate’s spine." I'll live-blog my reading of this article and see what WaPo is up to. It begins:

Tonette Tarantino’s year of sorrow came when she was only 30. First she lost the grandmother who helped raise her, like a second mother. Weeks later her brother, her only sibling, died of bone cancer. Then her husband died of kidney failure....

“My mom was tough. She didn’t give you a break,” Tonette Walker said in an interview at the Camp Bar, a neighborhood hangout here [in Wauwatosa]. “Days after my first husband died, my mom said, ‘Get up, get moving, you are not going to wallow in this. You’re going to be great, you are going to be fine. Life is going to go on.’ ”

A completely sympathetic beginning primes the reader for the really surprising thing about Tonette (if you don't know it already):

Tonette, who at 59 is a dozen years older than her husband....

The Twitter stylings of Scott Walker.

Back to 2 ham & cheese sandwiches in a brown bag for lunch. pic.twitter.com/PrpVnSmp2x
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) February 16, 2015

Late lunch at @Culvers. Mmmmmmm! pic.twitter.com/AruG05iBoc
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) February 15, 2015

Tonette and I are back at the family home. I'm cleaning the bathrooms & she is cleaning the kitchen. How romantic...😄 pic.twitter.com/QcHsQnvrbL
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) February 14, 2015

Late dinner but worth it-we're cooking up Sicilian steaks & pasta! This was one of Tonette's dad's favorite meals. pic.twitter.com/vb8bjl4WO1
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) February 8, 2015

Happy Anniversary to my lovely bride Tonette (2/6/1993) pic.twitter.com/uSySSzZ6Fm
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) February 6, 2015

Another ham & cheese brown bag lunch: pic.twitter.com/tNCaMhksCZ
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) February 5, 2015

Live-blogging the Wisconsin gubernatorial debate between Mary Burke and Scott Walker.

It starts at 7 Central Time, and I'll be updating this post, with my own commentary. Tonight, I'm going to concentrate on things other than the actual substantive argument, which will be in the transcript. I'm going to watch and listen and see what I can make of the candidates' demeanor. You can watch along with me here.

7:06: Mary Burke goes first with her opening statement, sounding a bit tense, and glancing down at her notes, perhaps out of nervousness.

7:07: Walker begins by thanking everyone for being here tonight, and he acknowledges his opponent, Mary Burke, and all the people of Eau Claire, where it's great to be back. Burke omitted such pleasantries. "It's particularly nice to have my wife, Tonette." Oh! Mary had nothing like that.

7:09: The first question is about the Supreme Court's vacating the 7th Circuit's stay of the injunction against the Wisconsin voter ID law. Burke earnestly emphasizes the importance of everyone getting to vote. Walker thinks the voter ID law is "common sense" and it will be upheld ultimately in the court. He says he doesn't care how many instances of fraud there might be, because who among us would want OUR vote cancelled out by somebody else? Rebutting, Burke calls it "shocking" that "the Governor" doesn't even care about the amount of fraud, yet he'd put these "roadblocks" in front of people. Burke is coming alive in rebuttal here. She listened to what Walker said and reacted with good spontaneity.

7:12: Walker comes back with an assertion that the Milwaukee police have found multiple instances of fraud.

7:14: The second question is about jobs. What's something new they'd do? Walker has nothing new to say he'd do. He wants to keep doing what he's been doing, touts that, and says we don't want to go "backwards," which is what we'd be doing with Burke. Burke has one thing: "actually reduce the cost of college."

7:18: Minimum wage. Burke thinks the $7-something minimum wage is "ridiculous." Walker ignores the question of what the minimum wage should be and talks about getting people into jobs that pay 2 or 3 times the minimum wage. They pursue Walker over his failure to say whether the minimum wage should be raised, and without exactly saying "no," he says "no." The minimum wage is fine for really young people working at McDonald's, as he did. Then they go back to Burke for rebuttal, and she looks surprised. "I had actually already rebuttalled [sic] to the minimum wage."

7:24: Abortion. Walker reaffirms that he's pro-life, but emits some feelings about the difficult decisions women go through, cites the Supreme Court's resolution of the question, and stresses that his efforts are about ensuring the woman's "health and safety." Burke, with some passion in her voice, accuses Walker of taking away a woman's right to choose.

7:27: Will you serve your full term? Burke sure will! Walker says it's his "plan" to serve for 4 years. On rebuttal, Burke doesn't take the obvious opening and talk about whether Walker might run for President. He "plans" but will he "promise"? She could have pinned him down there! She chooses instead to emphasize how excited she is to serve and even says she wants to be Wisconsin's longest serving governor. Walker, laughing, says his wife doesn't want him to serve that long. Why did Burke do that? I suspect she feels some people think she's not that serious and is just a placeholder for the Democrats.

7:29: An intense interchange about Obamacare.  Burke tells us that as a businessperson, she knows to take that money from the federal government. Walker thinks it's not a good "bet."

7:34: Repeal Act 10?  I don't know if Burke gave a straight answer here, but she's struggling to deflect the accusation that she's a puppet of the unions. Both candidates drift into anecdotes, but certainly Walker is clear that Act 10 was the right thing to do.

7:39: Fracking? Burke is not going to be "selling out to the special interests." Walker thinks ""God and the glaciers gave us a great opportunity to build the economy.

7:47: An invitation to say something nice about your opponent. Walker appreciates Burke's philanthropy. Burke begins with a long "uh" and a shake of the head. She likes what he's done "in the community" and "around domestic abuse."

7:48: Oh! We're up to closing statements! Yay! Walker enthuses about all the good things that have been happening. He still drives his 1998 Saturn and eats lunch from a brown bag. "And I still love the people of the state of Wisconsin." Some of us might not agree with everything he's done, but he hopes we can see that his "motives are pure." Burke tells us how bad things are. There is no "comeback," and if only we'd "kept pace with the rest of the country," we'd be way better off. She doesn't care about whether "ideas are Democratic or Republican ideas, just whether they're gonna get the job done." And she's going to change the "tone" and "the system." Unlike Walker, she has to glance down at her notes.

8:24: Well, I guess I didn't do a good job of describing how the candidates looked and acted. But to tell you the truth, those two look and sound the same all the time. They're both offering to work hard and they aren't particularly charismatic or quirky. Neither of them said a single thing that was funny or weird or cute. 

"Scott Walker's son acted as witness in gay marriage."

Daniel Bice reports.

Laurel Patrick, a spokeswoman for the governor, confirmed Thursday that Walker's son was present for the event for the lesbian couple.... "Shelli Marquardt is the first lady's cousin," Patrick said in a statement. "She is a part of the Walker family who they dearly love."... Patrick did not say whether the governor or first lady attended the same-sex wedding last month. Alex Walker did not respond to emails on Thursday.

"Just heard the fabulous news from tonette," one relative recently wrote on Facebook... "We are thrilled for you both. Congrats and much love from the Tarantino Gang in Az.!!" Tarantino is the first lady's maiden name....

ADDED: This post is just another post in my year-plus effort to convey the message to you old-not-young conservatives: It's over.

IN THE COMMENTS: TCom, talking about me, says "As a gay man, I find her pompous stance on this issue to be more than a little annoying," and I say: "LOL. What a concept. Of course, I'm committed to the opposite" with a link to this, from over a year ago:

[EMBEDDED VIDEO REMOVED]

Rush Limbaugh on Scott Walker: "There was not a linguini in his spine at all."

"There was not one speck of cowardice.  He was committed to it.  It illustrates, it shows that it can be done, and in a Democrat stronghold it can be done.  They tried twice.  You're right.  They tried twice to get him out of office simply because he was there.  They concocted crimes.  They lied about things that he was supposedly doing.  They created allegation after allegation after allegation. They tried stymieing him legislatively by leaving the state.  They tried everything."

They tried everything. They tried leaving the state. 

Going to Illinois as the ultimate tactic. How ridiculous that sounds at this remove.

Rush was talking to some guy from Wisconsin who wanted to know how to defeat the Democrats, and Rush had wheeled out one of his most basic principles, which is that conservatives win when they talk about ideas. If only the political discourse could be, quite straightforwardly, about the actual substance of the political ideas, the conservatives would win. A corollary is: The Democrats — and their big media supporters — know they'd lose the battle of ideas, so they do whatever they can to distract us whenever they can. They try everything.

"Wow, is it cold out. The deer must think the same thing, as I haven't seen a thing."

Scott Walker goes deer hunting.

ADDED: Walker on Fox News, more or less running for President:



ALSO: From Walker's book "Unintimidated":

We soon began to get a steady stream of death threats. Most of these Dave and his team intercepted, and kept from Tonette and me. They were often graphic (one threatened to “gut her like a deer”) but for the most part they amounted to little more than angry venting.

"The way Republicans can win those in the middle is not by abandoning their principles. To the contrary..."

"... the courage to stand on principle is what these voters respect. The way to win the center is to lead." Writes Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

Republicans need to do more than simply say no to Mr. Obama and his party's big-government agenda. They can offer Americans positive solutions for the nation's challenges—to reduce dependency, and create hope, opportunity, and upward mobility for all citizens. They need to make not just the economic case for conservative reforms but the moral case as well—showing how conservative policies and ideas will make America not only a more prosperous society but a more just and fair one as well.

Is Scott Walker's "fixation" on Reagan "creepy"?

The Capital Times writer Paul Fanlund says so, as he identifies "3 Themes" in Scott Walker's just-published book "Unintimidated." The other 2 themes are "He throws even his allies under the bus" and "His egocentricity is just bizarre." This is the Cap Times, appealing its readership of Madison liberals who've been hating Walker for the last 3 years and have been hating Reagan even longer.

On the Reagan "fixation," there's Walker's annual Reagan birthday party (which is also the anniversary of his wedding to his wife Tonette). Here's how Walker describes the party in 2011, which was just before the big Wisconsin protests began.

[On] Saturday, February 12, Tonette and I hosted a dinner at the Executive Residence to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday. (I had been in Dallas to see the Packers win the Super Bowl on the sixth, his actual birthday, so we postponed the celebration by a week.) 

Meade and I were reading the book out loud together last night, and at that parenthetical, I said: "Oh, yeah, the protests blotted out all the great afterglow feeling we were having over winning the Super Bowl." That was sad!

Tonette and I host a dinner each year on Reagan’s birthday. We serve his favorite foods— macaroni and cheese casserole, and red, white, and blue Jelly Belly jelly beans— and have musicians perform patriotic songs and Irish music. 

Aw, come on. That's creepy?! That's incredibly sweet. Who gives a party and serves mac-and-cheese and jelly beans? It's beyond unpretentious, and it's just charming and nice. Why shouldn't Republicans celebrate Ronald Reagan, their modern-day icon? And I give Walker credit for putting the celebration on February 6th (or 12th) instead of March 30th (in the style of the Democrats, with their icon JFK (see Rule #8, here)).

It is a wonderful evening, and serves as a reminder for me each year to be hopeful and optimistic just like Ronald Reagan. It happens to be a dual celebration because President Reagan’s birthday is also our wedding anniversary. Tonette jokes that I never forget our wedding anniversary because it is Reagan’s birthday.

Well, isn't that a really low-key and generous way to make your anniversary something that's fun for other people you know? But for Fanlund, that's part of a creepiness profile.

Hey, Fanlund, ever consider whether you're creepy? Maybe Walker seems creepy to you because deep down you know the way you look at him is creepy.