Unintimidated

by Scott Walker

  But before the stickers could come off, we still had one more election to go: the race for president of the United States of America.

  CHAPTER 23

  Misreading the Message of Wisconsin

  We did our best to help Mitt Romney in Wisconsin. After the recall, instead of shutting down the victory centers we had set up across the state, we turned them into Romney victory centers. Our staff and volunteers transitioned seamlessly from the recall election to the general election—giving Romney a built-in infrastructure in the state that would not have been there had it not been for the recall. Instead of being burned out from the long fight, our folks were energized by our victory and ready to help Romney repeat it.

  In the end it was not to be. President Obama won Wisconsin by almost exactly the same percentage of the vote I had won in the recall.

  Romney deserved a lot of credit for picking Paul Ryan as his running mate. Paul is one of the smartest and most courageous people I know in politics. He is also one of the most decent people I know in or out of politics. I was overwhelmed with pride when Paul spoke at the national convention. The national media made a big deal about seeing a tear go down my face during his speech, but I grew up about fifteen miles down the road from Paul and have known him for years. As kids in high school, we had similar starts. We both worked at McDonald’s flipping hamburgers in the back. Paul was told by his manager the reason he had to flip hamburgers in the back was because he didn’t have the interpersonal skills to work the front cash register. Now here he was addressing the nation as the Republican vice presidential nominee. When Paul spoke that night, it was like seeing a member of the family on the stage, both for me and for Tonette.

  We love people like Paul Ryan in Wisconsin because he has the courage to tackle big issues. Paul is exactly the kind of bold reformer America needed on the ticket. Unfortunately, Mitt Romney never made the case for himself as a bold reformer. To the contrary, he distanced himself from Paul’s reforms. Instead of showing Americans that the “R” next to his name stood for “reformer,” Romney let the Obama campaign convince Americans it stood for “rich” and out of touch.

  Mitt Romney is a decent and compassionate man—the kind of person who sits by the bedside of a young boy dying of cancer and helps him write his last will and testament so he can leave his treasured possessions to his friends. Which is why it was so frustrating that Romney allowed himself to be portrayed as a defender of the rich and powerful instead of a champion of the poor and vulnerable. An April 2012 Economist/YouGov poll tells the story: Only 35 percent of Americans said they believed that Romney cared about the poor, and just 38 percent said Romney “cares about people like me.”1

  You can’t win the presidency when nearly two thirds of the country thinks you don’t care about their struggles.

  I knew Romney was in trouble two days after I won my recall election when he seized upon our victory to make his case against Barack Obama. The president “says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers,” Romney declared. “Did he not get the message of Wisconsin?”2

  Unfortunately, it was Romney who did not get the message of Wisconsin. In one of my first campaign ads for the recall, I had looked into the camera and said: “We saved the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and kept thousands of teachers, firefighters, and police officers on the job.” In another, I declared, “Because public employees now contribute to their health and pension benefits, we’re able to put more money back into the classroom . . . and keep thousands of police officers, firefighters, and teachers on the job.”

  Our reforms had protected the jobs of firemen, policemen, and teachers. We had avoided the mass layoffs of public workers that local communities were facing in other states across America. We had strengthened local government and improved public services.

  The message of Wisconsin was not that the American people want fewer teachers, or police, or firefighters. The message of Wisconsin was that Americans want leadership. And in times of crisis, they don’t care if it is Democratic leadership or Republican leadership—they will stand with those who offer bold ideas and have the courage to take on the tough issues.

  But instead of offering a big, positive vision for the future, Romney was working to make the campaign a referendum on President Obama. His campaign was trying to model itself on the 1980 Reagan campaign, and the devastating question Reagan asked Americans at the end of his debate with President Carter, just days before the election: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

  The problem was, the Romney team got the 1980 Reagan campaign all wrong. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” was Reagan’s closing argument, not his entire argument. Reagan did not make the election simply a referendum on Jimmy Carter. He also explained why voters would be better off in four years’ time under his leadership. He put forward a positive, hopeful vision of a different future for America—an optimistic vision that attracted not only diehard Republicans but independents and “Reagan Democrats” as well. Reagan didn’t just say what he was against; he said what he was for.

  I firmly believe that elections are about the future and not just about the past. Reagan’s election was about the future. Sure, he delivered many memorable quips that stung President Carter. (My favorite: “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”) But the central message of his campaign was a promise to unleash what he called “the greatness of our people, our capacity for dreaming up fantastic deeds and bringing them off to the surprise of an unbelieving world.” Reagan often quoted Thomas Paine’s famous declaration that in America, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” and always added, “We still have that power.”

  Unlike Romney, Reagan connected with the daily struggles of ordinary Americans. In announcing his candidacy, he shared the story of “a Christmas Eve when my brother and I and our parents exchanged modest gifts—there was no lighted tree as there had been on Christmases past. I remember watching my father open what he thought was a greeting from his employer. We all watched and yes, we were hoping for a bonus check. It was notice that he no longer had a job. . . . I’ll carry with me always the memory of my father sitting there holding that envelope, unable to look at us. I cannot and will not stand by while inflation and joblessness destroy the dignity of our people.”3

  Reagan did not dismiss 47 percent of the country as a bunch of moochers. Quite the opposite: At the Republican convention in Detroit he appealed to those who wanted nothing more than to get off government assistance and find work. He promised that “for those without skills, we’ll find a way to help them get skills. For those without job opportunities, we’ll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live. For those who have abandoned hope, we’ll restore hope and we’ll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again.”

  “We have to move ahead,” Reagan said, “but we’re not going to leave anyone behind.”4

  That is the Reagan message Romney should have emulated.

  Today, in the midst of the worst recovery since the Great Depression, there are millions of Americans who are dependent on the government, but who do not want to be dependent on government. Instead of scolding them, Romney should have championed them. Instead of saying he could “never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” Romney should have offered a bold vision for how he would help them become independent again through the dignity of work. Instead of trying to convince them that Barack Obama was responsible for their plight, he should have laid out a vision for how he would help improve their circumstances.

  Ronald Reagan would never have said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”5 Romney later said his comments were taken out of context, but the context actually made them worse. Romney had gone on to say, “We have a very amp
le safety net, and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.”6

  That was the wrong message for the 2.6 million Americans who had slipped beneath the poverty line in 2010–11, and the millions more who feared they were just a couple of paychecks away from falling under that line themselves. They were not looking for Mitt Romney to strengthen the safety net; they wanted to hear how he was going to help them escape the safety net. They were desperate to find good jobs, get off government assistance, and work their way out of poverty and up into the middle class. Romney never offered a hopeful and optimistic vision of how he would help them get there. Instead of consigning them to the permanent welfare state, he should have explained how he would help the poor not be poor anymore.

  Ronald Reagan would never have uttered the words “self-deportation.” To the contrary, during his 1980 campaign Reagan declared: “Can we doubt that only a Divine Providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely?”7 My sister-in-law’s mother and grandmother came from Mexico a generation ago. They’ve been in America for more than a quarter century. When Romney talked about “self-deportation,” what they heard—even though they’re here legally—was that Romney wants people like us to leave. Little wonder that Romney lost the Hispanic vote to President Obama 71 to 27 percent.

  When he left the White House after two incredible terms, Reagan used his farewell address from the Oval Office to finally describe for the first time what he saw when he talked about America as a “shining city on a hill”:

  In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.8

  That is the Reagan message Romney should have emulated.

  To win in Wisconsin, and nationally for that matter, Romney needed to do more than criticize President Obama’s record; he needed to offer a hopeful and optimistic vision of his own for America. He needed to explain where he wanted to lead the country—and lay out a clear, bold plan to take on both the economic and fiscal crisis our nation faces. Not a fifty-nine-point plan, mind you. Three or four big ideas that people could understand and relate to—a plan that persuadable voters in battleground states could look at and say to themselves, “If I elect Mitt Romney, here’s what he’s going to do to make my life better.” Unfortunately, Romney never did that.

  At one point, I decided to bypass the handlers and send Mitt an e-mail. In the first draft, I poured out all my frustrations. Tonette took one look at it and said, “Scott, he’s never going to read that. You wouldn’t read that if someone sent it to you.” She was right. It was just a litany of complaints.

  So I reworded it. I began by telling him that, knowing how tough my recall election had been, I could only imagine how challenging a national campaign must be for him and his family. I thanked him for running. I promised him our prayers. And then I offered some unsolicited advice:

  Voters want a fighter. They want to know that you are going to fight for them.

  They also need to know that you have a plan to fix the economy. The great news is that you do. The bad news is that most people don’t know about it.

  I know you get a thousand suggestions on how to campaign, but here are three:

  1) Repeat your plan over and over and over again. Build the schedule around the plan. . . . The national media may sour on covering it each day, but local media is more important and they will cover it.

  2) Give out more details. Talk about your jobs plan but also talk about a plan to balance the budget. Explain how that is connected to restoring confidence in our economy. Voters are starving for leadership. You are a leader—show it on the campaign trail.

  3) Most importantly, show more passion. You are a super manager but voters also want to know that you are a fighter—for them and their family.

  Grab the mike and get out from behind a podium and talk directly to voters. Use real examples of people who would benefit from your plan. Have them join you on the trail. Connect to them like you did to the Olympic athletes. You have real passion. Let the voters see it.

  You can win this election! We are behind you! We desperately need you to win!

  Scott

  I never got a response. Toward the end, Romney did start talking more about his plans, but by then it was too little, too late. And when the 47 percent comment surfaced, it washed away whatever progress he had made.

  The Obama campaign skillfully, and brutally, exploited Romney’s disconnect with the majority of Americans while effectively making the case that the president was moving the country forward.

  President Obama and I could not be philosophically further apart, and I deplore the kind of character assassination that the Obama camp used against Mitt Romney. Moreover, the president ran away from his record; I ran on my record.

  But in some other respects, President Obama and I ran similar campaigns. We even had the same slogan: “Forward.” (Some asked why we copied the Obama-Biden campaign, but the fact is we had it first. “Forward” is the Wisconsin state motto.)

  My fundamental message in the recall election was: We want to keep moving Wisconsin forward, not backward. We inherited a fiscal and economic mess, made tough decisions, and got Wisconsin moving in the right direction. We are turning things around, but we still have plenty to do. We need more time to finish the job.

  President Obama made essentially the same argument for his reelection.

  By contrast, my opponent in the recall, Mayor Tom Barrett, tried to make the election a referendum on me. He never offered a positive vision for his candidacy. His entire message was “Dump Scott Walker”—just as Mitt Romney’s entire message in the fall campaign was “Dump Barack Obama.”

  In other words, President Obama won by using the same successful message we employed in the recall election, while Mitt Romney lost by emulating the failed message of Mayor Barrett.

  To make matters worse, while I had just won an election by telling voters in Wisconsin that we had turned a corner thanks to our policies, Romney came to Wisconsin on the heels of our victory with exactly the opposite message. Instead of embracing our success, he was telling voters in Wisconsin that the state was a mess and headed in the wrong direction. People said to themselves: “Wait, I just voted for Walker because things were getting better. Now Romney says it’s getting worse?”

  Romney should have used the success of Republican governors as a tool against President Obama. He could have said: If you want proof that Obama’s approach is failing while Republican ideas are succeeding, just look at the states. In states where our ideas are being tried, we see balanced budgets, jobs being created, and economies that are finally turning a corner. In states where the Obama approach is being tried, we see higher taxes, higher debt, and higher unemployment. Do we want America to be more like California, or do we want to be more like Indiana? Do we want our federal government to emulate the failed policies of Illinois, or the successful policies of Wisconsin?

  Unfortunately, Romney never did this. It was a huge lost opportunity. Instead of using the success of Republican chief executives to show why we needed a Republican chief executive in the White House, he campaigned in Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (key swing states with Republican governors) by telling voters how bad things were. He was so focused on explaining why President Obama should be fired, but never explained why he should be hired.

  If he had shown voters he had a bold, reform agenda and a positive, optimistic plan for America, it would have b
een appealing not only to Republicans but also Democrats and independents who might have said: “I’m not a Republican, but things aren’t going so well in America. He’s got a plan, he’s committed to it, and he seems to have the courage to act on it. Why don’t we give him a shot?”

  That’s what Reagan did but Romney failed to do.

  Just as the Romney campaign misread the reasons for the success of Reagan’s campaign, today many in Washington are misreading the reasons for the failure of the Romney campaign. They argue that the lesson of 2012 is that Romney tacked too far to the right, and that Republicans have to “moderate” their views if they want to appeal to a country that is increasingly moving center-left.

  With all due respect, that’s just baloney. Our principles are not the problem. If our principles were the problem, then why are so many Republican governors winning elections by campaigning on those very principles? Since Barack Obama took office, the GOP has gone from controlling both the legislature and governor’s mansion in just eight states to twenty-three states today. Not one GOP governor has lost a general election since 2007.

  We did not win all those races by running from our principles. We won by applying our principles in ways that are relevant to the lives of our citizens.

  And besides, which principles are we supposed to abandon? Our belief that the private sector, not government, creates jobs? Our belief that smaller government is better government? Our belief that you should not spend more money than you have—and that it is immoral to saddle our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars in debt they will never be able to pay? Our belief that government dependency saps our economic strength and denies people the dignity and happiness that can only come from earned success? Our belief that higher taxes inhibit economic growth and destroy jobs, while lower taxes and less regulation are the best way to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of our country?