Unintimidated

by Scott Walker

  OWN UP TO YOUR MISTAKES

  Another important lesson is that when you screw up, own up to it. When I took that prank call from the fake David Koch, it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I went out before the press and took my beating. I learned from the experience—to be more humble and to make certain I was doing things for the right reasons.

  Because I owned up to what I had done, it was harder for our critics to continue exploiting the story and easier for us to move past it. Today, too many political leaders are hesitant to admit mistakes—and that often gives their mistakes a much longer shelf life than they deserve.

  At the same time, never apologize for doing the right thing. Some of my advisers wanted me to apologize to the state for the unrest over Act 10. That would have been a terrible mistake. Reforming collective bargaining was the right thing to do. Moreover, we never responded in kind to the provocations of the protesters, or did anything to bring dishonor to our state. Apologizing would have done nothing to win over those who were angry with me. And it would have dispirited those who stood with me—folks who supported me precisely because we stood on principle.

  While I did not apologize, I did acknowledge a critical error I made, which was not properly preparing the people of Wisconsin for our reforms. I was so eager to fix the problems we faced, I did not do enough to explain to people what they were or why our solutions were the right course. I’ve learned from that experience and applied those lessons when announcing subsequent reforms.

  NEVER STOP REFORMING

  We didn’t stop reforming once we passed Act 10 and defended it at the ballot box. We expanded our education reforms and turned immediately to the next big idea: entitlement reform. And once we have reformed entitlements, we will turn to the next big reform, and the next one. We are following the advice Mitch Daniels gave me before I took office: Never stop reforming. Never stop innovating. When you set the pace of reform, voters will see you as someone who is constantly trying to make things better. And your opponents will be forced to respond to your agenda rather than setting one for you.

  Plus, it’s fun. I enjoy finding creative solutions to difficult challenges.

  BE RELEVANT

  The people I speak with in Wisconsin are not talking about who will blink first in the latest budget standoff in Washington. They want to know: Will my neighbor down the block who’s been out of a job for six months be able to find work? Will I be able to support my family and save enough for retirement and to send my kids to a good college? Will my kids’ school perform well enough to help them get into college in the first place? And when my son or daughter graduates, will he or she be able to find a job in our state and be able to stay here, or will he or she have to move away?

  Those are the questions that are relevant to our citizens. Republican governors are succeeding because we are focused on answering those questions.

  Republicans nationally need to be focused on those kinds of questions as well. We need to talk about things that are relevant to people’s lives, such as: Are our children going to be able to afford the debt being passed on to them by the federal government? And how can we improve the economy so that our citizens may find better job prospects and enjoy a better quality of life? “Sequesters,” “fiscal cliffs,” and “debt limits” are not relevant to people’s lives; growth, opportunity, and upward mobility are.

  Part of being relevant means going to places where Republicans don’t typically show up. When I was a local official, I did very well in areas that were dominated by Hispanic voters. The reason: I was a strong advocate for small businesses and for school choice. Voters in those neighborhoods knew me because I helped small-business owners grow and because I championed the Catholic schools in their area. I spoke in terms that were relevant to these voters and I spoke to them in familiar places.

  Speaking in terms that are relevant to everyday citizens isn’t always easy. When I first ran for governor, I talked about the fiscal and economic crises we faced in our state and then I laid out my plans to fix them. I was so focused on these issues that it was likely that if a reporter asked my mother’s maiden name, I would say, “Fitch, and every Fitch I know believes we need to fix the economy and the budget.” The lesson is: Stay relevant.

  WIN THE FAIRNESS FIGHT

  Conservatives spend far too much time trying to move minds without moving hearts as well. We gather tons of empirical data to back up our arguments, only to see the liberals respond with heartbreaking stories about how our policies will supposedly hurt children, the elderly, and the destitute. The heartbreaking stories win.

  As the American Enterprise Institute’s Arthur Brooks points out, human beings by their nature respond to moral, rather than empirical, arguments. If we find a policy morally repugnant, there is little anyone can say that is likely to change our minds using data, reason, or empirical evidence. When we feel something is wrong, it is just wrong—period.

  This is an admirable quality, really. We respond to moral arguments for a reason: That is how God made us. We are inherently moral creatures, created in His own image and likeness. We were designed by our Creator to see the world through the prism of good and evil, of right and wrong. That is why most of us want not only to be a prosperous nation but also a nation that is good, decent, and—yes—fair.

  President Obama understands this, which is why he made “fairness” a central message of his reelection campaign. Who is opposed to fairness? Shouldn’t everyone get a “fair shot”? Shouldn’t everyone pay their “fair share”? The president appealed to the American people’s innate sense of fairness. Republicans did not. That is one of the main reasons he won a second term.

  If we want to win the policy debates of the twenty-first century, we need to stop allowing our political opponents to claim the moral high ground that we should be occupying ourselves. For example, most Americans believe that conservatives care about balancing budgets, while liberals care about putting more money into classrooms. But in Wisconsin, our reforms put more money into classrooms. It was the unions and the Democrats who were ready to see us cut a billion dollars from classrooms, and lay off thousands of teachers, just so long as they could continue to fill their coffers with involuntary union dues. We stopped them, and protected students and teachers from disastrous cuts.

  The unions tried to make the battle over Act 10 a fight over collective bargaining “rights.” It was a powerful message. No one wants to see anyone’s “rights” taken away. Taking away “rights” gets a reflexive moral reaction from people. The unions said we wanted to take “rights” away from teachers, janitors, nurses, prison guards, garbage collectors, bus drivers, crossing guards, and snowplow operators. Most people responded: That wasn’t fair.

  As a result, support for our reforms plummeted.

  We began to recover only when we started making our case against collective bargaining with moral arguments. We told the story of Ms. Sampson, the award-winning teacher who lost her job because of “last in, first out” rules under collective bargaining. Wisconsin voters responded: That’s not fair.

  We explained how corrections officers and bus drivers abused overtime rules under collective bargaining to make six-figure salaries. Wisconsin voters said: That’s not fair.

  We explained that public workers had no choice of whether to join a union, and that the government forcibly took as much as $1,400 a year out of their paychecks to hand over to the union bosses. Wisconsin voters said: That’s not fair.

  We explained how government workers paid nothing for their pensions and next to nothing for their health care, while their employers—the hardworking taxpayers—did not enjoy such lavish benefits. Wisconsin voters said: That’s not fair.

  As conservatives, we should be able to finish any public policy argument with the words “that’s not fair.” If we can’t do that, we need to go back and rethink how we are making our case.

  This is no
t to suggest that empirical evidence doesn’t matter. To the contrary, if people had not seen that Act 10 was working—that schools were better off, local governments were balancing their budgets, and property tax bills were down for the first time in over a decade—we would have lost the recall. Results matter. But it was also critical for people to see not only that our reforms worked but also that they were just and fair.

  If we counter the left’s arguments simply with logic, reason, and data alone, we will lose the debate over the future of our country. But if we counter them with logic, reason, data, and an appeal to the American people’s innate sense of fairness, we can prevail.

  CONCLUSION

  Unintimidated

  If you picked up this book, I suspect you are frustrated about the prospects for positive change in our country. Now that you’ve come to the end, I hope you see why I am so optimistic about the future.

  Yes, things do look bleak in Washington today. But if you look beyond our nation’s capital, you will see positive change is taking place all around us. Across America, citizens are casting their ballots for fiscal responsibility. Courageous political leaders are taking on the entrenched interests, delivering reforms relevant to the lives of their citizens, and showing that they will not be intimidated by threats and scare tactics.

  And voters are rewarding men and women who stand for principle with second terms—or, in my case, the chance to continue my initial term.

  I know some are saying that conservatives need to change our principles and moderate our approach if we want to win elections. We’ve heard that tune before. In the 1980s, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher recounted how, when she first became Conservative Party leader in 1975 at the height of the Labour Party’s power, “People said we should never be able to govern again.

  “Remember how we had all been lectured about political impossibility?” Thatcher asked. “You couldn’t be a Conservative, and sound like a Conservative, and win an election—they said. And you certainly couldn’t win an election and then act like a Conservative and win another election. And—this was absolutely beyond dispute—you couldn’t win two elections and go on behaving like a Conservative, and yet win a third election.

  “Don’t you harbour just the faintest suspicion that somewhere along the line something went wrong with that theory?” she said.1

  Today, we can sound like conservatives and act like conservatives—and still win elections. Those who say we can’t don’t see what I see in Wisconsin and what my fellow governors in states all across America see. We don’t need to change our principles. What we need is more courage.

  We need to do more than simply say no to President Obama and the Democrats’ big-government agenda. Republicans must offer Americans big, bold, positive solutions for our nation’s challenges—innovative policies to reform entitlements, get our debt under control, reduce the size of government, improve education, reduce dependency, and create hope, opportunity, and upward mobility for all of our citizens.

  We need to make not just the economic case for our reforms but the moral case as well—showing how conservative policies and ideas will make America not only a more prosperous but also a more just and fair society.

  Above all, we must show Americans that we are more concerned with the next generation than just the next election.

  If we do all these things, Americans will stand with us.

  I know because they stood with me.

  Just as the union bosses tried to intimidate us in Wisconsin, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are now trying to intimidate conservatives into backing off the cause of reform. Just like the protesters who occupied the capitol in Madison, they believe that we will cave under pressure and give in to their demands for higher taxes to fuel continued fiscal profligacy.

  We need not fear their threats. From my experience in Wisconsin these past three years, I can say one thing with confidence: Americans will back politicians who have the courage to make tough, but prudent, decisions.

  Whenever I get down on what is happening in America today, I think back to our founders. As a kid, I loved learning about the history of our country. Maybe I was a bit of a geek, but I thought of our founders almost like superheroes—bigger than life.

  It would have been wonderful to visit our nation’s capital and other historic sites on the East Coast, but growing up as the son of a pastor in a small town, I didn’t have a whole lot of money. For us, a family vacation entailed driving as far as our used Chevy Impala station wagon would take us, and back.

  So in the fall of 2011, I had the opportunity to visit Philadelphia for the first time and I got up early and visited Independence Hall.

  When I set off for what had once been the Pennsylvania state house, I half expected to see the colonial equivalent of the Hall of Justice. Instead, what I saw was a small, simple room full of desks and chairs much like the ones we sit in today.

  You see, the founders weren’t superheroes. They were ordinary people just like us who had the courage to do something extraordinary. They didn’t just risk their political careers. They didn’t just risk their businesses. They literally risked their lives for the freedom we hold so dear today.

  What has made America exceptional is that throughout our history, in times of crisis—be it economic or fiscal, military or spiritual—there have been men and women of courage who have stood up and decided it was more important to look out for the future of their children and their grandchildren than their own futures.

  To win the fight for America’s future, we must summon that courage anew. We must offer a better vision for America: a country that lives within its means, empowers its citizens to build better lives, and leaves its children better off than we were. A country where courageous leaders make the hard choices necessary to balance budgets, improve education, and make government smaller, more efficient, and more effective.

  That America may seem distant today, but I assure you it is within reach. And the path to this America does not begin in Washington, D.C. It starts in the states.

  We can reach our destination so long as we remain unintimidated.

  POSTSCRIPT

  “Scott, Don’t Spend Money You Don’t Have”

  People often ask me, with tens of thousands of people chanting outside my window, protesters shaking my car and following me everywhere I went, and multiple death threats sent to me and my family, how did I keep such calm?

  It wasn’t always easy. What gave me the inner strength to go on was my faith. During the worst moments, I often reflected on these passages from Scripture:

  “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

  —Matthew 6:34

  “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”

  —Luke 12:25–26

  “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”—2 Corinthians 12:9

  I also took strength from my family. I’ve told you already how Tonette was my rock during the fight over Act 10. I also relied on the love, encouragement, and example of my parents.

  Nearly every day I was going through the protests, my mom would send me a text message that read: “L&P from L&P” (which stood for “love and prayers from Llew and Pat”).

  My mother is so positive and so compassionate. No one seems to bother or faze her. She is the most selfless person I know. When I served in the state assembly, I used to tell new members not to personalize their differences because their opponents today may be their allies tomorrow. That kind of thinking clearly came from my mother.

  During my tenure as Milwaukee County executive I had to make some tough decisions that were not always popular. I remember walking in a Veterans Day parade after my first budget was completed. I got wild cheer
s from most but also an occasional middle-finger salute from a few (Tonette always seemed to notice them). Instead of responding in kind, I would walk over and wave and say, “Thanks for coming out to support our veterans.”

  I would do the same thing at town hall meetings I held when some would show up with signs or shirts knocking me. One union bus driver came to nearly every meeting from the time I first ran for county executive. Often, I would give him the microphone at the start of the comment portion, and he would attack me. Sometimes the crowd would start booing. I would have to remind them to be polite and that everyone had a right to be heard. So when a hundred thousand people descended on the capitol a few years later, my response was exactly the same—because that is how my mother raised me.

  Over the years, my mom always had a knack for reaching out to people at just the right time. Often she would track down old classmates of mine with a card—or, more recently, with a Facebook post. She loves keeping track of people and sending them a note and a photo (she takes millions of them).

  When I was a kid, she would make chocolate chip cookies (they are the best because she takes them out just before they are done, so they melt in your mouth) and give me a box to share on the bus after football and basketball games and track meets. Over the years, she has continued to make those cookies, and now she shares them with shut-ins, fire and police stations, and others. During my 2010 and 2012 campaigns, she would make cookies and put together boxes for each of the victory centers around the state. Then she and my father would drive around the state and deliver them to the volunteers.

  She’s the reason why Alex got the idea to take a plate of cookies out to the protesters when they first showed up outside the Executive Residence.

  The office in Sheboygan gave my mom and dad shirts that say, “Scott Walker is Our Son,” and they wear them all over the place. They really love meeting the people who support me. My dad is slowing down, but he loves these trips and they really bring out his personality.