Walker Revs Up for 2016

A billionaire businessman has surged in the polls after seizing the mantle of populism in the race for the White House. Now a soft-spoken governor from the Midwest intends to take that mantle.

“I’m for transferring power from Washington to the hard-working taxpayers in states all across the country,” Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker declared during his presidential announcement speech Monday, “that’s real reform.”

In front of a huge crowd of supporters in Waukesha, Wisconsin Walker touted his resume as a quintessential ordinary American before highlighting his achievements as an executive, according to prepared remarks released by Walker’s campaign. Walker referenced key moments in his youth, from legion baseball, his local church, Boy Scouts, and Boys State.

“You see, my first job was washing dishes at the Countryside Restaurant,” Walker said in his remarks.

“My brother David and I didn’t inherit fame and fortune from our family,” Walker continued in a thinly veiled jab at fellow 2016 hopeful former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

But while Bush may be the ultimate adversary in Walker’s path to the GOP nomination, the first priority for the Midwestern governor will be to arrest and supplant the populist momentum currently enjoyed by the ascendant Donald Trump. In a single month — from June to July — the real estate mogul’s national standing rocketed from 2 percent to 13 percent, according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday.

“In the Republican field, there are some who are good fighters. They haven’t won those battles,” Walker said in a campaign video also released Monday.

Highlighting his proven ability to win tough, come-from-behind election battles may prove decisive in Walker’s coup to dethrone Trump.

“My record shows that I know how to fight and win,” Walker said. “We need a president who will fight and win for America.”

Walker has long depicted himself as someone who combines electability with conservative accomplishments. He famously took on Wisconsin’s public-sector employee unions while winning three elections in four years — including an effort to recall him — in a state that has backed Democrats in recent presidential elections. Walker is the only governor in American history to survive such a recall effort.

“My record shows that I know how to fight and win,” Walker continued. “We need a president who will fight and win for America.”

Political analysts agreed Monday that Walker is a top-tier candidate with a chance to appeal both to conservative activists and more establishment figures.

“He is well-positioned to get the conservative label and resonate slightly to the right of (Florida Sen. Marco) Rubio and Jeb Bush, which is a pretty good position to be in in a Republican primary,” Matt Grossman, a political science professor at Michigan State University, told LifeZette. “There’s not many people who you can think of who could be the nominee, and he’s one of them.

“He has a small number of accomplishments that the Republican electorate already has heard about, and he needs to sell that,” Grossman said.

“Our big, bold reforms in Wisconsin took the power from the big government special interests and put it firmly into the hands of the hard-working taxpayers,” Walker said in his speech before highlighting successes that included passing a balanced state budget, reforming public school teacher pensions, and reforming teacher tenure agreements.

University of Northern Iowa professor Justin Holmes, an expert on that state’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucus, said Walker’s battles with labor unions could be polarizing in a general election.

But, Holmes said in an interview with LifeZette, it is an asset in a GOP primary.

“There are others who’ve won election but haven’t consistently taken on the big fights. We’ve shown you can do both,” Walker said in his campaign announcement video.

The governor has been regarded as a frontrunner in Iowa for months as an unannounced candidate, and Holmes said the formal kickoff only helps the candidate’s position.

“I think where it most strengthens him to finally announce is that it allows him to dominate a news cycle,” he said.

“Walker has done more than anyone to turn rhetoric into policy,” Holmes said.

Trump has been hogging the national media’s focus, Holmes said, and “that gets (Walker) back into the conversation.”

To remain viable beyond early primary states and ultimately compete with other front-runner contenders, Walker will have to be able to raise large sums of money. Bush turned heads last week with reports that his Super PAC already had raised more than $100 million.

Grossman and Holmes said they believe Walker has the chops to remain competitive on the fundraising front. Grossman said Walker has been well funded in his Wisconsin gubernatorial campaigns, and he noted the governor’s ties to brothers Charles and David Koch. “I don’t think that money is going to be the deciding factor against him,” he said.

If the punditry are a canary in the race, Walker’s opponents are more likely to look for weaknesses in his armor closer to the issues of foreign affairs and consistency on conservative issues.

“I think it’s a question of authenticity,” Bloomberg columnist Al Hunt said Monday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “He has flipped on a number of issues. And you can do some of that, you can change your mind, but, you know, you have to be authentic. And I’m not sure Scott Walker has passed that test yet.”

In a Monday New York Times column, Nate Cohn reminded readers that Walker once “argued that his experience facing down protesters in Madison prepared him to defeat the Islamic State.”

Holmes said other candidates in the GOP field may be more charismatic than Walker, but said Walker has a good shot at drawing a number of conservative organizations looking to back someone they think can win.

“Walker has done more than anyone to turn rhetoric into policy,” he said.

Brendan Kirby of LifeZette contributed to this report.