SW.GOP - Let's get to work.

You bet your ass this is an endorsement.

Follow @scottwalker on Twitter.

Like the man on Facebook.

And so it will be Bush v. Clinton in 2016*

Mitt Romney tells supporters he will not run for president in 2016

In the meantime, like tween girls at a slumber party, we can discuss our dream dates.

* Having Bush as the likely Republican nominee now will be both the greatest motivation for Hillary to get off her ass and declare and for the Democrats to subsequently consolidate behind her.

* To argue it will actually be Walker v. Clinton in 2016 you have to explain why both Jeb and his money will migrate to Walker.

Walker, Iowa Ranger?

I hope Scott Walker — who is "my guy" at this point — can navigate this gambling issue effectively. Excerpt:

Another issue where Governor Walker will have to tread carefully in Iowa is the expansion of state-approved gambling. Walker will have to decide by February 19 whether to approve a proposed $800 million Menominee Indian tribal casino in Kenosha. “Influential social conservatives in Iowa are warning Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker that approving a proposed Kenosha casino next month could hurt his presidential bid” was the lead paragraph of a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article this month. Newly elected Iowa U.S. senator Joni Ernst joined 600 other Republicans in sending Walker a petition urging him adopt a “No Expanding Gaming” policy. Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent social conservative in Iowa who led the successful defeat in 2010 of three Supreme Court justices who had approved same-sex marriage, has also written a letter to Walker highlighting the “increased societal problems of divorce, bankruptcy, debt, depression, and suicide” that gambling can produce. In 2012, Vander Plaats’s last-minute endorsement of Rick Santorum helped propel the former Pennsylvania senator to a photo-finish victory over Mitt Romney in Iowa.

I dislike gambling because of its zero-sum nature as well as its negative societal effects, the two being closely related. But it wouldn't be a deal-killer for me if Walker came out on the wrong side of it. Sounds from this mention of this kingmaker, Plaats, like it might be a deal-killer for Walker, though.

Scott Walker's win proves that success sells

I believe that Scott Walker's victory in Wisconsin is just as important as the Republicans winning the Senate. His model of fixing states can and will be copied by many Republican governors in years to come. This is because the model is successful, and success sells. Here's an excellent article about this from the Weekly Standard, and here are my favorite paragraphs about how Walker not only destroyed the democrats and their special interest groups but ate their lunch by taking away their base voters:

The key to Walker’s success was his performance among middle- and lower-income voters. Walker won those earning more than $100,000 by 20 points, just as Mitt Romney had in 2012. But he won voters earning between $50,000 and $100,000 by 17 points; Romney only won them by 1. Those earning less than $50,000 Walker lost by 9 points—whereas Romney lost them by 25. As reporter Molly Ball pointed out in the Atlantic earlier this year about that last group, “whether Democrats win these voters by a 10-point or a 20-point margin tells you who won every national election for the past decade.”

Walker won over more of the middle- and working-class for one reason more than any other: His decision to balance the state’s budget by curtailing collective bargaining ultimately proved successful and popular. But it was far from clear that this would be the case when he took on the unions soon after he entered the governor’s mansion.

These people in Wisconsin that voted him would have voted democrat 50 years ago. Why? People used to think the Democrat Party stood for the little guy. And many times they did. But their policies used to work out fine because they didn't consider government intrusion to be their defining quality like they do now. Now that their policies like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, weaponized EPA, etc. actually hurt all Americans, they are losing their formerly staunch supporters.

I'd really like to see Walker run for President in 2016. There's no reason he couldn't get the Reagan democrat and practical independent voting bloc nationwide. And he'd get the conservative vote out handily.

As the man said, "Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser." Like what's-her-name.

Badger Spankings

Here's something refreshingly good from the Patheos blog. Kathy Schiffer posts on what labor unions are ideally supposed to be accomplishing in society. She notes

The noble ideal of a labor union reverberates through Catholic social teaching. There are many encyclicals and papal documents which address labor issues in depth; tonight, I’d like to highlight Pope John Paul II’s defense of unions in his 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens.

Then she excepts the encyclical with emphases which I will duplicate here.

Catholic social teaching does not hold that unions are no more than a reflection of the “class” structure of society and that they are a mouthpiece for a class struggle which inevitably governs social life. They are indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people in accordance with their individual professions. However, this struggle should be seen as a normal endeavor “for” the just good: in the present case, for the good which corresponds to the needs and merits of working people associated by profession; but it is not a struggle “against” others.

How can we claim that the behavior of unions in this country have not fallen short of this ideal? But the Pope continues:

It is characteristic of work that it first and foremost unites people. In this consists its social power: the power to build a community. In the final analysis, both those who work and those who manage the means of production or who own them must in some way be united in this community. Just efforts to secure the rights of workers who are united by the same profession should always take into account the limitations imposed by the general economic situation of the country. Union demands cannot be turned into a kind of group or class “egoism”, although they can and should also aim at correcting-with a view to the common good of the whole of society- everything defective in the system of ownership of the means of production or in the way these are managed.

Strike two. But the real kicker comes after the payoff pitch:

In this sense, union activity undoubtedly enters the field of politics, understood as prudent concern for the common good. However, the role of unions is not to “play politics” in the sense that the expression is commonly understood today. Unions do not have the character of political parties struggling for power; they should not be subjected to the decision of political parties or HAVE TOO CLOSE LINKS WITH THEM. In fact, in such a situation they easily lose contact with their specific role, which is to secure the just rights of workers within the framework of the common good of the whole of society; instead they become an instrument used for other purposes.

Strike three. John Paul II was prescient when he predicted that unions closely linked to a political party would "easily lose contact with their specific role...instead they become an instrument used for other purposes." And the Governor and the voters in Wisconsin acted as the enforcer of this ideal.

So to sum up: Unions are to serve a purpose, they lose sight of their purpose, they misbehave, then they get spanked. Catholics in the public square don't have to feel a bit guilty about being "against the unions". Unions turned against the public first.

Stand with Walker

Scott Walker for WI Governor

Here's another great ad: Scott Walker for Governor of Wisconsin.