Quote:
Originally Posted by SackAttack
we're talking about Jon's assertion that a Republican going negative on Scott Walker's record would be tantamount to losing the "conservative vote." What I objected to then, and object to now, is the assertion that Walker's politics so embody the soul of conservatism that there is no space for any Republican candidate to run to his right. Jon's assertion is that any Republican challenging Walker on those terms is committing political suicide. Mine is that Walker's most rabid support right now comes from people who don't know anything about him beyond "anybody who pisses off the Democrats must be doing something right."
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Well, let's keep
my comments in that regard in some perspective as well.
Never mind who the candidate is, going all negative attack dog on someone that has only 4% negative reaction within the party core sounds like a pretty bad idea,
especially when few candidates have a strong core of their own.
I mean, if there was something (or if something emerges) to provide some traction to get a running start on such a move, maybe it makes more sense. But to invest time & energy into trying to villianize a guy who really has none of that taint yet? That just seems ... well it just seems like a bad play. That's a move for a spoiler with a grudge, not a move for someone who actually wants to win anything themselves.
Also, I'd say the average voter DOES know at least one thing more about Walker than "he pisses off Dems" (although Lord knows that's worth quite a bit for a lot of us): we know he took the fight to unions, especially public-sector unions. These days, as hard as genuine conservatives are to come by, that's pretty much the stuff of which icons are made.