Reuters
August 17, 2015
Sinking
in the polls here, Scott Walker started on Monday to sound very much
like the man he is now chasing in the Republican presidential race,
Donald Trump.
Speaking
to a rowdy crowd at the Iowa State Fair, Walker took a decidedly more
anti-establishment and aggressive tone than he has employed so far on
the campaign trail,
talking about taking power from Washington and playing up the need to
build a fence along the southwest U.S. border, a much-discussed Trump
priority.
Aping
Trump further, Walker took credit for the immigration debate roiling
the Republican Party, saying that it stemmed from his opposition to
President Obama’s executive actions that gave some immigrants relief from deportation.
As
the governor of neighboring Wisconsin, Walker was once widely
considered the front-runner in Iowa, a critical early voting state where
he was leading in some polls
as late as last month. But Trump’s surge has knocked the wind out of
his campaign. A recent CNN poll had him in single digits in Iowa, with
Trump holding a double-digit advantage.
Walker’s
largely indistinctive performance at the first Republican debate in
Cleveland this month only heightened the perception among many in the
party that his campaign
is losing steam and that he is being eclipsed not only by Trump, but by
another Midwestern governor, John Kasich of Ohio, who has also seen his
poll numbers rise.
Iowa
was once projected to be Walker’s strategic linchpin — the jumping off
point from which he would wage a national campaign. But all anyone was
talking about Monday
morning as Walker arrived here was Trump’s audacious visit to the fair
on Saturday, when he first circled the fairgrounds in his helicopter.
Trump
has also shown that he is serious about building a credible operation
in the state, hiring operatives skilled at building support at the
grassroots level. Political
observers say it is likely that few rivals have been harmed more by
Trump’s surging candidacy than Walker.
“If
Trump has done anything to Walker, it’s take away all the attention he
once enjoyed in Iowa,” Craig Robinson, former political director of the
Iowa Republican Party,
told Reuters.
Even
so, as of Monday Walker still would not go as far as Trump on some
issues. A fairgoer, Jenny Turner, asked whether Walker would pledge, as
Trump did Sunday, to deport
millions of immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally. Walker demurred,
talking up the need to “secure the border” and “enforce the law.”
That
left Turner, 35, a resident of Burlington, Iowa, disappointed. “He
wouldn’t do the plain-speak,” she said afterward. “That’s what we’re
looking for, the plain talk.”
But
she said she still viewed Walker’s appearance favorably. “I think
Walker is playing up the populist line because Trump is hitting it,” she
said.
Walker’s
remarks were frequently disrupted by protesters who had traveled from
Wisconsin to heckle the governor, who made curtailing the power of
public-sector unions
the centerpiece of his tenure in the state. They shouted, “You failed
your state!” and “Down with Walker!”
The
rancor only seemed to energize Walker, who boasted of staring down the
thousands of protesters who packed the state capitol in Wisconsin in
2011 in protest of his
anti-union push.
“There
are a lot of people who talk tough, I’m the only one who stood up to
100,000 protesters,” he shouted over the catcalls. “I am not
intimidated!”
Anthony
DeFino, 18, of Ankeny, Iowa, said he thought the exchange boosted
Walker in the eyes of conservatives in the crowd. “I think today helped
him,” DeFino said.
“To see a governor stand up and succeed is empowering,” added Joe Carroll, 20, of Davenport, Iowa.
Walker,
who said he will release a blueprint for his healthcare reform proposal
Tuesday, told the crowd he will be ramping up his efforts in Iowa. The
caucuses are in
January, five months away. “We’re going to keep coming back,” he said.
Robinson said Walker’s failure to capitalize on his early success here has been a bigger problem for him than was Trump’s surge.
"Now
team Walker is ready to go, and a lot of the excitement is gone,”
Robinson said. “You have to harvest support whenever the crop is ready.
For Walker, that was a couple
of months ago.”
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