Forget
what the polls say. Polls this far out are notoriously worthless in
predicting Presidential nominees. Right now Scott Walker is sitting in
the catbird’s seat for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination.
Virtually everyone who is contemplating running for President in 2016
or who has ever contemplated running for President in their life went
to Iowa last weekend but unless you were a regular reader of RedState
you would have no idea that anyone other than Scott Walker delivered a
speech. This is just one indication of how thoroughly and completely
Walker has stolen the early show from the other nominees and sucked all
the oxygen from the room.
But Walker’s domination of the first 2016 cattle call isn’t the reason
that he has to be considered the favorite right now. The simple fact is
that Walker is the only candidate in the field who has already won what
could be considered two national elections.
Much has been made of the fact that Walker has already won essentially
three tough elections. This is true, but it undersells how Walker’s
electoral experience differs even from other candidates in the field
who have successfully won bruising statewide elections like Chris
Christie or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)82%. Running for elective office
involves successive levels of difficulty – and more importantly,
scrutiny – especially in terms of the media. A hard fought state
legislature race involves less media poking and prodding than a tough
U.S. House race, which involves less than a Senate race, and so on. As
Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich so ably demonstrated in 2012, no one who
hasn’t won office at least statewide should really attempt to run for
President because the increased glare of a national race tends to wilt
those who are not prepared for it.
Walker, on the other hand, has not just won statewide races in a blue
state. He has already been through the gauntlet, at least twice, of
being the number one national target of the Democrat apparatus. He has
already felt the full fury of having Democrat and union operatives
trail him around to every campaign stop, recording every word, and
digging up every detail on his life possible. His recall election was
especially impressive because he was, nationwide, the only Republican
target on the ballot at the time it occurred. He has already faced
bogus prosecutions by politically motivated prosecutors and every other
government hack under the sun.
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