As the labor-lubricated effort to recall Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker announced last week it had collected 507,000 of the 540,208 signatures on petitions required to trigger a special election for governor in 2012, the embattled chief executive vowed to campaign by “doing what I do as governor.”
In an exclusive interview with HUMAN EVENTS from his office in Madison, conservative GOPer Walker said he anticipated his political foes would secure 600,000 to 700,000 signatures by the closing date for submission Jan. 17. Others in the Badger State Republican Party expect the figure of submitted signatures to be closer to 1 million.
In the governor’s words, “When they have 9,000 to 10,000 activists throughout the state, they are most likely going to get the [required signatures].”
In nearly two years in office, Walker has become a national figure as well as a major target of the Left because he secured legislation requiring many public employees to pay a greater share of their retirement benefits and cut back on collective-bargaining in the public sector.
“And don’t forget that here in Wisconsin, you don’t need a reason to recall someone from office,” Walker told us, noting that in the last two recall elections of governors—North Dakota’s Lynn Frazier in 1921 and Gray Davis of California in 2003—the former was for malfeasance in office and the latter for clearly breaking campaign promises he had made the year before. The recall facing Walker, he noted, “is because I made promises of reform and have kept them.”
Walker also noted that while state law requires 25% of registered voters to have signed petitions, it is not required that they be voters in the last election, just that they are eligible to vote. This means that college students who are just turning 18 and becoming eligible to vote may sign petitions to force a recall election.
The governor freely acknowledged that he will be outspent by his enemies, recalling how in recall elections against Republican state senators earlier this year, the union-backed opposition spent nearly $40 million, or twice as much as the GOP and its allies.
Walker would not discuss any of the Democrats mentioned as candidates in a primary for governor—to be held March 27 or, at the latest April 24, depending on whether there is a court order to extend the Government Accountability Board’s deadline of Feb. 17 for certification of the signatures 31 more days, as state election law provides. Among those mentioned are Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who narrowly lost the ’10 race to Walker, former Rep. (1969-2010) Dave Obey, once the powerful chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, and former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who has lost bids for governor in the ’02 primary and state attorney general in ’06.
But Walker did indicate that he considers all of them figures from the past, remarking that a special election for governor in ’12 “will be about the future and not about the past.” As to how he would campaign, Walker said: “What I have done and what I will do as governor—that’s how I will campaign. The more government gets out of the way, the more we can get more businesses to come here and create jobs, and reach our goal of 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin in five years.”
Wisconsin’s veteran GOP consultant Scott Becher may have put it best when he said: “This is a race that, since it will be held after Republicans have settled on their nominee against Barack Obama, will be a dress rehearsal for the fall campaign for the White House. I suggest national reporters buy their plane tickets and make hotel reservations now."
