Scott Walker Said to Be Dropping Out of Race; Will Give Press Conference at 6 PM Eastern

It's partly about money.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has concluded he no longer has a path to the Republican presidential nomination and plans to drop out of the 2016 campaign, according to three Republicans familiar with his decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Walker called a news conference in Madison at 6 p.m. Eastern time.

"The short answer is money," said a supporter of Mr. Walker's who was briefed on the decision. "He's made a decision not to limp into Iowa."

As you probably know, another major factor is that he has simply collapsed in the polls:

I don't know what to say. Honestly, I'm upset that good candidates like Perry and Walker are dropping out. On the other hand, neither man seemed really to have a plan to win this particular political moment.

There's an old adage in politics that the key to winning a race is making the race about a question to which you are the only possible answer.

The question in this race, I think, at least in the primary, is Who is to rule, and who is to be ruled? It's not about the economy; it's not even actually immigration, except as a proxy for getting at the Who Shall Rule question.

I'm really surprised that these men were not aware of the toxic levels of distrust and anger the base feels for the political class. They seemed to sort of begin to understand it as they campaigned, but... they didn't seem to understand that at the beginning.

How can that be? Who is advising these guys? *

One thing I heard, I think, Hillary propose is that the federal government might want to start matching campaign donations. I don't know if she specified a top amount to match. If she didn't, I would: I would say up to about $200. If you donate whatever amount of money to a candidate, the federal government kicks money to you, up to $200.**

Now, I'm not happy about the federal government paying candidates either. But there are two important problems in politics: One, it's hellaciously expensive to run these days,*** and two, the very very rich really do have an outsized influence in politics.

It might be helpful to deal with both of these problems by matching donations up to $200 (or some other low-ish number).

I strongly suspect that the reason Amnesty keeps coming up on the Republican side, despite the base's multiple frenzied rejections of it, is that the "right people" keep insisting upon it, and by the "right people," I mean the monied class.

* I heard Carly on, I think, Chris Wallace yesterday making the point that many people had worked hard to put the current crop of Republicans in office (she being one of those who had worked hard, she said) expecting them to do certain things, only to see them do almost nothing.

She seems to be getting it now too, but it's again amazing to me she didn't know this six months ago.

** That's $200 total, even if you wind up donating more. And actually it would be $400 in matching funds, maybe -- $200 in the primary race, $200 in the general, or something like that.

I'm not sure you need this mechanism in the general, though.

*** I know that it was damn near impossible for Mike Flynn to run in a congressional race even though the right blogosphere pitched in $100,000 or so for his run. The problem was that his opponent was doing fundraisers with DC Money Guys and had nearly a million.

posted by Ace at 04:16 PM

| Access Comments