THE MICROCOSM

Scott Walker is begging for money to pay off the debts of his kamikaze run at the Republican nomination. If that concept isn't sufficiently hilarious to you, get a load of the letter he sent out to his supporters:

Friend,

Our race for president didn't turn out the way we wanted. While we are disappointed, there are always new ways to serve others and plenty of conservative reforms to enact in Wisconsin.

Our "Scott Walker for America" campaign may have ended, but we attracted a tremendous grassroots team of supporters. Together we share a deep and enduring commitment to getting things done, putting things right, and moving America forward.

For a kid who grew up in small-town America, whose family didn't have a lot of money, the opportunity to run for President of the United States is an experience beyond my wildest dreams and an experience I will never forget.

There are three things I want to tell you, Friend.

First, thank you for believing in me and our campaign for President.

Second, I am back in my office in the state Capitol working on our next round of big, bold, conservative reforms. We have made incredible strides in Wisconsin, but we are not done yet. Our proven reforms have been a model for other states to follow and we will continue to build upon those reforms in the months and years to come.

Third, as things changed dramatically in the presidential race, "Walker for America" incurred a campaign debt and it is my hope that you and all of our supporters will chip in and make an online contribution of $10, $35, $50, $100, $250, or more so we can end this campaign in the black. It is a lot to ask, I know, but we feel personally obligated to make sure that every small business that extended us their good faith and credit is repaid. And we are hoping we can count on you to help.

When God closes one door, another one opens. While I don't know exactly what the future holds, trust me, we will continue leading the fight for big, bold, conservative change in Wisconsin and across America.

Thanks for believing in me — and in our cause.
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Scott Walker

P.S. Every good thing in my life has come about through teamwork. Tonette, Matt, Alex, and I are so proud to have you on our team.
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With your good help, we will end our presidential race on a positive note with all of the bills paid. It is your contribution of $25 or $250, $50 or $500, or $100 or $1,000 that will erase every penny of outstanding debt from our campaign together. Thanks in advance for helping out. I sure appreciate it.

Every good thing in his life has come about through teamwork?

I thought heroic individualism was the key to success. Personal responsibility. An Army of One. Bootstrap-pulling. All that bullshit.

Let's spend Monday having a good chuckle at the idea that Scott Walker feels personally morally obligated to pay off his debts…with other people's money. If that isn't a microcosm of the worldview and philosophy of people like Walker, I don't know what is.

29 thoughts on “THE MICROCOSM”

  • Oh man, that's a beautiful vein of schadenfreude you hit there, Ed. It feels like a warm bubble bath on a cold day.

  • I noticed that the amount to be reached has been omitted.

    But typical: privatised profit, socialised loses.

  • I was hoping he would get the nom so he'd be out of Wisconsin for even longer. I figured he could do less damage that way. But alas he's back and douchier than ever. His most recent ploy is to concentrate hiring and firing for state agencies in his office. Yup, he's the one man state government HR department. Because his big bold conservative changes have resulted in a state that lags way, way behind the country in creating jobs. In fact, we're in the negative. Just last week a staple of WI, Oscar Meyer (yeah, I know) was moving its 1000 well paying jobs to Illinois and Iowa. Yup, it's working. Dear god how I hate this man.

  • Guys, I just went to Vegas and bet $12 million on yellow on roulette. Well, it turns out, the ball landed on red and did you guys know roulette doesn't even have yellow? Oh well. You live, you learn. Give me the money to pay off this totally reasonable decision I made, because I made it for you.

  • H.M.S. Blankenship says:

    I thought that the Koch bros. had committed almost a billion dollars to the Walker campaign. At least that was the scary story that was going around early in the year. Was that just a 'campaign finance promise'? That is, like a 'campaign promise' in that they don't have to keep it?

  • The New Economy requires a new definition of the time value of money.

    Nine weeks ago I would have given $100 to have Scott Walker drop out of the presidential election. Today? Zero.

    Priceless.

  • @HMS Blankenship –

    Any money the Koch brothers were promising would have been directed towards Walker's SuperPAC, which is allowed to take unlimited contributions. His campaign can only take $2700 per race from a single individual, and setting up "straw donors" to hand money off to so that they will pass it on to a candidate's campaign is highly illegal (as in people have actually seen jail time for doing it, unlike a lot of other campaign finance shenanigans).

    Walker is trying to drum up money to pay off his campaign's debts, and his SuperPAC is legally prohibited from helping the campaign with this. This is also why he had to drop out of the race – his SuperPAC had plenty of money, but his personal campaign coffers were empty.

  • Emerson Dameron says:

    @nonynony –

    Thanks for clearing that up. I was under the impression that Scooter's spoooky pay daddies were going to make him the first Citizens United president whether or not anyone else thought he was just a pathetic asshole.

    This restores my faith in… well, let's not get carried away. Let's just enjoy the rare beauty on display here.

  • @Emerson Dameron –

    I think a lot of folks have misjudged how effective Citizens United SuperPACs are for a national race. The campaign still needs to be funded, and that needs to come from individual donors, other political campaigns, and the political parties. That means that a candidate has to be popular enough (and viewed as successful enough) to get smaller donors to open their wallets for enough cash to keep the campaign running.

    OTOH – SuperPAC money can basically buy a statewide election, because statewide campaigns don't cost nearly as much to fund. And it gets worse at the district level. Those races can be bought for a few tens of thousands of dollars of SuperPAC money, so it's actually pretty easy for a billionaire who wants to own a state government to buy it. (Which has always been kind of true, but has gotten worse in the last 20 years or so, and is why Republicans tend to be for "states rights" and not "local rights" for the most part – it gets them the most control for their dollar.)

  • @nonynony, Emerson Dameron

    Carly Fiorina's superPAC "Carly" has been doing a lot of the traditional "campaign" work, further blurring the lines b/w personal campaigns and superPACs. Walker just appeared behind the times, actually paying for stuff with his campaign.

    But, yeah, asking other people to pay his campaign debts after he dropped out is pretty freaking ironic. When people who are into self-promotion talk about teamwork, I remember what I figured out at 20 when I was working at a department store: Teamwork means "you do my job instead of me".

  • The quality of character that makes Uriah Heep one of the greatest villains in world literature is this: It's not the wickedness–though that is complete–it's the fact that there is not a scrap of shame. You cannot "expose" Uriah. You cannot "humiliate" him. He does not possess anything like self-reflection or an conscience, and so he cannot–ever–truly be defeated. He will literally do ANYTHING, and feel NOTHING, and no punishment can ever really touch him. That is the horror of him–that the qualities that make human beings capable of, well, humanity, are completely absent.

    It seems to me unnecessary to connect the dots any further, except to say that Walker's pride at his "humble" origins always rang familiarly to my ears.

  • Come on, Scott. I'm willing to give you a hand up, but not a handout.

    Meanwhile, former GOP congressman gives his assessment of the GOP presidential field.

    "They're all fucking nuts."

    Him: “It’s a disaster. I’m telling you, if either of them is elected, this country is going to hell. The rest of them aren’t much better. I mean, Carly Fiorina? Really? Rubio? Please. Ted Cruz? Oh my god. And the people we thought had it sewn up, who are halfway sane – Bush and Christie – they’re sounding almost as batty as the rest.”

    Me: “Who’s to blame for this mess?”

    Him: “Roger Ailes, David and Charles Koch, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh. I could go on. They’ve poisoned the American mind and destroyed the Republican Party.

    http://robertreich.org/post/132611993925

  • @HMS

    I thought that the Cock Brothers had committed $1 billion or thereabouts to the election effort, but hadn't decided on a candidate yet. Walker was angling for their support, and they were interested in him, but hadn't committed.

  • I wonder if his fans will be irked that his campaign was spending money it didn't have on things it couldn't afford – and is now demanding they throw their money away bailing him out? That they looked at Scott Walker and saw something other than a walking disaster area suggests not, but I can still hope the response rate on his appeal will be embarrassingly low.

  • @Khaled

    Walker just appeared behind the times, actually paying for stuff with his campaign.

    Actually, I suspect that Walker's campaign started from a position of being fairly well funded, assumed that it would continue that way, and spent their money based on those assumptions. Fiorina's campaign started from a position of being poorly funded, had to assume it was going to stay that way, and budgeted accordingly. Walker's problem was most likely that he started from a position that looked like strength and probably would have done quite well had Trump not come along and blown up his entire reason for existing in the race. Fiorina's campaign started with the assumption that she would need to exploit every loophole she could, so she's better prepared for that angle than Walker was.

  • The part about teamwork was touching. If there is one thing that Walker does well, it is finding underlings who will take one for the team. How many former subordinates of his are in jail?

  • @Emerson Dameron

    Eh – not really. It just assumes that a) she hired someone to manage it for her, b) her campaign didn't have money to spend and c) the people she hired to run it for her would prioritize making sure they would have a paying job until March or so. Where Walker's campaign likely fell down was that the projections by his managers would have been wildly optimistic based on the amount of money he was taking in early on. Fiorina was never bringing in that much money to start with, so if you want to get paid you make sure that you budget it appropriately.

  • Emerson Dameron says:

    @Zak44 –

    He'll set 'em up. You knock 'em down.

    Pardon me if I'm a bit giddy, but I can't imagine this whole thing being particularly good for Scooter's Q rating back home. It destroyed Palin, and he might be dumber than she is.

    I hope he's Takin' It Eaaaaasy On Himself.

  • @nonynony

    If only she had had the sense to hire the right people at HP, it probably wouldn't have been such a disaster.

  • I would gladly donate so that Scott Walker could graduate from college, since he wasn't close to graduation after enrolling at Marquette for eight semesters.

    There is a catch. I would only donate to help him pay off his student loans after he earned his degree .

  • It's really true that one can never make a mistake by underestimating the intelligence of the American voter.

  • I'd like to know to whom the Walker campaign owes money. I'd especially like to know whether Mari Maseng, George Will's wife, is owed money. If she is owed money, and she is stiffed, will that change George's opinion of Walker? Will George send in his $50, $100, or $1,000 to the Walker campaign?

  • Somebody has to do this. Compare and contrast:

    Walker:

    Our race for president didn't turn out the way we wanted.

    Hirohito:

    The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage

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