By Ousting Liz Mair, Scott Walker Panders to the Wrong Part of the Right
What happens when you hire a communications expert to help with outreach to prominent conservatives only to let her go because the fringes take issue with her? Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his team are learning the hard way that it only serves to alienate those you need most.
As we’ve reported at Mediaite, the Walker campaign hired social media wiz Liz Mair to help with a nascent presidential campaign. Within 24 hours she resigned, having been attacked from all sides for a series of old tweets disparaging the Iowa GOP caucus and its inflated sense of self-worth.
The bulk of the criticism came from Breitbart’s lead “everything is an ‘EXCLUSIVE’ because I say so” reporter Matt Boyle, who spilled much ink attempting to paint his crusade against Mair as a thorough “vetting” of Walker. That constantly-shrieking element of the right’s contention with Mair? She is an “open borders amnesty advocate” who “mocks Iowa.” The state’s Republican chairman called on Walker to “send her her walking papers.”
In typical latter-day Breitbart.com fashion, Boyle went nativist, ginning up controversy over Mair’s dual citizenship by asking her mind-numbing questions like “Why wasn’t US citizenship good enough? Why did you seek out dual citizenship in the first place?” And for good measure, he wrote an entire piece quoting conservative pundit Michelle Malkin‘s “EXCLUSIVE” support for his campaign against Mair.
Years ago, any such holy war waged by Andrew Breitbart‘s namesake would have focused entirely on taking down a Democratic official, not sniping within the conservative movement with purity tests for skilled communications staffers.
Many prominent conservatives were quick to notice this — and they were not happy. Especially after the outraged forces got their way and Mair resigned.
“I really am appalled that so many Christian conservatives are showing such a lack of grace and overwrought outrage over a communications consultant,” Fox News firebrand Erick Erickson wrote of his friend Mair. “Team Walker has botched this,” he added, suggesting that perhaps Walker’s team is “not ready for primetime” if they capitulate this easily.
Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney suggested Walker’s capitulation to Iowan Republicans over Mair signals his troubling inability to say no to the forces of corporate cronyism — especially those powerful ethanol dollar-seekers in the Hawkeye State.
National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg defended Mair’s Iowa tweets, and then echoed a similar worry about Walker’s dealings with Iowa:
If Walker didn’t want a critic of the Iowa caucuses on his payroll he shouldn’t have hired one. But he did. And throwing her under the bus for this, suggests not only that he’s got some problems getting ready for prime time, it also suggests he can get rolled by the Iowa GOP establishment. What happens when he gets to Washington?
TheBlaze host Dana Loesch didn’t mince her words either, accusing Boyle, et al, of having “fellated the establishment GOP in Iowa.” Taking not-so-veiled shots at her former employer, Breitbart.com, she suggested Walker gave into a media outlet that “acts like a wannabe kingmaker and hides behind the veneer of media masthead.”
And over at The Week, conservative writer Michael B. Dougherty tore into “gutless” Walker and contrasted his capitulation with how Jeb Bush refused to give in to media pressure over his “lurch to the right” with a recent hire:
If you were a top expert, a policy-thinker, or a consultant, which candidate would you want to work for? The guy who tosses his people out on the say-so of an Iowa Republican whose name he had just learned, or Jeb Bush, who doesn’t give a jus exclusivæ to his enemies?
How would Walker handle a tough Supreme Court nomination battle against a united Democratic Senate, if he folds instantly after some whinging from a right-wing muckraker? Until this week, Walker supporters could have pointed to his white-knuckle fight with Wisconsin’s public-sector unions. Now his critics can point to the way he cowers before a few rotting corn stalks.
Indeed, by firing Liz Mair — yes, she “resigned” on her accord, but let’s call it what it is — Walker’s team undid the exact thing they set out to do by hiring her in the first place: Reach out to prominent conservatives and focus on expanding his message to a broader audience.
Good luck recovering from that.
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
