I Have A New Man Crush

Scott Walker is my new hero. He ranks right up there with Chris Christie.

GOP Governors Strike at Heart of Democrats

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie  and other members of a new class of combative Republican governors are fighting pitched battles over painful budget cuts that affect issues that once were thought to be untouchable such as teacher tenure and collective-bargaining rights.

These showdowns in the states — expressed most spectacularly this week in Wisconsin’s capital — have brought to life a long-standing cliché of government: The most consequential political action and the most serious policy debates are not taking place in Washington, which appears unlikely to tackle any big-ticket items but, rather, beyond the Beltway, in the state capitols, which Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously labeled the “laboratories of democracy.”

With a budget-cutting and reform zeal unseen since the mid-1990s, a group of Republican chief executives are using difficult economic times to press an ambitious policy agenda that makes their GOP counterparts in Washington seem like timid incrementalists.

Their goal: to shatter a bipartisan consensus on public labor that’s shaped politics in the West, the Northeast and the Upper Midwest since the 1960s.

If Walker, who is trying to curb collective-bargaining rights, and Christie, who is attempting to overhaul teacher tenure, manage to succeed, they’ll only embolden their counterparts elsewhere — and potentially do grave damage to what is one of the Democrats’ most important financial and grass-roots constituencies. Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, among other Republicans, are watching carefully, bracing for similar showdowns.

Much of the attention in Wisconsin is devoted to Walker’s proposal to strip state employees of the right to bargain collectively for anything besides their pay and to make them pay more for their health care and pensions.

Yet another element of the legislation could have even greater political consequences. The Republican would end the automatic deduction from their workers paychecks and make the unions collect the dues themselves, a move that would almost surely result in less cash flowing into labor coffers. It would block unions from collecting money from consenting wokers’ paychecks for political operations, and it would force annual elections on whether state workers even want a union, a lethal threat to public-sector labor.

We can only hope.

But before we get too excited about a Christie-Walker ticker in 2012, let's keep a few things in mind.

Scott Walker or Chris Christie for President? No way

Many conservatives are understandably fond of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who are fighting the good fight in the face of powerful entrenched special interests. Partly because any successful and conservative governor is considered a candidate for President, and partly because the current 2012 field is considered lacking, conservatives are already dreaming about Walker or Christie running for President.

But the trait that makes these two men attractive as presidential candidates -- the appearance of serious dedication to the painful task of saving a state from fiscal ruin amid corruption and cronyism -- is the same trait that precludes them from running.

Liberals charge Christie and Walker with being politically motivated opportunists. I'm pretty sure they're mostly wrong about Christie. I don't know about Walker (his excluding firefighters from his proposed limits on gov't-union collective bargaining  does smell to me of opportunism). Whatever their true motives, if either man runs for President he undermines his own work in two ways:

1) He makes the liberal charges look true.

2) He looks a bit like Sarah Palin, quitting his job so early on. This is made worse by the fact that they would still be leaving with their states in very bad shape.

 Sure, both men should be considered in 2016, but for now, they should -- unlike President Obama these days -- tend to their own jobs and mind their own business.

That leaves unanswered the question of just exactly who should run against obama in 2012. Palin and Gingrich have too much baggage. Romney is the presumptive front runner, but IMO his connection to RomneyCare, the universal health care law he supported in Massachusetts, is enough to eliminate him. Jindal flopped badly in his national address at the 2010 GOP convention. Jeb Bush is handicapped by the family name. Giuliani, Petraeus, and Graham have to be considered long shots. I really, really like Allen West, but he needs more seasoning.

That leaves ... who?

Mike Huckabee.

He's not perfect (who is?) but I like him a lot. I like his stance on the issues, his personal principles, and especially his bass-playing with the band Capitol Offense. How can you not like a guy who covers artists like Charlie Daniels, Willie Nelson, Chuck Berry, and Grand Funk, among others?