Scott Walker is running for president

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker announced his candidacy for president.  (You are excused if you thought that he had already done so, he’s been doing so much campaigning.)  He made a name for himself as the scourge of labor unions, crippling the teachers’ union in Wisconsin and surviving their attempt to recall him.  Republicans like that, but how will it sell in the general election?  Can anyone make the case for Scott Walker for president?

From Sleeves rolled up, Scott Walker kicks off presidential run – Kyle Cheney – POLITICO:

Scott Walker officially announced his bid for the presidency on Monday, launching his campaign from some of the most reliably Republican turf in America and the site of the Wisconsin governor’s most unlikely victory.

Suburban Milwaukee’s Waukesha County is where Walker celebrated the 2012 recall victory that propelled him to national prominence. It was a bruising battle that added to an impressive streak over more than two decades in which Walker appeared on a ballot 14 times, and failed just twice. That record is at the heart of his pitch to Republican voters.

“My record shows that I know how to fight and win. Now, more than ever, we need a president who will fight and win for America,” Walker said, his sleeves rolled up. . . .

“Americans deserve a president who will fight and win for them. Someone who will stand up for the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Someone who will stand up for our religious rights and all of our other constitutional rights,” he said.

Walker ticked off a list of conservative grievances and vowed to address most of them on “Day One” of his presidency. Walker pledged to push for a repeal of Obamacare, sign off on the Keystone pipeline, terminate any nuclear deal with Iran and to take the threat of Islamic State more seriously than the threat of climate change.

He proudly pointed to his conservative wins in Wisconsin, taking on the unions, scoring a voter ID law, defunding Planned Parenthood and enacting anti-abortion legislation.

In many ways, Walker’s crippling of collective bargaining power for unions in his first term fueled his rise. The legislation he championed underscored the weakening of the labor movement around the country in a state considered friendly to organized labor.

He emboldened other governors and legislatures to pursue similar reforms, and his knockout punch came when he beat back the unions who sought to unseat him using Wisconsin’s unusual recall law. No governor had ever survived one before, and his win against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett added to his presidential résumé.

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