- After winning two general elections and one recall
election for governor, surrounded by family and
long-time supporters, Governor Scott Walker announced Sunday
that he is officially in the race for re-election in 2018.
His campaign kickoff was in Waukesha.
- I'm pleased, I'm thrilled on behalf of our outstanding
lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch and I,
to announce today that Rebecca and I are asking for
four more years to serve as your governor and lieutenant governor
to move Wisconsin forward!
[cheers and applause]
[crowd chanting] - Four more years!
- That's right.
Four more years.
Four more years to keep moving this state forward,
looking ahead.
We want a state where everyone shares.
Everyone shares in our economic prosperity,
whether you live in a big city or a small town,
from one end of the state to the other.
We want everyone to share in the Wisconsin comeback so that
everyone can find not just a job,
but a career to support themselves
and their families going forward.
[cheers and applause]
Looking ahead, we want a state where every child,
every child can have access to a great education.
Whether it's like Matt and Alex did at a traditional public
school, a charter school, a choice school, a private school,
a homeschool, a virtual school environment,
wherever it might be.
We trust parents to make the right decision for their sons
and their daughters, not just for student success,
because we want to energize the next generation of the 21st
century workforce here in Wisconsin.
- As you just heard, Governor Walker's re-election
announcement touted education and the workforce,
among other accomplishments like tax cuts.
But he didn't mention
the state's newly-minted $3 billion deal with Foxconn.
We'll have more on the week's Foxconn developments
later in the program,
but we wondered why the governor left Wisconsin's deal
with the electronics giant out of his campaign remarks.
Here's what UW-Milwaukee political scientist Mordecai Lee
says about that.
- With Scott Walker, he's such a good politician
that there's always a reason.
It could be they've done some internal polling
and they've found Republicans are mixed about it.
In other words, some of them think this is the greatest thing
since sliced bread.
But it could be there are some libertarian Republicans who
think, "I'm not sure this is a very good idea.
This is corporate welfare.
Or this is putting all your money on one instead of
spreading your money around." So it's possible that he's not sure
that it's a winner in terms of mobilizing his base.
We know already that there are Democrats who are against it,
but that might be more reflexive than anything else.
And when it comes to this situation,
he can boast about the potential of the contract,
but by next November, nobody's going to know if the potential
worked or not.
There can be beginning construction.
They're going to have a minimal crew.
They're going to have minimal employment.
So it could be that if he wants to run on what he's
accomplished, past tense, that this contract is not the thing
that fits into that box.