The Republican Party currently finds itself at an impasse. Two of the party’s arguably most viable 2016 presidential candidates have found themselves wrapped up in political scandals. Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., finds himself in a scandal involving the closure of a bridge, which has colloquially become known as “Bridgegate,” while Gov. Scott Walker, R-WI, is implicitly embroiled in a scandal involving two John Doe investigations, one of which resulted in the release of 27,000 emails containing revealing information, although much of the information from the emails wasn’t particularly new. Walker still has a chance of being re-elected governor, even with his current scandals (unless of course he were convicted or impeached), although it looks like he will have a tough re-election campaign against Mary Burke. Even so, he no longer has any outside shot of winning the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.
Walker is not a newcomer when it comes to controversy. In fact, not long after he took office he pushed Act 10, a controversial anti-union law, through the state legislature. This legislation was so controversial that thousands of protesters arrived at the state capitol to protest. One day there were almost 100,000 people at the capitol protesting, making it the largest protest at the capitol since the Vietnam War.
Then, of course, there was the “first” John Doe investigation. Three of Walker’s former aides from when he served as executive of Milwaukee County were charged with crimes for doing political work on government time. Walker was not prosecuted or charged with any crimes, though. However, 27,000 emails from the first John Doe investigation have been released to the public.
These emails are politically damaging. In one of these messages, it appears that Walker wanted an employee at Milwaukee County’s Behavioral Health Division fired because the employee, a doctor, had been a former thong model. From other emails it appears that Walker aides lacked empathy for those who are dealing with mental illness, as one aide wrote in an email, “No one cares about crazy people.” The released emails also show that Walker’s aides set up a secret email system in order to try to campaign on government time. Although Walker wasn’t charged in the first John Doe investigation, it appears he knew about the secret email system. As Walker wrote in an email after one of his staff members was forced to resign, “We cannot afford another story like this one. No one can give them any reason to do another story. That means no laptops, no web sites, no time away during the workday, et cetera.”
The release of these emails ends any realistic outside shot Walker had at winning the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He had the potential to unify a fracturing political party on the national level that needs both its Tea Party wing and more moderate business wing. The fact of the matter, though, is that Walker can’t survive a national campaign for president given the content of these released emails.
The scrutiny a candidate receives when running for governor is nothing compared to the scrutiny one receives when running for the country’s highest office. Just ask Newt Gingrich. During the GOP’s last presidential primaries, Gingrich was heavily criticized for his role in shutting down the government in 1996 and for his support of the death penalty for people who illegally smuggled marijuana into the United States. These past transgressions were part of the reason why Gingrich had no chance of winning the GOP nomination in 2012.
Currently, the Republican Party finds itself looking for new viable presidential candidates for the 2016 election because of the political scandals surrounding both Christie and Walker, but it may already be too late for the GOP. Walker looks like he may still have a fair chance of keeping his governorship, but his ambitious presidential goals have slipped out of his hands.
Aaron Loudenslager ([email protected]) is a second-year law student.
