Thursday, September 17, 2015

The End of Scott Walker's Presidential Aspirations

One achievement that Donald Trump must be granted is his destruction of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's presidential aspirations.

I took some extra time to peruse the The New York Times/CBS News poll on the presidential race. Besides the usual story lines -- Trump's staying power, Hillary's hemorrhaging -- two takeaways jump out: 1) for the time being, the "Anybody But Trump" camp is cohering around Ben Carson's candidacy, the support of which has jumped amazingly from 6 percent in August to 23 percent in September; and 2) no presidential candidate, excepting Hillary, has seen as precipitous a decline as Scott Walker, who has gone from 10 percent to 2 percent in the same time frame.

At 2 percent, with fall on the way and Trump locked in at the top, a charisma-deprived Walker is finished. He will likely linger on until Iowa; at which point, if he doesn't finish in the top three -- which will be tough with Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz showing more consistent levels of support -- the governor, who made a name for himself by flaying the backs of working people, will drop out.

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