Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, after dropping to somewhere around 0 percent in the polls, has dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
“Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive, conservative message can rise to the top of the field. With this in mind, I will suspend my campaign immediately,” Walker said at a news conference in Madison, Wisconsin.
Apparently that means making it easier for someone else (presumably Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio) to defeat Donald Trump.
Walker, once considered one of the front-runners for the GOP nomination, fell in the polls after a couple of weak debate performances. But perhaps more significant, a campaign based largely on union-bashing didn’t have the appeal that Walker expected, even among Republicans.
Walker said he was prepared to take on the Islamic State because of the way he supposedly faced down protesters against his anti-union policies.
Walker claimed he was prepared to confront this threat because of his experience confronting thousands of protesters who gathered in Madison in 2011 to decry his push to undo collective bargaining for public employees in the state. “We need a leader with that kind of confidence. If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world,” he declared.
To which Dave Weigel dryly replied:
Scott Walker: "If i can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the globe." There were… fewer guns in the #WIunion protests.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 26, 2015
