Scott Walker says Marco Rubio could be his VP. Trolling?

At the moment, Scott Walker's star is not ascending. His suggestion that the younger Marco Rubio, who is on the rise, might make a good VP choice is a classic bid to blunt that momentum.

|
Gerry Broome/AP
Scott Walker speaks during the North Carolina Republican Party convention in Raleigh, N.C., on June 5, 2015. The Wisconsin governor has not yet announced a bid for the presidency, but is polling at No. 3 among likely GOP contenders.

Scott Walker thinks he and Marco Rubio might make a pretty good team.

The Wisconsin governor hasn’t actually entered the presidential race yet, but he’s already talking up Senator Rubio as the potential vice-presidential half of a Walker-Rubio ticket.

“I’ve actually had quite a few people, grass-roots supporters, donors, and others, who have made that suggestion,” Governor Walker told Bloomberg Politics when asked about pairing with Rubio as his VP.

“For now, you know, Marco is a quality candidate. He’s going to be formidable in this race as things progress,” Walker told Bloomberg’s John McCormick and Mark Halperin. “And if we were to get in, we’d be as well, and we’ll see where things take us.”

Is there a subtext in this comment? We’d say there is. But first, we’d like to congratulate Walker on his use of the plural “we” for a singular personal reference. We’d say that’s a mark of rhetorical distinction.

Back to the subtext: At the moment, Walker’s star is not ascending. He’s kind of at a point of stasis: GOP insiders and the punditocracy still think he’s a formidable potential contender and a possible nominee, but he’s no longer the hot take of the moment. That would be Rubio, who’s been gaining momentum as fellow Floridian Jeb Bush flounders. Rubio’s also been hit by some over-the-top New York Times stories this week, which is always good for your standing among conservatives.

If you don’t believe us, maybe you’ll believe The Washington Post: The Post’s “The Fix” political blog puts Rubio at No. 1 in its most recent GOP hopeful power rankings.

“Rubio’s charisma, personal story and youth have combined to make him the ‘it’ candidate for the GOP at the moment,” write Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake of "The Fix."

That might gall Walker. He is older, has more executive experience, and faced down the public-sector unions in Wisconsin, darn it. Yet he’s only No. 3, according to "The Fix."

At the very least, he and his campaign team would like to blunt Rubio’s rise. Why not suggest the obvious: the young Rubio might make a good VP choice? Slap him into the back end of the Walker-Rubio ticket, and you’re implicitly pointing out that Walker has senior standing.

Don’t think politics is that ... overt? You’ve never heard a room of professional consultants cackle over their moves. And if it were us, Rubio would respond. Asked whether he’d run as Walker’s second banana, Rubio should say: “When I’m in the White House, Scott Walker will be a crucial part of my team. I pledge I’ll appoint him my secretary of Labor.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Scott Walker says Marco Rubio could be his VP. Trolling?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2015/0612/Scott-Walker-says-Marco-Rubio-could-be-his-VP.-Trolling
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe