Walker’s comments on Madison are alarming, given that he’s meant to represent the interests of the capital city, too
President Donald Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court has caused controversy here in the Badger State.
It started when Gov. Scott Walker, who has a record of being snarky on social media, sent an especially snarky tweet directed to Wisconsin’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Walker was sending a message to Baldwin because she had previously said she was looking forward to speaking with Gorsuch to ask him questions about certain policy topics, though at the same time she had expressed skepticism about his nomination. Later, Baldwin stated that, “Judge Gorsuch should be held to the same standard that Supreme Court justices have been held to previously and President Trump needs to earn 60 votes in the Senate, but I am not one of them.”
She cited her concerns over Gorsuch’s “rulings against disabled students, against workers, and against women's reproductive health care.”
Baldwin never made a promise in her original news release that she’d base her decision on a meeting with Gorsuch. Nevertheless, Scott Walker took to social media to vent his frustrations with Baldwin.
Nowhere did Baldwin state that she refused to meet with Gorsuch. But that fact didn’t prevent Walker from going on the offensive with his snarkiness.
Baldwin shot back a zinger of her own, responding to Walker’s tweet:
But Walker, who was apparently not finished with his snarkiness, laid into Baldwin with another tweet, as respectable governors of states are want to do:
More exchanges occurred, but I want to focus on this specific tweet for a moment. I take great offense to this characterization because, as a person who lives in the Madison area, the governor is making it sound like my opinions are worth ignoring. It’s not unfamiliar ground for Walker, who has frequently derided the state’s capital (as well as Milwaukee) as being out-of-touch without realizing that he is meant to represent these areas as well.
It also implies that Baldwin only won the Senate election in 2012 because she appealed just to Madison. Nothing could be further from the truth, once you look at the election map from that year (via the New York Times):
Baldwin won 36 counties in total, half of the total that are in the Badger State. And she won against Tommy Thompson, one of the most popular governors in Wisconsin’s history, and certainly one of the most successful electorally.
Walker is wrong to say that Baldwin only represents a small segment of “liberal interests” in Madison – after all, she won a majority of votes in 2012 across the state to become our United States Senator. Walker’s snarkiness is unbecoming of a person who is meant to similarly serve the interests of all in Wisconsin.
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