Republicans are still searching for their next great hope for a candidate for President who really has a chance. Governor Christie of New Jersey was that great hope for a while among the less radical members of the party but he’s been caught up in “Bridgegate” and that, combined with his weakness among the farther right wing members of his party seem to have killed his shot at being the 2016 nominee. Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin is a hero for much of the GOP, across its political spectrum, in no small part because of his attacks on public employee unions. This has made him a fairly strong candidate for the nomination. But Walker is busy developing his own scandal. His administration has been the subject of a “John Doe investigation”, looking to find out whether or not there were violations of Wisconsin campaign law during the recall election that Walker faced in 2012 or the other recall elections against Republican state legislators. There’ve been interesting events surrounding this investigation, including a federal judge that has a very conservative background actually ordering prosecutors to not only stop the investigation but to destroy all evidence they possess. Yes, in my opinion that kind of order stinks to high heaven. It certainly made me wonder what kind of evidence he wanted gone and today we’ve apparently found out. Politico, among others, reports that the prosecutors pulled no punches.
Schmitz seems to have focused in on R.J. Johnson in their investigation, who is linked with outside groups and played an official, paid role on Walker’s campaign. One of the emails obtained via subpoena was from Walker to Rove, the GOP rainmaker. The full May 4, 2011, message is not being made public but the prosecutor quotes from it.
“Bottom-line: R.J. helps keep in place a team that is wildly successful in Wisconsin,” the governor wrote Rove. “We are running 9 recall elections and it will be like running 9 Congressional markets in every market in the state (and Twin Cities.)”
This refers not to Walker’s own recall, but the union-led effort to remove state senators who had backed Walker’s controversial budget to limit the collective bargaining power of public employees. Several big outside groups spentheavily to protect the Republicans.
Schmitz argues that, for all practical purposes, Johnson controlled the Wisconsin Club for Growth and that he used it as “the hub” for a coordinated campaign between 501(c)(4)’s and the Walker campaign.
“Notably, prior to the 2011 Wisconsin Senate recall elections, the national Club for Growth organization raised concerns about coordination or interaction between [the Wisconsin chapter] and [the Walker campaign] as early as 2009,” Schmitz writes.
As most reports have noted, if Judge Randa’s earlier decision is overturned it doesn’t bode well for Walker’s political future, at least in the short term.