(Audio above: Yellowhammer’s Cliff Sims interviews Scott Walker)
TALLADEGA, Ala. — After delivering a well received speech to the Alabama Republican Party during its annual Summer luncheon at the Talladega super speedway, Wisconsin Governor and GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker (R-WI) sat down with Yellowhammer Radio’s Cliff Sims to discuss his vision of a Walker administration.
Sims began the interview by asking why Walker believed he, as a Midwestern governor, received such a warm reception in SEC Country.
“I think its a combination of things. I think people want no-nonsense. We don’t pump it up like people on the east or west coast. I guess that’s how I was raised in a small town,” the governor said. “But I also think the other part of it is that there are a lot of great Republican candidates. But if you’re looking for someone who can fight and win and actually get results without compromising common-sense conservative principles, I’m the only one in the race who’s done all that.”
Walker’s record of conservatism in face of political crisis has become one of the major selling points of his campaign. After pushing back against Wisconsin’s public sector unions right to collectively bargain, the Midwesterner had to win three elections in four years and became the first ever governor in U.S. history to win a recall election.
“I wasn’t intimidated by not just big union bosses and liberal special interests, but early on even some from my own party. I’m not going to back down or be intimidated by anyone out there,” he said.
Much like in Yellowhammer’s interview with GOP front-runner Donald Trump, the possibility of Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General was raised. Walker said liked the idea and had recently talked to the Junior Alabama Senator about immigration policy. Mentioning that it’s against the law to promise that sort of position, Walker also implied that Sessions is someone of the caliber he would like in his administration.
Governor Walker’s position on immigration has seemingly shifted over the past few years, an evolution he says he has made by listening to the mood of the people, showing his ability to play to the will of Democracy.
“People want leaders who say, you know, I’m willing to listen to you,” he explained. “It’s clear to me we’re looking at how this president messed up the immigration system.”
“We’ve heard for years politicians give lip service to securing the border and being true to the law and they haven’t done it. So my point is that unless you got someone with a committed plan to doing that its just more of the same.”
Walker concluded his comments on immigration by emphasizing that the “priority [should be] on American working families and their wages.”
Shifting to the current administration’s apparent lack of respect for the rule of law, Walker asserted, “When you hold up your hand to take the oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States, you don’t get to pick and choose which parts, you uphold it all.”
Inevitably, the topic of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton entered the conversation and Walker had a few choice words for the former Secretary of State.
With regard to the current email-server scandal, Walker said “If she’s not doing something that’s illegal, she’s incompetent.”
On her foreign policy, he opined “Everywhere in the world that Hillary Clinton has touched is worse off today than it was before she and President Obama took office.”
Sims and Walker concluded their time together with a discussion of their Faith, both being the sons of Christian Ministers.
“My family showed me it wasn’t what you do on Sunday that mattered, but what you do everyday of the week that mattered in terms of living out their faith so freely,” he told Sims. “When we had 100,000 protesters [In Wisconsin], we had death threats and my family and my kids were under attack, we stayed true to our principles, we didn’t back off, but we did so in a way that was honorable and decent and didn’t respond in kind and a lot of that comes from my faith.”
In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing Same-Sex marriage nationwide, Walker believes that protecting religious freedom will be key for the next president.
“One of the key priorities of the next president, certainly for me,” he said, “has got to be focusing on protecting religious freedoms.”
Alabama Senate Majority Leader Greg Reed (R-Jasper), the state’s chairman for Gov. Walker’s campaign said that it’s early in the process, and Alabamians are just getting to know the Wisconsinite, but “Scott Walker’s message of giving power back to the people resonated with conservatives here in Alabama. Folks are looking for a tough, conservative leader who can win and that’s who Scott Walker is.”
Many believe, and Walker explicitly stated, that the increased attention to Alabama has been created by the “SEC Primary.”
The Yellowhammer State will join Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia to hold its presidential primary election on March 1st. Electoral heavy hitter Florida will also have its primary in March, waiting until two weeks after its neighbors for March 15th.
The new system, championed by Alabama’s Secretary of State John Merrill, is an effort to maneuver Alabama into a place of greater relevance in the nominating process—a move that appears to be working.
In most presidential election years through the 2004 cycle, Alabama held its presidential primaries in June, often long after voters in other states had essentially decided the outcome of the races. Now, with the new March 1st date, many in Alabama hope that their voices will have a greater impact in who represents the parties in November.
