You may have noticed that the media likes to run critical stories about Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — sometimes without doing much checking first.
As the Walker for president talk gains steam, you can expect to see more media attempts to break him in. That’s to be expected. But for now, that might be less important than the media he does have in his corner.
Consider how rapid Walker’s rise has been. As late as November, he usually polled in the single digits. Public Policy Polling had Walker at 5 percent last March, compared to 25 percent in its latest poll.
The turnaround in Iowa is even more pronounced. Walked typically polled around 5 percent of the vote last year, with his best performance in a survey of possible GOP caucus-goers 8 percent. In late January, he broke into the double digits for the first time. Two February polls had him in first place with more than 20 percent of the vote, which happens to be his Real Clear Politics polling average in the state.
Ditto New Hampshire, where Walker’s best performance last year was just 7 percent. He’s been pretty consistently in the double digits since then, even though Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and Chris Christie are all strong in the first-in-the-nation primary too. Gravis Marketing had Walker as high as 23 percent in February.
In the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) straw poll, Walker saw his support triple from 7 percent last year to a little over 21 percent Saturday. The governor vaulted from fifth place to a close second behind Paul, who had a better organization and is in synch with the younger conservatives who dominate the conference.
Walker was the biggest beneficiary of the Iowa Freedom Summit, an early cattle call for Republican 2016 aspirants. There he bucked the perception that he was too boring a speaker to compete for president in the television and Internet era, where coverage is ubiquitous and charisma is king.
It can’t hurt that Walker has another secret weapon: Rush Limbaugh, the biggest name in conservative talk radio, has been touting him even before that breakthrough speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Republican Party has a genuine star,” Limbaugh said on his radio program the day after Walker a second term in November. In case you missed the point, the transcript ran on Limbaugh’s website under the headline “Scott Walker Superstar.”
Rush raved about Walker’s Iowa speech, praising its “pedal-to-the-metal, wall-to-wall conservatism.” (RELATED: Limbaugh: Scott Walker ‘The Blueprint’ For The GOP If They Are ‘Serious About Beating The Left)
“If you have spent any time listening to this program in the last two years, you know that I believe Scott Walker is the blueprint for the Republican Party if they are serious about beating the left Scott Walker has shown how to do it,” he said.
Conservative media’s track record in swaying the Republican presidential primaries isn’t good. Outlets like National Review certainly boosted Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan in the pre-talk radio era. Other than that, there’s not much.
Sometimes the candidates boosted on conservative magazine covers don’t do well with grassroots conservatives (otherwise we would have gotten much closer to a President Brownback) while some candidates who do connect with the rank and file aren’t favorites of the conservative elites (think Pat Buchanan, Mike Huckabee).
Other times, the candidates themselves haven’t given conservative talkers much to work with. Laura Ingraham gave a barnburner of a speech introducing Mitt Romney at CPAC in 2008. Romney followed her out and promptly suspended his campaign, endorsing John McCain.
While Limbaugh hasn’t formally endorsed anybody, he does seem to be rallying early. National Journal tracked how often Rush has mentioned Walker on his show: 200 times just over the last week of January and the first week of February alone.
National Journal’s headline? “Scott Walker Is Winning The Rush Limbaugh Primary.” Meanwhile, The Hill described Jeb Bush as having a conservative media problem.
How much this would help in the general election if Walker was the nominee remains to be seen. But it can’t hurt in the Republican primaries and seems to have helped raise Walker’s profile.
Limbaugh has long joked about fighting with half his brain tied behind his back, just to make it fair. Maybe that’s all the fairness Walker needs.
W. James Antle III is managing editor of The Daily Caller and author of the book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped? Follow him on Twitter.
