I was talking with a long-term member of the state Capitol press corps the other day, and I asked him what kind of an interview Gov. Scott Walker was. He said he couldn’t really say; while Walker was a frequent guest on his program when he was a legislator, his press people no longer return his messages.
That’s not because this reporter is biased. I’ve known him for maybe two decades, and he’s among the most straightforward reporters I know. I still couldn’t honestly say which way he votes, or if he votes at all.
So it’s a shame that he would be frozen out, but as we were chatting he reminded me that his experience isn’t unusual. He confirmed something I had assumed: Walker cannot walk through the Capitol. He is escorted in and out via Capitol tunnels.
This is totally contrary to the Wisconsin tradition. This reporter told me that he would often just wait around the East Wing until Walker’s predecessor, Jim Doyle, showed up for work and buttonhole him right there for an interview. He said Doyle always accommodated. And he told me that Doyle’s predecessor, Tommy Thompson, would go a step further, actually calling out to reporters through the rotunda when he wanted to do an interview.
Those who think it has something to do with the Capitol being located in the heart of a liberal college town should keep in mind that Doyle, though a Democrat, was hardly a darling of the left, promising to cut 10,000 state jobs. And Tommy Thompson was an aggressive conservative who went hard after welfare reform, prison building and other right-leaning agenda items of the time.
If you’re a voter or reporter outside of Wisconsin and just getting to know our governor, give that some consideration. This is a man so polarizing and so intensely disliked in his home state that he can’t show his face in his own Capitol building. He has to be smuggled in and out like “El Chapo,” the Mexican drug lord who escaped from prison the other day through a drainage pipe.
This is the sort of man who now wants to portray himself to the nation as a “big and bold” leader. But courageous leaders don’t hide from their constituents and sneak in and out of their own offices through subterranean passageways. Big and bold leaders have the strength of character and the confidence in their ideas to endure confrontations even with harsh critics, and they have the patience to listen to another point of view.
How Scott Walker gets to work is no trivial matter. It speaks volumes about the kind of leader he is and would be.
