Ahead of yesterday’s House vote to fund the federal government, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) painted the Republicans rebelling against Speaker John Boehner from the right as Scott Walker Republicans — uninterested in compromise, single-minded in pursuit of a right-wing policy agenda.
The statement quickly diffused through the Capitol, and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) — an influential conservative and former Republican leader, who voted against the spending measure — took kindly to it. On Twitter, Pence joked, “Sen. Schumer called us ‘Scott Walker Republicans?’ That’s the nicest thing anybody has said about me in a long time!”
Turns out this is a view shared by both the so-called “Scott Walker Republicans” themselves, and Republicans who voted to pass the compromise plan.
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), who supports a grand bargain on spending, and voted with his leadership, put it bluntly. “I understand why Schumer would fear Scott Walker,” Kingston said in a brief interview in the Speaker’s Lobby, just off the House floor. “That’s his — what he doesn’t understand is that’s a pretty damn good compliment so people will take that.”
On the other side of the GOP divide, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who strongly opposes passing any spending measure unless it’s used as leverage to gut the health care law, had a similar view. “If I had to choose, I’d a lot rather be Scott Walker than Schumer,” King told me. “I don’t take that as an insult, and there are a lot more that are sympathetic and in Scott Walker’s favor in our own conference.”
Walker’s become a hero among leaders in the conservative movement, and elected Republicans genuinely seem to admire his willingness to go to the wall to undermine public sector unions. But it’s not clear they realize that Walker’s become a national lightning rod — and deeply unpopular among his constituents to boot. And yet, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette claims that “after the face-off in Wisconsin between the public and public-employee unions, the odds-on favorite for the party’s vice-presidential nomination may be that state’s fighting governor, Scott Walker.”
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) had a safer take on this question. “I’m not part of the ‘No Labels’ movement, but I generally think of myself as a Thaddeus McCotter Republican,” McCotter said. “If Scott Walker wants to call himself that he can do that, if Sen. Schumer wants to call himself that he can do that. It’s a free country — you should hear what I get called.”
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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