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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Walker Should Keep His Distance From Decker

More than once today I heard that Senator Russ Decker's refusal to vote for the state employee contracts had something to do with the possibility of his gaining a position in the Walker administration. Berry Laker even speculates Decker could head the WI DNR. Perhaps it's appropriate that a politician who managed to provoke so much outrage would head an agency that seems to do the same, but in my estimation Walker would be making a huge mistake to include Decker in any capacity.

Even if Decker were uniquely suited to fill some position in our state government, his appointment now would look like little more than a quid pro quo. As such, Walker would not be immune from criticism. It takes two to pander after all.

Among those of us that are generally supportive of Walker's policy positions, one of his weaknesses is a private sector resume that is a little thin to put it kindly. A Decker appointment that looks and sounds like politics as usual would reinforce the idea of Walker as a little more than a politician. It's entirely possible that we could still be facing a tough economy in 2014 and primary voters tend to have long memories.

If Russ Decker happens to have $3 billion he'd be willing to donate to plug our state's budget deficit then I think Walker's first act as governor should be to hire him. Short of that, Scott Walker would be well advised to keep Decker out of his administration.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Looks like Russ is a super-genius. I think your advice is interesting, particularly when you don’t generally seem to want the best for the recipient.

It seems to me that your math works out a bit like adding to negative integers. It could be quite positive.

I hope the tranny's are listening.