Hmm. His rhetoric seems to have changed, but I'm not so sure his views have actually, tangibly changed on anything. In the older quotes he said he supported anti-discrimination laws or gays in the workplace but was against gay marriage "a healthy balance" as he said. Now, he says he wants to pass a constitutional amendment to let states ban gay marriage. It is obviously impossible for him to do any such thing, yet this isn't really a flip flop.
The obtuse answer where he said "it's in the constitution" was a reference to Wisconsin's state constitutional ban on gay marriage. Walker was saying that his opinion on it is irrelevant since it was in the constitution anyway. It shouldn't be remotely surprising to anyone following Walker that he said that. Again, his gubernatorial campaign was built somewhat on avoiding topics he viewed as a pointless distraction.
I won't begin to pretend that running in the Republican Primary isn't changing which issues he views as pointless distractions. In general he now has to give his actual opinion on a lot of things he used to be able to avoid. But he's always been a hardline conservative on pretty much every issue. That hasn't changed.
The real problem here is of course that he, as the article says, may be running to win the primary and lose the general election.
Whatever Walker is doing, being it tacking, emphasis change, irrelevant musings about ways out the box that he doesn't like that are DOA, doesn't this strike you TJ as all pathetically inept? He also projects to me this ersatz quality, as if he is trying to read someone else's lines that are written for him, but just isn't doing it very well.
Yes, it does strike me as inept. There are a number of things about Walker that strike me as somewhat inept and this is only another brick in the wall. I have trouble seeing Walker withstand a presidential campaign without these sorts of things building up into an insurmountable pile. I am not planning on voting for Walker in the primary because I think he would make the occasional poor decision, both in the campaign and, if elected, in office, that would undermine whatever else he was trying to do. As for the speaking, he's always been that way. The original criticism of Walker as a presidential candidate a few years ago was that he doesn't have the charisma to win. He looks uncomfortable.
I disagree about the inauthenticity charge. Walker is not difficult to understand even if he is a tad difficult to predict. I cannot claim to have predicted that Walker would take on the UW system in his budget for example. Now that he has I understand why he did, and what it's made a mess for a marginal fiscal effect. I am sure he does have a speech writer; who doesn't? But I don't think he's particularly puppet-like. I think his problem is that he can only really wrap his mind around a handful of issues at a time and harp on them. That worked okay in Wisconsin, but now when running for president he has to deal with a plethora of other stuff he isn't prepared for. I don't think this will turn out well for him.
