As Governor Scott Walker looks ahead at the 2014 gubernatorial election, as well as a possible presidential bid in 2016, he indicates there won’t be any new surprises. “I’m probably one of the most scrutinized elected officials in the country.”
Walker probably has been more scrutinized than most candidates, in part because of the recall election and the John Doe investigation. The release of nearly 27,000 emails last week has rekindled the attention, but Professor Charles Franklin at Marquette University Law School can think of at least one other high-profile candidate that has endured as much scrutiny, and she’s on the other side of the political aisle.
“I suppose you could point to Hillary Clinton in 2008 when she ran for president as really setting the high watermark of someone who’s lived through a tremendous level of scrutiny and investigations in the past, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find very many people who have been looked at as closely as Walker has been.”
Hillary Clinton and Scott Walker have both been so intensely scrutinized, Franklin says, “the low-hanging fruit has already been found.”
This level of examination couldn’t have happened before so much information was easily available through the advancement of technology, Franklin says, by way of emails, text messages, hidden video, and secret audio recordings. “In the old days a lot of these conversations would have taken place face-to-face or over the telephone and not produced any durable record of what was said and what people thought.” He says, “That’s one of the perils of the modern age. We leave tracks behind us in our email and in our text messages.”
AUDIO: Franklin says it’s possible to stumble upon something new, but the “low-hanging fruit” has already been found. Also, he says, opinions are pretty strongly set for or against such polarizing politicians. :65
Meanwhile, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was in Wisconsin last week helping to raise money for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke campaign to replace Walker. “I’m here in the state today to focus on raising the resources that Democrats need to be successful and to beat Scott Walker and elect Mary Burke as the governor of this state.”
AUDIO: Jackie Johnson report 2:01