The Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, seized on a poll that showed him as his party’s leading presidential candidate in Iowa on Sunday, taking barely veiled shots at rival Jeb Bush but appearing to stumble when pressed over foreign policy.
In his first television interview since Mitt Romney pulled out of the race for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination, Walker, 47, suggested Americans “don’t want to go back in time, they don’t want to repeat what we’ve had in the past”.
On the face of it the remark was a dig at the former first lady, senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. But it was also, it seemed, aimed Bush, the former Florida governor who is seeking to follow his brother and father into the White House.
Walker received a significant boost on Saturday when he topped a poll of Iowa Republicans carried out by the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg.
Reaping the benefits of a successful speech to Iowa conservatives the preceding weekend, Walker leapfrogged more established candidates and secured 15% of the vote – up from 4% in October.
The result put him effectively neck-and-neck with Rand Paul, who did not attend the Iowa Freedom Summit but still managed to secure 14% support among Republicans in Iowa, which hosts the first caucus in the party’s nomination season.
Just 8% of respondents said Bush would be their first choice for president.
With a year to go before the Iowa caucus, very little should be gleaned from the tea leaves of opinion polls. At this stage, surveys are an indication of name recognition as much as popularity, and the roller-coaster nomination process virtually guarantees that candidates who go up will come back down.
But the poll does, nonetheless, give early momentum to Walker, whom strategists have long-tipped as a dark horse in a crowded field of presidential aspirants.
Romney, announcing his departure from the race on Friday, said he expected the successful nominee to be a less well-known figure in the party who is is “just getting started”.
Asked on ABC’s This Week Sunday morning show if he took that to be reference to himself, Walker replied: “If we’re going to take on a name from the past, which is likely to be former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, I think for the party we need a name from the future.”
Walker gave every impression he thought that name should be his. “I’ll just tell you one thing,” he said when pressed on whether he would run. “After three elections for governor in four years in a state that hasn’t gone Republican since 1984 for president, I wouldn’t bet against me on anything.”
His remarks about Clinton being a candidate from the past were carefully worded to include a reference to the Republican primary contest. In other words, a swipe at Bush, 61, who was elected governor of Florida in 1999 and who, like Clinton, his associated with a dynasty from the past.
“I think the biggest thing I hear from Americans applies both in the primary contest and I think in the general,” he said. “And that is I think people want to look to the future. They don’t want to go back in time, they don’t want to repeat what we’ve had in the past. We need a candidate not of the 20th century, but of the 21st century.”
That playbook – knocking both Clinton and Bush with the same punch – is expected to be repeated by other Republican hopefuls. Paul, the most strategically inventive candidate in the Republican field, adopted a similar strategy when he released a “secret tape” about a fictional phone-call between Clinton and Bush.
Unlike Paul, who has been willing to take libertarian positions he knows are not popular with his party, Walker is more of a cookie-cutter politician, whose early success has been attributed to his appeal to both conservative and moderate Republicans.
But the luxury of appealing to all corners of the the ideologically divided GOP will not last throughout the nomination process, which forces candidates to stake out their territory, including over complex areas of foreign policy.
Walker showed his vulnerability on that front when pressed hard by ABC host Martha Raddatz over his policy on Syria. After bumbling an answer about the need for an “aggressive” stance toward Islamic extremists, Walker added: “We have to look at other surgical methods. And ultimately, we have to be prepared to put boots on the ground if that’s what it takes.”
“Boots on the ground in Syria?” Raddatz replied, sensing a foreign policy blunder. “US boots on the ground in Syria?”
Walker backtracked. “I don’t think that is an immediate plan,” he said, “but I think anywhere in the world … I wouldn’t rule anything out.”
In an attempt to defend his national security credentials, Walker also spoke of “risk assessments given to me by the FBI and my adjutant general” in his role as governor of Wisconsin.
Walker is following a well-traveled path for Republican presidential candidates who want to improve their foreign policy credentials – meeting former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and arranging a visit to London.
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal visited London last month, while New Jersey governor Chris Christie arrived in the British capital for a similar trip on Sunday. Christie, well known for his love of sports teams including the Dallas Cowboys, kicked off his visit by attending Arsenal’s 5-0 Premier League win over Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium.
Florida senator Marco Rubio, who visited London last year and believes himself to be among the most knowledgeable foreign policy experts exploring a presidential run, recently mocked the string of governors taking foreign trips.
“Taking a trip to some foreign city for two days doesn’t make you Henry Kissinger either,” Rubio said. “I mean, you’ve got to spend some time on these issues that are important issues for the country.”
