An Unfiltered Interview with Scott Walker

[Valin]

National Review:

Quin Hillyer

August 21, 2015

 

It’s safe to say that most conservatives across the country think pretty highly of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and that he remains one of the few presidential candidates who are at least broadly acceptable to almost every sub-species of Republican. It’s not hard to find Wisconsinites who will wax rhapsodic about Walker’s job performance as well as how friendly and engaging he is.

 

Yet in the wake of Donald Trump’s bluster, Walker’s quieter but battle-tested toughness and policy successes have seemed to fade a bit from view.

 

In response, Walker hasn’t tried so much to match Trump’s glitz as to double down on his own considerable substance, issuing a health-care reform plan this week that earned almost universal praise on the right — including from National Review’s Yuval Levin, who called it “the most substantively and politically serious conservative health-care reform we have yet seen from a presidential candidate.”

 

In my 15-minute private phone interview with Walker on Thursday, I figured that his new health-care proposal should be the obvious starting point. Rather than filter the interview through my impressions, I’ll just present the highlights of the Q&A directly.

 

(Snip)