After taking Scott Walker to task — twice — earlier this week for his completely false and cynical claim that he had created 17,000 new ready-to-hire businesses, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has today downgraded its assessment of Walker’s central campaign promise to create 250,000 new private sector jobs, noting that “Wisconsin’s latest jobs report moved sharply in the wrong direction.”
In its latest “Walk-O-Meter” feature on Walker’s central campaign promise, the Journal Sentinel writes “The report continues a trajectory that suggests it will be virtually impossible for Walker to meet his promise of creating 250,000 private-sector jobs in his four-year term. This is the view of two economists who follow the state closely and two business leaders who advised then-candidate Walker to make the promise.”
The Journal Sentinel also quotes a report from Tom Hefty and John Torinus, two businessmen who advised Walker on the jobs goal in 2010, that appeared in the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute that says, “…the state will not create 250,000 jobs by the end of 2014. Neither will Wisconsin be ranked as a top 10 state for business climate. Those goals, set out by Gov. Scott Walker in 2010, remain worthy. But they won’t be achieved.”
This is the second straight day of bad news for Walker, as yesterday’s Marquette University Law School poll showed his support had fallen and Walker is tied with Democratic challenger Mary Burke at 46%.
Other key findings of the poll were that 70% of Wisconsin voters say the economy has stayed the same or gotten worse since Walker took office and 43% correctly believe that Wisconsin is lagging behind other states in job creation. The poll also indicates that a whopping 59% of Wisconsin voters say that extensive business experience is more important to becoming governor compared to just 27% who say that extensive political experience is more important.
Mary Burke, a former executive for Trek Bicycles, has a long track record of creating jobs in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and has relied on that experience to create her serious jobs plan that will turn Wisconsin into a top ten, thriving economy.
In contrast, Scott Walker has ignored job creation in Wisconsin as he campaigns for president around the country ; a bad choice, according the MU poll, which shows that 67% of voters don’t think Scott Walker should run for president and 65% believe that a governor can’t run for president and still fulfill the duties of their job.
“Support for Scott Walker is falling almost as fast and hard as he’s made Wisconsin fall in the job creation rankings,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said Thursday. “But while there’s no remedy for Walker’s failed agenda that’s put his political ambitions ahead of Wisconsin’s middle class, there is a remedy for Wisconsin’s economy and it starts with electing Mary Burke as our new governor in November.”
