Scott Walker: Not qualified to be president — or governor
Scott Walker is not a serious candidate for the presidency, which, of course, means he’s leading in the GOP primary polls.
His already-extensive catalog of narcissistic gaffes notwithstanding, I recently noted that Walker never finished college, which, in my view, disqualifies him from holding his current office, much less pursuing the presidency of the United States.
And I stand by that assertion.
Predictably, he attacks as “elitist” his critics who say that it’s relevant that his highest level of education is a high school diploma. In fact, here are his exact words on that point: “That’s the kind of elitist, government-knows-best, top-down approach we’ve heard for years…”
First of all, that response doesn’t even make sense. Criticisms of Walker’s level of education aren’t coming from the government at all. They’re coming from people like me, who believe that state governorships and the presidency are not entry-level jobs.
Canned responses like these illustrate that Walker is nothing but sound bites, and as soon as he gets knocked off his talking points, he’s screwed. (Does he really think that just using the word “government” unrelentingly will save him? If he only plans on talking to Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist, and Donald Trump, then sure, it probably will.)
But here’s my broader point: In today’s job market, someone applying for a position of mid-level manager at a private company (to say nothing of the company’s vice president, CEO, etc.) likely wouldn’t even be considered if they didn’t at least have a bachelor’s degree.
Unsurprisingly, no one calls that “elitist.”
And when I talk about Walker not finishing college, I’m not solely referring to his book smarts or his objective qualifications. I’m referring as well to what it says about him as a person.
Is this a guy who’s willing to put in the time, hard work, and discipline associated with completing an advanced degree?
Or is he someone who’s too preoccupied with his own ambitions to bother? (It’s not as though some catastrophic life event befell Walker, preventing him from finishing at the time. He withdrew from Marquette University 25 years ago — and never looked back.)
It’s quite possible that the real “elitist” here is Scott Walker himself.
I’ve seen the mainstream media rush to defend Walker against this criticism. In particular, Time ran an article noting that “Scott Walker is a college dropout, but so are many Americans.”
That may very well be, but guess what? “Many Americans” do not aspire to be president of the United States — one of the hardest, most demanding, most powerful, and most consequential jobs in the entire world.
I don’t disparage those who don’t have a college degree. Far from it. In fact, I just got done saying that I think academia is largely insufferable. On top of that, many these days simply can’t afford it.
But it’s utter nonsense to suggest that Walker’s level of education isn’t a relevant topic of scrutiny in light of the position he currently holds — or the one to which he aspires. And I’m not alone in thinking so.
