1. A yearbook photo of Walker as a high school senior in Delavan, Wisconsin, bears the caption, “Scott K. Walker - the Desperado.” He says the yearbook editor, a friend, ran this as a joke because “I was unshaven, in that particular picture.”
2. Walker is the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall attempt, of the three who’ve been targeted. Ironically, one of Walker’s own biggest breaks came in 2002, when he won election as Milwaukee County executive after the incumbent resigned amid a recall campaign.
3. Walker dropped out of Marquette University as a senior in 1990. If elected, he would be the first President since Harry Truman to lack a college degree. Walker, predictably, spins this deficit as an asset, reportedly saying “70 percent of the country is with him” in this regard.
4. In the 2010 governor’s race, Walker’s campaign spent $11.1 million, compared to $6.8 million by his Democratic rival. In the 2012 recall, his campaign spent $36 million (more than five times his opponent), with two-thirds of his individual contributions coming from out-of-state. In his last election, in 2014, Walker and his running mate spent $36 million, compared to $17 million by their Democratic rivals. These totals did not include independent spending by outside groups.
5. Since mid-2008, Walker has personally donated a total of $448.10 to Wisconsin state political candidates and causes. This includes $100 reported by the Jefferson County Republican Party in 2013 for “5 autographed pictures = priceless.”
6. Walker wrote in his book that among the many death threats he and his family received in 2011 was one threatening to “gut” his wife Tonette “like a deer.” After he repeated this story to a gasping audience in Iowa earlier this year, the Wisconsin State Journal reported that state officials “have been unable to produce any record of this particular threat,” although a former state police official said he remembered having seen it.
7. Scott and Tonette Walker left the Baptist church they joined in Wauwatosa after it voted to affiliate with a “gay-accepting” national church group. One parishioner told the New York Times, “Tonette said they were looking for a more family-friendly place”; Scott said they left for a church that had more children his sons’ age.
8. Walker has refused to grant pardons, saying he does not want to second-guess the justice system; his five predecessors as Wisconsin governor pardoned more than 800 people. One notable refusal concerns Eric Pizer, a decorated military veteran who wants to become a cop—but must first erase a felony conviction for throwing a single punch that injured a man who threatened his friend. The man Pizer punched, by the way, has publicly forgiven him.
9. According to Walker’s most recent Statement of Economic Interests, a required state ethics disclosure, he has less than $100,000 in investments and between $10,000 and $100,000 in credit card debt. The Boston Globe has calculated his net worth at negative $72,500. That makes him by far the poorest serious contender for President, followed by Bernie Sanders, worth $330,000.
10. He’s allergic to dogs. The last dogless President was Dwight Eisenhower. Ike had a parakeet.
-- B.L.
Don't miss Bill Lueders' full article "The Amazing Scott Walker."