What We Learned from Walker’s Exit

First Read: “Scott Walker and Rick Perry both learned a hard lesson this cycle: If at first you don’t succeed – you don’t get a second look anymore. There are too many other alternatives in this GOP field, and the news cycle moves too fast for all but the most skilled candidates to claw their way out of a deficit. Individual stumbles and flip-flops aside, Walker’s fatal mistake was that he tried to be all things to all conservatives. In a year when the party wants anything but a traditional politician, Walker got caught being, well, a traditional politician: Trying too hard to give answers to appease supporters; trying to be politically perfect at the expense of being fresh or defiant; trying too hard to use a state budget to make a presidential statement.”