Bice: Scott Walker makes $800,000 molding young conservatives while liberal student voting surges

Former Gov. Scott Walker should be living the dream.

The group he leads, Young America's Foundation, will be front and center as one of the sponsors of the upcoming Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee on Aug. 23.

"This is a great time to introduce more young Americans to the value of freedom and opportunity for all," Walker tweeted in April.

What's more, the Wisconsin Republican made nearly $800,000 in 2021, the most recent year for which figures are available, as president of the $39 million nonprofit aimed at convincing young voters to adopt conservative views. Walker — who ran for office in a 1998 Saturn with a brown bag lunch — now owns a $700,000 house in Lake Country and a condo in Reston, Virginia.

But Walker sounds extremely frustrated.

Young voters, the target of his group's efforts, came out in droves for liberal candidates in the midterm elections, helping Democrats keep control of the U.S. Senate and returning Democratic Gov. Tony Evers for a second term. Then, in April, college students showed up to the polls again in big numbers to back liberal Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz, who eased past conservative candidate Dan Kelly.

In short order, Republicans began clamoring to raise the minimum age for voting from 18 to 21. GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has even proposed raising the voting age to 25 unless someone served in the military or had passed a test.

Amid all this, Walker tweeted in January: "The voting age should be the same as the drinking age," which is currently 21.

Many took Walker's post to mean he wanted to raise the voting age to 21, something that would require a constitutional amendment and would bump millions of people off the voter rolls.

U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, responded: "You should be able to vote for the Commander in Chief who can send you to war."

"Scott Walker advocates for flagrant suppression of young voters," wrote Crooks and Liars, a liberal news blog. "Can you tell that Republicans aren't polling well with young voters?"

In response, Walker tweeted: "18, 19 or 21. Whatever it is, the age should be consistent for both. Certainly not younger."

Still not sure what he meant, I asked him via Direct Message on Twitter to clarify. He said his tweet was actually more about changing the drinking age.

"Everything should be the same once you're an adult. If you can go to war and vote, you should be able to drink, too," Walker responded. "18 for all of it."

Gotcha.

Of course, in 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal government's power to withhold 10% of highway construction funds from states that refuse to raise their minimum drinking age to 21. Beyond that, it looks like Wisconsin GOP lawmakers still proposed lowering it to 18 in 1995 and 19 in 2017, and Walker didn't sign on.

The former two-term governor acknowledged that.

"Just thought of it over the past few years," he wrote. "Higher age at 21 hasn't stopped binge drinking on campus — some might argue it pushed it."

OK, but some aren't buying it.

Joe Oslund, spokesman for the state Democratic Party, said it is clear what Walker meant with his original tweet, "regardless of whatever cleanup he may be trying to do after the fact."

"We made a decision in this country that if you were old enough to fight, you were old enough to vote — that’s why the voting age is 18," Oslund said. "It’s a shame Scott Walker doesn’t seem to respect that."

After Protesiewicz's victory in April, Walker made it clear he is primarily concerned about the youth vote.

Indeed, Walker blamed young voters for the election result, suggesting they can't think for themselves because they are so "indoctrinated." He made the point on Fox News and then again on Twitter.

"Younger voters are the issue," he tweeted on April 6. "It comes from years of radical indoctrination — on campus, in school, with social media, & throughout culture. We have to counter it or conservatives will never win battleground states again."

Dozens of Democratic politicians and others rejected Walker's analysis.

They suggested that Republicans were not offering policy proposals that appealed to young voters on gun control, abortion rights, climate change, environmental issues and protecting democracy.

"It can't be that they hate your policies. No, it has to be indoctrination," tweeted Washington, D.C., attorney Bradley P. Moss sarcastically.

Brianna Koerth, former program director for the liberal advocacy group Project 72 Wisconsin, said conservative groups aren't reconsidering their policy positions but are instead blaming universities and taking action to make it harder for students to vote, something that drives even more of them to the polls. Her group promoted liberal issues on college campuses in the Protasiewicz race.

In addition, conservatives are pouring millions of dollars into organizations like YAF and paying Walker, 55, big bucks in hopes they can turn the youth vote around, said Koerth, who is 25.

Which is all fine with her: Let the Gen X ex-governor figure out how to win over the youngsters from Gen Z.

"As far as I’m concerned, they should keep paying Scott Walker all that money," Koerth said. "We seem to be doing better with young people with him leading the charge for conservatives on youth. We just keep winning."

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 313-6684 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Scott Walker makes $800,000 a year as liberal student voting surges