Scott Walker Tries To Disappear Story Doubting Jobs Pledge
By Ryan Rainey
During his 2010 campaign, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) pledged to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state. The promise was so central to his campaign that when a TV station recently said he appeared to be backtracking on that commitment, the news outlet reports, his office attempted to get it to take the story off its website.
The Wisconsin governor’s office tried to persuade northern Wisconsin NBC affiliate WJFW to pull a Monday report with the headline, “Walker backs off campaign jobs pledge at Merrill stop.” The online story said he was moving away from his promise to create 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term.
“Walker’s press secretary, Tom Evenson, called Newswatch 12 on Tuesday, and asked if we could be persuaded to take Monday’s story off our website,” said WJFW in a follow-up story. Instead, the news site linked back to its original story.
According to WJFW, Walker, visiting a local business, said Monday, “My goal wasn’t so much to hit a magic number as much as it was, in the four years before I took office, when I was campaigning, I saw that we lost over 133,000 jobs in the state. I said, ‘It’s really not about jobs, it’s about real people, real jobs like those here, and more importantly, affecting real families all across the state.'”
In a speech in Milwaukee two days later, however, he “reaffirmed” his commitment to the promise.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/walker-jobs-pledge_n_3838356.html