Some have compared Walker’s situation with that of Tim Pawlenty in 2012, who received rave reviews early in the race only to see his money dry up after a couple of lackluster debate performances, and to John McCain’s experience in 2008, when he retrenched to New Hampshire, crisscrossing the state with a skeletal staff and, in the words of his own campaign, “living off the land.”
One ex-Pawlenty staffer says he learned a hard lesson from his experience four years ago: “You should not make financial commitments based on needing future fundraising to sustain it — it’s a very dangerous game.”
That’s what the Walker campaign did. “They hired lots of people,” says the former Pawlenty staffer, “particularly in Iowa, because they suspected that fundraising would be very good. You should only make those commitments when you’ve got the money in the bank to do it.”
The situation left many in Madison — even those who were expecting the campaign to downsize and staffers to take pay cuts to keep the campaign alive — deflated. “I love the governor and I think it’s really a dark day, not just for me, I’ll be fine, but for the party, that people like him are not in the race,” says a Walker staffer.
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