WHY SCOTT WALKER IS STRUGGLING: HE'S HIS OWN BAD COP

NBC's First Read reports:

A poll out today by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute shows ... [that Governor Scott] Walker's approval rating is upside down -- with 43% approving and 53% disapproving of how he's handling his job. Walker's "strongly disapprove" is a sky-high 45%....

The poll also finds that by a 65%-33% margin, Wisconsin residents want Walker to compromise on the current standoff....

That last statistic is key. Even when voters are turning out to cast votes for certifiably crazy teabag-style extremist candidates, a significant percentage of those voters actually believe they want reason and moderation to prevail; they really believe they want everyone after the election to come to an understanding of how to solve our problems through compromise. That's just the way it always is in America -- right-wing extremists can persuade quite a few swing voters that voting for them is consistent with moderation, because Fox and talk radio have made the argument that the liberal lefty commie Democrats are extremists on the other side, and a vote for far-rightists is a vote for "balance." (That's also the meaning of Fox's slogan "fair and balanced.")

Scott Walker's mistake was letting himself himself be perceived as the extremist he actually is, rather than as a guy merely restoring "balance." He needed a "bad cop" who was seeking even more extreme stuff -- or, at the very least, he needed to say, "I'm a reasonable guy; look at how little I'm actually asking for."

The latter is Chris Christie's strategy, as The New York Times recently noted:

"The argument you heard most vociferously from the teachers' union," Christie says, "was that this was the greatest assault on public education in the history of New Jersey." Here the fleshy governor lumbers a few steps toward the audience and lowers his voice for effect. "Now, do you really think that your child is now stressed out and unable to learn because they know that their poor teacher has to pay 1½ percent of their salary for their health care benefits? Have any of your children come home -- any of them -- and said, 'Mom.'" Pause. "'Dad.'" Another pause. "'Please. Stop the madness.'"

The former, as E.J. Dionne notes today, is the strategy of John Boehner and the House Republicans:

... House Republicans are pursuing their own madman theory in budget negotiations, with a clever twist: Speaker John Boehner is casting himself as the reasonable man fully prepared to reach a deal to avoid a government shutdown. But he also has to satisfy a band of "wild-eyed bomb-throwing freshmen," as he characterized new House members in a Wall Street Journal interview last week....

This is the perverse genius of what the House Republicans are up to: Nobody really thinks that anything like their $57 billion in remaining proposed budget cuts can pass. It's unlikely that all of their own members are confident about all of the cuts they have voted for. But by taking such a large collection of programs hostage, the GOP can be quite certain to win many more fights than it would if each reduction were considered separately....

Boehner can just sit back and smile benignly as Democrats battle over which concessions they should give him. When the negotiating gets tough, he can sadly warn that his freshmen need more because he can't guarantee what they'll do....

I fear Walker could have gotten away with this if he'd been a better tactician.