Peter, as usual, made all the right points below. It means little to know that Walker didn’t graduate from college. It’s a minor PR problem that he will overwhelm with his astuteness and record of real political success.
And Walker has done well by becoming “proactively transparent” when it comes to his college record. He didn’t study much, had a very mediocre but perfectly adequate GPA, and left college to get a job to support his family. Because he was clearly in college on the way to working in marketing and fundraising (and the combination of the two, called political campaigning), he reasonably bolted when he achieved his objective.
Still: It won’t do to say that Lincoln and Truman (two very bookish and self-educated presidents) didn’t have college degrees either. It would be better (and nobody’s perfect) if Walker had shown a lot more interest in real books and all that.
My main objection to Walker’s résumé is something like: He went right to running for office and kept at it, and his résumé is very short in the category of non-political achievements. If to be Republican is to distrust career politicians, then we should approach Walker’s claims on behalf of his presidential leadership with considerable initial skepticism.
As Pete suggests, a lot of the interest in Walker from arguably libertarian/oligarchic interests and experts is based on the perception that he’s a true believer, incapable of thinking “outside their box.” It’s true that Walker won’t be dominated by the self-appointed ”clerisy” that Joel Kotkin correctly sees as dominating our top educational institutions, foundations, and all that. But if Walker were liberally educated or devoted to that kind of intellectual liberation, I’d be more confident that he’s a “true prince,” able to judge all the advice he gets from his more comprehensive and deeply informed personal ”vision” about what’s best for our country. That is what Lincoln did. That’s what Reagan (who also really did read a lot) did.
As Pete points out, Walker mouthed pretty much the oligarchic (labor force) opinion on immigration and was rather amazed that it turned out to be controversial among conservatives. And he was just evasive on evolution. Why would it be so hard to say that whether evolution happened or not is rather irrelevant for almost all questions of public policy, but I disagree with those who say that “evolutionary psychology” can account for anywhere near all human thought and behavior?
My hope is, with Pete, that Walker “evolves” in the direction of reform conservatism. My advice to him: Spend a lot of quality time with Pete and Yuval Levin, Ph.D.