WAUKESHA, Wisconsin — GOP presidential candidate Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker threw anti-conservative Brad Dayspring, who’s working for his Super PAC Unintimidated PAC, under the bus on Sean Hannity’s television program on Monday evening in an hour-long interview after announcing his White House run.
“Let me ask you about a hire of yours that has angered conservatives, it’s come up a lot in the news—Brent Bozell talks about Brad Dayspring as someone who besmirches the reputations of conservatives, that he’s paid to do the ugly work—do you pay attention to any of that, those criticisms?” Hannity asked Walker.
“Well, he doesn’t work for me, he works for the Super PACs out there and by ‘he doesn’t work for me’ I can’t tell any Super PACs anything,” Walker replied amid crosstalk.
This matter is a tricky situation for Walker and all involved. Technically, Dayspring was hired by the pro-Walker Super PAC—which Walker and his official campaign staff are legally barred from communicating with by a firewall—but he could easily have defended Dayspring by saying something like he’s pleased to have talented people working for an outside effort backing his campaign. Walker also could have gone the other way and say he doesn’t appreciate anti-conservative people like Dayspring supporting him but there’s nothing he can do about it.
But Walker left it at that.
Dayspring—someone who’s drawn widespread ire from conservatives—doesn’t work for him, essentially leaving him hanging out to dry and to fend for himself.
Walker’s campaign continues to refuse to answer whether, as several other campaigns told Breitbart News for an expose, Walker’s team offered Dayspring this job three months ago—which means he would have been offered the job before the firewall went up between the Super PAC and the campaign, and the governor may have personally signed off on the job offer. Dayspring, meanwhile, and the Unintimidated PAC, have refused to answer that question as well.
The issue of Walker’s team bringing aboard such an anti-conservative, GOP establishment activist like Dayspring continues percolating on the campaign trail as conservatives oppose Dayspring working for the Walker Super PAC.
“Unfortunately, we are all too familiar with the anti-conservative attacks from Brad Dayspring,” a spokeswoman for Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) told Breitbart News. “He has a long record of saying anything, no matter how false, to destroy principled candidates. This hire is something that primary voters will have to consider when examining the candidates in this race.”
Jenny Beth Martin, the national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, said in an interview on the Mike Church Show while this reporter guest hosted that Dayspring shouldn’t be rewarded for his anti-conservative activity.
“He has a track record of attacking candidates and attacking supporters of candidates in a way that isn’t just about issues, but it’s going after the character of the people he’s attacking,” Martin said of Dayspring.
It’s very, very troubling. After we watched what came out of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to those of us who endorsed for McDaniel down in Mississippi and against Thad Cochran, the attacks against us were just vicious. It’s very troubling to see someone who led those attacks is awarded with additional jobs. Even though it’s frustrating it’s not surprising. That’s what happens: These people continue to get jobs. I hope that the candidates themselves understand that if they were hiring people like that and that if wasn’t the Super PAC but the candidate, then it really becomes a problem and we wonder who the candidate is associating with. We’ll see what happens as this continues, and a lot of people within the conservative movement are very concerned about this hire by the Super PAC that’s supporting Scott Walker.
ForAmerica chairman Brent Bozell, who also appeared on the program that morning to hammer Walker’s team for bringing Dayspring aboard, has called Dayspring a “cretin” who disqualifies Walker in the minds of conservatives if the Super PAC that hired him keeps him aboard.
Later in the show that morning, Citizens United’s Dave Bossie—another influential conservative—called on Walker’s team to dump Dayspring.
“I hope that Brent—and I know Brent very well—I hope he said that personnel is policy,” Bossie said.
That statement is dead on when you’re dealing with different people in your campaign, whether you know them or not, how well you know them or not, whether Governor Walker has ever even met Brad Dayspring is immaterial. It is how Brad Dayspring has made his living. In his last many, many years it has been to undermine and kill off conservative candidates across the country either before they can become serious or once they get serious he undermines them. It is just devastating to me why they would bring someone on like Brad Dayspring. You look at whether he has made really stupid comments because he called a female Senate candidate ‘an empty dress.’ You can’t do those types of things. He has this offhand remark style that just is the quip instead of the smart. That goes for how he speaks, not his conservatism, and everybody understands now that he is not a conservative let alone a movement conservative. I got to tell you, I think Governor Walker really has to rethink this. You’ve seen many guys, many candidates, over the last several months—Bush included—who have made hires and then had to get rid of them as soon as they uncover things that are not tenable for them to work with. So I think Brad Dayspring, I hope, will be looked at in that sense.
When this reporter noted to Bossie how political consultants like Dayspring, in the new media age, can no longer hide in the shadows—and if this presents a new dynamic in campaigns and elections that candidates need to worry about—he replied, “that is true.”
“With social media now, with Facebook and Twitter and all of these different platforms where people in their personal lives do all sorts of different things—whether you’re on the left or right—posting photographs of yourself doing stupid things or saying stupid things never does your career well,” Bossie said.
So I think it’s a life lesson for all young people out there to once again, be careful of what you do in your employment history because it can come back to haunt you. When you think okay I’m ready to now go to the next level, which is the presidential level, and what you do and say has lived on—and does live on—forever and so that’s why people like us can go and find the things that Brad Dayspring has talked about, whether it was attacking viciously Chris McDaniel when he was literally votes away from being a United States Senator. The entire conservative movement around the country was coalescing around him [McDaniel] so I just don’t see how you pick a guy like that [Dayspring].
At this time, Walker’s team is still employing Dayspring, and he’s been actively promoting Walker in public on Twitter and through other means.
Before working for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) on behalf of now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts to crush the Tea Party movement nationwide last cycle, Dayspring worked for now-former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Ironically, Cantor is one such establishment Republican who lost his re-election after he abandoned his constituents to become a part of the Washington machine on, among other issues, his support for amnesty. In losing to now-Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA), Cantor become the first sitting House Majority Leader in American history to lose re-election in a primary.
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