Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker asked his fellow conservatives to follow through on the promises made to Americans, and used his state as evidence that this can be both successful and popular.
“Do what you said you were going to do; to go big, to go bold, and to actually follow through on the promises you made throughout the campaign,” Walker said in a speech Thursday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, outside Washington.
“My plea to you today is to not get caught up in Washington, to not forget the voters, to not ignore the people who live in reality all across this country,” he added.
The two-term governor also asked conservatives not to get caught up in the Washington, D.C., bubble.
“In Washington, it is common practice to ignore the will of the voters,” Walker said. “For too long the media and the status quo defenders spend their time listening to the noise of the protests and the rhetoric of the pundits.”
The 49-year-old governor also said that sticking to promises works and is appreciated by most voters.
“It’s not only conservatives and Republicans who like that, but what we found in Wisconsin, is that independents and, yes, even some discerning Democrats, like it when you do the things you say you were going to do,” Walker said. “Commonsense conservative reforms work, they actually work, and people respond to them.”
During the speech, Walker laid out his own record of following through for voters.
“We’ve seen in the last year that more people were employed in [Wisconsin] than ever before, the lowest unemployment rate since 2001, one of the highest percentages of people overall in the workforce,” Walker said.
During a different CPAC panel with several other Republican governors, Walker also advocated a more limited federal government.
“What part do I think the federal government should get out of? I think the better question [sic] is what part should they not get out of,” Walker said.
Walker then took a dollar bill out of his wallet and asked the crowd, “Would you rather send [this dollar] to Washington, where you get pennies on the dollar back, or would you rather keep it back in your local community?”
“It’s not enough just to change the map from blue to red, this is an opportunity to have transformational change up the way in our nation’s capital,” Walker said on the issue of federalism.
CPAC, the largest annual national gathering of conservative activists, runs from Wednesday to Saturday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington.
