In 1992, a baby-faced 24-year-old Scott Walker — who is now the governor of Wisconsin and a 2016 GOP presidential hopeful — represented the Wisconsin Republican Party in a televised debate with former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, Louisiana state representative, and self-proclaimed white supremacist David Duke. Wisconsin residents called into a show called “Smith & Co” to weigh in and ask questions.
Walker was debating whether or not Duke should be allowed to be on that year’s Wisconsin presidential primary ballot as a Republican. Show host Joe Smith was asking Walker to predict the state’s bipartisan ballot selection committee’s decision. Walker’s answer:
“I would certainly hope it’s gonna be a majority opposed to putting him on the ballot,” Walker says.
Duke, speaking from New Orleans via satellite, said this:
“Shame on you, Scott Walker, shame on you.”
A visibly nervous Walker lowered his eyes and shook his head.
Anchorman Joe Smith did a phone interview with Talking Points Memo and said that Walker “struck him at the time as somewhat unprepared to take on Duke.” He did not, however, that Walker did as well as one would expect from a young man of his age. He added this:
“I think somebody with the responsibility of the job that he had for the Republican Party at 24, you could say ‘Well, he presented himself as best he could given his age and experience,’” Smith said.
From TPM:
During the debate, Walker explained that the state GOP was making a “moral judgment” about Duke’s background in refusing to put him on the presidential primary ballot. Walker said that Duke was known to have sold neo-Nazi material out of his Louisiana office as recently as 1989. Duke said he had a bookstore that carried “Mein Kampf” and “Das Kapital” but denied selling the books out of his office.
He said this to Duke:
“Your viewpoints may or may not be legitimate.”
He was referring specifically to welfare reform and job security, issues that were supposedly important to both Duke and Wisconsin residents.
“The key, though, is we feel that in particular you’re hiding behind these issues that are legitimate issues,” he continued, “but do not necessarily make you a legitimate candidate, any more than in the city of Milwaukee if Jeffrey Dahmer were to stand up and talk about family values, that would make him a legitimate candidate.”
“The voters have a right, whether my issues are legitimate or not or whether I’m legitimate or not,” Duke shot back. He further suggested that other Republican candidates owed him a debt of gratitude for being the first to campaign on issues like affirmative action and “workfare.”
Duke gave TPM a phone interview on Monday. He genuinely feels that he “mopped the floor” with Walker, citing the number of callers who called into the show and supported him being on the ballot.
“I think I acquitted myself well and gave the real issues that a true American, if somebody really believed in freedom and the principles America’s founded upon, would really support my right to be on the ballot,” he said.
Duke argued that Walker showed a “total disregard for the true rights of the American people.” He added that Walker was a weak debate opponent.
“I think he was a lightweight, just to be frank with you. It’s hard being a good debater when you’re not really honest.”
It sucks that I have to agree with anything that David Duke ever said, but yeah….Scott Walker is not honest.
Walker, who didn’t respond to TPM’s request for an interview, discussed the debate with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in 2009 when a Wisconsin politician compared him to Duke.
“At first, it was to be me against a Duke supporter in Wisconsin. Then it was a guy from the campaign based in L.A.,” Walker told the newspaper in an e-mail. “At the last minute, they switched and put (on) David Duke himself. I argued that he was not legit. At the end of the show, I said that there was no place in the party for guys like Duke and he said, ‘Shame on you, Scott Walker, shame on you.'”
Smith said that it’s correct. Again, Duke was right about Walker’s honesty. Smith said this, via TPM:
“I don’t remember that at all,” Smith said of Walker’s notion that he was going to talk with a Duke surrogate. “I do remember, though, that it was touch-and-go as to whether Duke was going to do it. I would not have done this, have Walker show up and then all of the sudden say ‘Oh by the way, we have David Duke.’ I would not have done that because that’s just not fair.”
He added this:
“What I thought was really telling was Duke saying ‘my enemies made me,’” Smith told TPM. “Because Walker and others who disagreed with Duke, they talked about it and they created his popularity. Probably not what they had planned to do, but they did.”
The video is 28 minutes long, but ohhhhhhhh it’s good. Watch it below.
h/t Catherine Thompson via Talking Points Memo
