In the 2016 presidential race, Scott Walker has a couple advantages based on his electoral experiences alone: His back-to-back election victories after changing the state’s public-union rules drew attention and support from grassroots conservatives across the country, and to help win those races, he was all over the country raising millions of dollars from big national Republican donors. No other Republican contender has fought a national fight like that. It’s hard to measure grassroots cred, but just how dramatic is Walker’s first-contact advantage with big donors?

Frankly, I think there is a message here. Many conservative Republicans are getting very tired of being expected to vote for the establishment candidate. It has become obvious that establishment Republicans don’t want to cut spending in Washington–they simply want to control the money instead of the Democrats. Conservatives are getting tired of voting for Republicans and watching government grow and taxes increase. Scott Walker is a Republican who represents the conservatives within the party. Hopefully the establishment will not try to undermine his candidacy. (Although they are already moving to dilute conservative influence in the Republican primary–see rightwinggranny).