Walker's "Bain Capital" takeover of Wisconsin.

Like Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital, Scott Walker sees himself as a “turnaround specialist.”

Politics and business are so closely tied together now that holding office is no different than being a corporate CEO.

Applying the same concept to state government, Walker is clearing a path to the White House in the same way business clears a path to higher profits. I thought Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi came the closest to describing the similarities when he wrote about Mitt Romney. Like Walker’s transportation borrowing and his “divide and conquer” strategy for unions and taxpayer support for the public “commons,” the philosophy is identical to the corporate model:

The new borrow-and-conquer economy was morally sanctified by an almost religious faith in the grossly euphemistic concept of "creative destruction," and amounted to a total abdication of collective responsibility by America's rich, whose new thing was making assloads of money in ever-shorter campaigns of economic conquest, sending the proceeds offshore, and shrugging as the great towns and factories their parents and grandparents built were shuttered and boarded up, crushed by a true prairie fire of debt.

Walker takes Bain Capital approach to state economy: With massive amounts of corporate spending and really dirty politics, Walker stayed on as Wisconsin CEO and turnaround artist. Like Bain Capital, Walker is stripping away everything; public jobs, the UW, parks, transportation and costly environmental protections from the state budget, while providing a huge return for corporate donors. Declaring success, Walker will then move on to a better job leaving Wisconsinites behind to face the consequences of his actions.

This wasn't a concept I came up with. Credit former candidate for state supreme court justice and Marquette University law professor Ed Fellone. Listen to his response (1:05 min. in) to Walker's budget and conservative pundit and financial planner Keene Winters on WPR’s Joy Cardin Show:

Taibbi also wrote this, again reminding me of Walker:

Obama ran on "change" in 2008, but Romney (Walker) represents a far more real and seismic shift in the American landscape … the frontman of an economic revolution, in which transactions are manufactured instead of products, wealth is generated without accompanying prosperity … while American communities fall apart. It's a vision of society that's crazy, vicious and almost unbelievably selfish, yet it's running for president, and it has a chance of winning.