Scott Walker's conservative street cred is funding his campaign

Heartland hero. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s win in a knock-down, drag-out fight with big labor a few years back is propelling him to the front of the GOP field. In his campaign announcement Monday, Walker boasted of winning a recall election in 2012 brought on by labor supporters who thought they could pick him off. That fight helped to turn him into a hero with the party’s conservative base. Just as big labor interests from all over the country poured money into trying to defeat him, conservative donors across the nation rallied to his side, laying the foundation for his fundraising efforts now. Today is the Federal Elections Commission deadline for candidates to report their second quarter fundraising numbers, but only for those who announced their candidacy before June 30. Walker, having just announced, doesn’t have to report numbers until October.

A quiet entry. Another Republican quietly entered the race last week. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore says his campaign will focus on national security. “I am a United States Army veteran. I served during the Cold War in West Germany. I have that experience. In addition to that, I was governor during the 9/11 attack and had to address that issue,” Gilmore told USA Today’s weekly talk show Capital Download. Gilmore left office in 2002. He ran for president briefly in 2007, but Republican donors weren’t interested, and his campaign never really got off the ground. He went on to run for the U.S. Senate from Virginia in 2008, losing to Democrat Mark Warner by more than 30 points.

Book list bias? The New York Times is under fire for leaving a Republican presidential candidate’s book off of its bestseller list. The Times said it omitted A Time for Truth by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, from the bestseller list because its sales were fueled by “strategic bulk purchases,” implying the Cruz campaign artificially inflated book sales. But the publisher, Harper Collins, said that was not the case. And this week, a spokesman for Amazon also said the world’s largest book retailer found no evidence Cruz padded the sales numbers. The Cruz campaign is demanding an apology from the newspaper.

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