Politico shows Walker at head of anti-Trump movement

 

Well, this is awkward. Politico Magazine superimposed a large photo of Alaska Gov. Bill Walker at the top of a story about “Anti-Trump Independents.”

And now he’s in damage-control mode.

Quickly, the often-misunderstood governor of Alaska moved to correct the record. While he didn’t say he has an affinity for President Trump, he told KTUU that he has “a very good relationship with the Trump administration.”

He’ll work with any administration, he said, so long as it’s good for Alaska.

“It’s very clear, I’m not an anti-Trump person,” Walker insisted. “I was appointed to the Governor’s Council, one of 10 governors, by the president some months ago on military issues, and about a month ago I was invited to the White House with three other governors to talk about energy projects in their respective states.”

Grace Jang, director of Communications for Gov. Walker, told KTUU that the office has reached out to Politico for a correction. No change to the layout or headline was made by Thursday evening.

Walker had a close relationship with President Barack Obama and was brought into the governor’s office with the financial backing of the Alaska Democratic Party, which dropped their own candidate in order to support Walker. His lieutenant governor, Byron Mallott, is a lifelong Democrat. Although the two call themselves nonpartisans, they align mainly with Democrat platform positions — pro-abortion, anti-development, pro-entitlement spending, pro-tax and supportive of larger rather than smaller state budgets.

The Centrist Project has identified Walker as the model for a new breed of candidate — not aligned with any party, just getting elected on their own merits.