UPDATED: Dec. 28, 2011

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — As Gov. Scott Walker sat Friday in a chair by a fireplace in the Executive Residence, reflecting on the tumultuous year, the question filled the room like a 15,000-pound elephant.

Will Walker call the stately mansion home Dec. 23, 2012?

The embattled governor facing a ferocious recall campaign leaned on providence and the will of democracy in answering the question.

“For me, God willing, and with the blessings of the majority of people in the state of Wisconsin, I hope so,” Walker said during an interview with Wisconsin Reporter, among a dozen he conducted Friday with media outlets statewide.

“But I don’t take that for granted. I feel I need to continuously earn the trust of the people of Wisconsin, not just on the ballot, not just on election day, but every day we’re in office,” he continued. Should there be a recall election — and if the half million-plus signatures on the Walker recall petition are any indication, the chances are looking pretty good  — Walker said he’ll need to earn the trust of the people at the ballot box all over again.

Trust, Walker opponents assert, is what the governor has eroded rapidly in less than a year in office. From what Democrats see as draconian cuts to education and social programs while big business benefited to the organized labor-reviled Act 10, the GOP-led measure, now law, that limited collective bargaining for most public employees.

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, in his weekly radio address, said the opposition movement against Walker and the GOP reform began with Act 10 and the anger of tens of thousands of protesters at the Capitol.

“Much of it started right here in Wisconsin in February when Gov. Walker took away workers’ rights,” Barca said. “It continued as he cut public education, cut programs that allow seniors to stay in their homes, cut health care for struggling families and cut job training.”

Walker inherited a $3.6 billion budget shortfall. Even some of his more ardent critics agree the state’s fiscal house was a mess, but they insist Walker and the GOP didn’t have to cut key programs so deeply, such as nearly $800 million in public school aid.

Recall organizers assert Walker did not campaign on Act 10, but that he planned all along to go after collective bargaining.

The governor said that’s a false charge, mainly from big union bosses who “can’t get their hands on union dues” anymore.

“Did I plan the bill? No. But I laid out the parameters,” he said. “Name me an elected official in the state who’s run on things and told you every single bill. There’s not a governor alive who has laid out every single detail of every single measure they’ve proposed.

“The irony of all ironies with what’s transpired, particularly of late these last few months, is most people in Wisconsin and across America get upset with politicians who break their promises,” Walker added. “I’ve actually fulfilled my promises, and I’ve got some people who don’t like that. That’s fine. They’re right to do that, but it does kind of run contrary to where most people get their outrage. It’s usually because someone did something they said they wouldn’t do.”

The governor said his call to ask public employees to contribute more to their health care and government retirement funds isn’t new. He did so repeatedly during his tenure as Milwaukee County executive, arguing for systematic changes to collective bargaining if state and local governments are going to extricate themselves from chronic budget deficits.

“This is about respecting the local taxpayers, local officials, the people we elect to run our school boards, our city councils, town boards and county boards,” he said. “They are the ones who now get to determine our budgets, not a handful of union leaders who in the past have forced people like me to make choices we don’t necessarily want to make.”

Walker faced another round of criticism Friday when department budget lapses went into play, a move that trimmed another $173 million from the state budget, including another $46.1 million in cuts to the University of Wisconsin System, currently facing $250 million in budget reductions over the next two years.

The governor said the news should come as no surprise. He said the cuts are part of the budget-repair bill passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year. He said the university system, one of the larger state entities, has the flexibility to better sustain the deeper reduction.

Mike Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, blasted the announcement.

“The cuts being slipped under the transom at the start of the Christmas weekend show Walker does not believe in shared sacrifice,” Tate said in a statement. “Instead, he believes that all but the very richest must suffer his extreme cuts …”

Asked how he feels about being the most hated man in Wisconsin, at least by many of those who oppose him and his policies, Walker said he’s been down that road before, albeit on a smaller scale, as Milwaukee County executive.

He said he knows there is a “fair amount of angst” that is real, but much of the vitriol is being driven by organized labor in the state and out of state.

He said these union groups pumped tens of millions of dollars into this summer’s state Senate recall elections and will  pump tens of millions more into the recall campaign against him, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four other Republican state senators.

Outside conservative groups also spent millions of dollars on the Senate recall campaigns. The Friends of Scott Walker campaign committee this month reported it received $5 million and spent just shy of $4 million from July 1 through Dec. 10. The committee had $3 million on hand.
Walker and other incumbents facing recall can, for the time being, raise unlimited amounts of cash.

The biggest contributors to the governor’s campaign are:

• Bob Perry, a Houston homebuilder, who contributed $240,000 on Nov. 16, a day after the recall campaign launched.
• Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, of Wake Forest, Ill., who donated $100,000 each to the campaign war chest. The Uihleins are top executives of Uline Inc., shipping and packaging company.

Walker earlier this month attended a groundbreaking at Uline’s planned 640,000-square-foot distribution in center in Hudson.

Walker said the bitterness of the recall campaign has been tough personally, but as much as he may not like the name calling, he said he asked for the job. It all has been particularly stressful on his family, he said.

He noted the protests at his Wauwotosa home, where his teenage son lives, where his elderly parents live and where he divides his time.

“My kids have been a target of an effort on Facebook to go after them. I’ve had verbal attacks against my wife and kids and others out there,” he said. “That’s frustrating. There’s no doubt about that. I wish we could get past that.”

Still, Walker said when he moves beyond the Capitol out into the heart of Wisconsin, he is refreshed by the support and optimism he finds.

And that is why, the governor said, he is hopeful he will be in the Executive Residence, having survived recall and Wisconsin having survived economic sluggishness.

“A year from now, I hope we’re not only talking about the results of that election but talking about, hopefully, the reforms I just talked about that move the state forward and hopefully we’ll see more jobs in Wisconsin,” he said.

CORRECTION: Uline Inc. is not scheduled to receive state incentives for its planned 640,000-square-foot distribution center in Hudson. It did receive millions of dollars for moving its headquarters to Pleasant Prairie, in a deal announced in early 2008.