So, in the last presidential election, Wisconsin provided a vice-presidential candidate in Congressman Paul Ryan, an admitted egghead from Janesville who brought absolutely nothing to the Republican ticket.

There’s another presidential election coming in in 2016 and we are also going to have a horse in that race.

Every sign in the world points to our governor, Scott Walker, making a serious bid for the Republican nomination for president. He is running around the country giving speeches and raising money. He says he’s happy being governor but there’s kind of a smirk when he says it. If there is one thing that characterizes Walker’s career it is ambition.

He has always wanted to be something other than what he is. And his climb has been a steady one. He has used the media to further his own cause and to give him more exposure than he ever really deserved.

Walker is well on his way to becoming the darling of the far right wing of the Republican party. He’s a Tea Party idol and obviously thinks he can ride this wing right into the White House.

I’ve known Walker for two decades and we’ve had a lot of interaction over time. I’ve lined him up for interviews countless times when I ran a local TV newsroom. He was always available. I mean always. His strategy was to be on television and radio as often as possible and that philosophy was his ticket to higher office.

I can’t get my head around why on Earth Walker could actually think that he could run for president, much less actually be president. I wonder if he thinks that there’s a huge majority of right wing wackos who think the Koch brothers (Walker’s primary backers) are capable of actually hand picking some guy and electing him president.

Walker is the absolute opposite of what we need as a president. He is a petty governor who is ruled by partisan ideology. Just think about him kicking a Platteville student off the UW Board of Regents because the kid signed a recall petition.

It’s that kind of thing that makes Walker so unlikely to actually be a candidate for president. He may have dreams, but I can’t see the Republicans, odd though they are, embracing somebody who has such a divisive record.

The other school of thought, of course, is that the party needs to nominate a fighter who is out on the edge of reason and who embraces all of the wild and crazy ideas that the right wing is advancing.

The big thing is, though, that Walker is a prime example of the famed Peter Principle. He’s been steadily advancing from office to office and has now reached his level of incompetence. And, according to Peter, that’s just where he is going to stay.

So let us all, on all sides of the coin, forget about Walker and the race for president. Those of us on the left won’t be able to get rid of him that easily. And those on the right, well, they can just continue to follow him to the cliff he’s leading us all toward.

For good or ill, we’re stuck with him as our governor.