It's very well known that Americans Elect advisory board member and draft candidate David Walker is the former Comptroller General of the United States.
It also is very well known that Walker is a co-founder of the group No Labels.
Indeed, Walker himself — in the statement he released last Tuesday, through his Comeback America Initiative — explicitly named No Labels as one of the things in his schedule that leaves little room for a presidential run right now:
I am not a candidate and don’t expect to become one. Rather, I am focused on
my many responsibilities, including serving...as a national co-founder
of No Labels and as a member of
A[mericans] E[lect]’s Board of Advisors.
And yet...
Had you visited NoLabels.org two days later — the same day that DraftWalker.com, the Web site of the Committee to Get Walker Running ("Draft Walker"), sprang to life — and had you scanned the "Our People" page, where for months Walker had been listed as a Co-Founder, you'd have come up empty. David Walker was nowhere to be found. Scrubbed.
Moreover...
When Draft Walker officially launched this past Monday, the committee did not mention Walker's role at No Labels (or, for that matter, his role at Americans Elect) in its press release — or in its bio of Walker — or in the editorial published the same day by committee co-chairs Yoni Gruskin and Ryan Schoenike.
:: :: ::
By yesterday, David Walker's listing at NoLabels.org
had been restored — but with a difference.
On the "Our People" page at the No Labels site,
persons in various categories — from "Co-Founders" to "Citizen Leaders" to "Back Office Staff" — are presented initially as part of either a "grid" or a "list," with their names, photos and thumbnail biographical sketches. Clicking on any specific person's name directs to a dedicated page for that person, and sometimes this includes a slightly longer bio.
Here's a screenshot from the cache of David Walker's dedicated page at NoLabels.org, as it appeared on
April 5 — exactly two weeks before DraftWalker.com went from being a splash page to a full-fledged site (albeit a relatively simple one):
Click to enlarge.
At that time, as you can see, Walker's bio read:
Dave Walker has over 30-years of public, private and not-for-profit sector leadership experience. He has received three Presidential appointments with unanimous Senate confirmation from Presidents of both major parties, including his most recent as Comptroller General of the United States (1998-2008).
Here's a screenshot Walker's photo and thumbnail
bio, as it currently appears in the grid version of the
"Our People" page at NoLabels.org. The text of the bio
is the same, in the list version:
Click to enlarge.
Now, as you can see, Walker's bio reads:
Dave Walker has over 30-years of public, private and not-for-profit sector leadership experience.
Notice two things about David Walker's "new" bio at NoLabels.org.
First: The references to Walker's "three presidential appointments with unanimous Senate confirmation from Presidents of both major parties" and to his decade as Comptroller General of the United States have been deleted.
Second: It no longer is possible, as it was before — and as it remains with every other Co-Founder and, indeed, with every Citizen Leader and back office staffer on the larger No Labels list of "Our People" — to click Walker's name and get a dedicated photo-and-bio page for him.
:: :: ::
What's up with all this shuffling and scissoring of
David Walker's bio?
Why is Draft Walker cropping David Walker's
No Labels and Americans Elect connections — if, in
fact, that's what it's doing?
Why, in its bio of David Walker, did No Labels trim the reference to his presidential appointments, including the one — Comptroller General — that anchors his brand as
a fiscal reform advocate?
Why is the biography of the tonsorially challenged Walker getting all these haircuts?
Perhaps even more to the point: Who is ordering them?