Where in the world is Scott Walker?

The morning news just told me that we have a swine flu emergency status in the Milwaukee area right now. They just listed about 11 schools that have been closed in Milwaukee County and yesterday Governor Doyle officially declared a statewide emergency, freeing up the needed resources to address the situation. I can't tell you how many times that my normal TV watching has been interrupted by breaking swine flu news with the Milwaukee mayor and public health officials commenting on the situation. Even this morning's paper has a big picture of Mayor Barrett answering questions about this issue and detailing the city response. The one thing that I noticed is the complete and total absence of one public official – Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran an editorial saying that all levels of government should be involved in dealing with the swine flu, yet I have no idea what the Milwaukee County government has been doing. I'm sure there have been front line workers doing their job, but it would be nice if the "leader" of Milwaukee County seemed to at least be in the loop somewhere. Scott Walker has never been one to shy away from publicity or from holding a press conference or media event. So where in the world is Scott Walker? I was beginning to wonder if he was one of the two people in the Milwaukee area that came down with swine flu.

Thanks to the work of the new blog Heartland Hollar, thankfully I can now say that Scott Walker's silence during this emergency is not because he is sick. He has just been too darn busy twittering about his campaign for governor. Since this public health emergency first surfaced locally, Walker has been twittering from a sub shop in Kohler, reminiscing about his homecoming prom date, and giving us every boring detail from the campaign trail.

Where in the world is Scott Walker? He is setting the twittering world on fire! The question is whether that is an appropriate way to spend all of your time, when we have a full fledged public health emergency going on in the county? Since he was such a strong supporter of John McCain's presidential bid, I wonder if he will follow his example and suspend his campaign to deal with this emergency? Heartland Hollar asks if he will still attend the Republican State Convention this weekend. His complete silence on the issue makes that highly unlikely, in fact he is so busy twittering about his campaign, that I wonder if he even knows that there is a public health issue in Milwaukee County?

Where in the world is Scott Walker? He is busy running for higher office again and apparently can't be bothered with something as "small" as a possible pandemic.