Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)
Why is Governor Scott Walker writing a book?
Well, to be more precise, why is former George W. Bush White House speechwriter Marc Thiessen (famously, along with Dick Cheney, one of Washington's most ardent defenders of "enhanced interrogation") helping Scott Walker write a book?
That's easy. Just ask Jeb Bush. Or Marco Rubio. Or Mitt Romney. Or John McCain. Or Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor who put out the classic Power to the People back in the 1990s.
If you're going to run for president -- and, as he more or less acknowledges whenever he's talking to national political writers, Scott Walker is quite interested in seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination -- you've got to produce a book.
There are, of course, some rules when it comes to writing your way into the running.
For instance, you've got to suggest that you are interested in more than your own story, that you've got answers for America.
So you need a title like, um, Unintimidated: A Governor's Story and a Nation's Challenge.
And, in case any Republican county chairs in Iowa or New Hampshire miss the point, the publisher that's paying you big bucks to produce the tome must peddle it with lines like this one: "In Unintimidated, Governor Walker will share the inside story of how the battle for Wisconsin was won -- the reforms he enacted, the mistakes he made, the lessons he learned, and how those lessons can help conservatives win the battle for America."