Walker: Don’t bet against me

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Sunday stopped short of saying he would run for president in 2016, adding that he wouldn’t bet against it.

{mosads}”After three elections for governor in four years in a state that hasn’t gone Republican since 1984 for president, I wouldn’t bet against me on anything,” he said on ABC News’s “This Week.”

Walker emerged as the leading Republican candidate in a recent poll of likely Iowa Republican voters, with 15 percent support, ahead of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R).

Walker said Romney’s decision to drop out of the 2016 race to make room for other candidates was a recognition of the need for “new, fresh leadership with big, bold ideas, and the courage to act on it.”

He also took a swipe at likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“And if we’re going to take on a name from the past, which is likely to be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I think for the party we need a name from the future,” he said.

Walker also painted Clinton as a creature of Washington, part of a big government, “top-down” approach to governing.

“Former Secretary of State Clinton embodies all the things that we think of Washington. She lives here, she’s worked here, she’s been part of the Washington structure for years,” he said.

American voters “don’t want to go back in time, they don’t want to repeat what we’ve had in the past,” he said. “We need a candidate not of the 20th century, but of the 21st century.”

Walker also responded to recent comments by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who may also be considering a 2016 presidential bid. The Florida Republican said governors lack foreign policy experience.

Walker said he met this weekend with former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and Madeleine Albright. He said that, as governor, he receives risk assessments from the FBI and his adjutant general on threats in his own state and across the nation.

Walker said he thought the U.S. should “take the fight to” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and any other radical Islamic terrorist around the world.

“I think anywhere and everywhere, we have to … go beyond just aggressive air strikes. We have to look at other surgical methods. And ultimately, we have to be prepared to put boots on the ground if that’s what it takes,” he said.

On immigration, Walker said the U.S. needed to secure its borders and enforce the legal system, but said he was not advocating deportation.

“We’ve got to have a healthy balance. We’re a country both of immigrants and of laws. We can’t ignore the laws in this country, can’t ignore the people who come in, whether it’s from Mexico or Central America,” he said.

“We need to find a way for people to have a legitimate legal immigration system in this country, and that does not mean amnesty.”