It should be noted the Republicans in the state legislature haven’t really gone along with Walker on education this year. They think he’s playing to a primary audience and they’ve got a point:

In Wisconsin, however, GOP state lawmakers aren’t nearly as enthusiastic about an agenda some see as geared more toward what plays well at those out-of-state stops than what’s best for the people back home. While Walker chatted up Iowans from the seat of his Harley-Davidson last weekend, his fellow Republicans in the state Legislature continued to rework Walker’s budget, having already reversed politically unpopular cuts to education, among other things.

It was just the Friday before last that the Legislature’s budget committee eased Walker’s cuts to the University of Wisconsin System after previously stopping his $127 million hit to public schools. Right about the time the Joint Finance Committee wrapped up its final vote on that piece of the budget late that evening, Walker was 1,000 miles away in New Hampshire addressing the Belknap County GOP Sunset Dinner Cruise.

“The university doesn’t deserve this cut. This is just reality,” GOP state Sen. Luther Olsen said ahead of the vote. “To tell people that they’re not working hard enough and they should teach more is probably just ridiculous,” he said, responding to the claim by Walker and others that the university could absorb the cut through things like requiring professors to teach one extra class a semester.