Rachel Maddow talked last night about the Republican party's plan to make Scott Walker the new face of the Republican party. The idea was to nationalize Scott Walker's fight to break the public employee unions, and hopefully turn that into donations for the GOP.

She said the Republican governors picked him for a reason.

"In terms of the republican party figuring out who the leader of its party is, the leader of that party is, post-Bush, post-McCain, the great Republican party identity crisis of the 2000s, who do they want you to think of when they think republican now? They have picked this guy. And he knows it."

Playing back his phone call that he thought was with David Koch, Rachel points out the line, "I am the first domino."

"If that isn't a clear enough sign about his, if not delusions of grandeur at least his allusions to grandeur, Governor Walker, also with fake David Koch on the phone and at press conferences and in a recent interview with the Heritage Foundation and any other time anybody gets anywhere near him with a microphone, Governor Walker cannot stop comparing himself to Ronald Reagan," she said.

MADDOW: This fight to strip union rights is how they are trying to rebuild the national Republican party.
And this fight to strip union rights in Wisconsin that they are building everything on, this fight is not going very well.

And that would just be a state-level story about Wisconsin if this was a state-level story about Wisconsin.
But it is the Republicans who have decided that this is a national fight, and therefore a national story.
So their failure here has national implications.

This is day 10 of this story dominating national headlines.

The newest poll today out of Wisconsin shows a majority, 56% of likely Wisconsin voters, are against what Walker's doing. They're against stripping collective bargaining rights. They are against this fight the Republicans have picked.

Walker just won the governorship there three months ago, and the state is already against his big signature idea. Nationally, it's even worse. 61% overall oppose what Scott Walker is doing. That kind of plan? It's not working.

In terms of Walker calling on all those Republican governors who say they are going to join him, Republican governors he thinks are going to follow in his big Reaganesque footsteps or whatever, those governors are not following his lead. They in fact are bailing.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who Walker name checked to the fake billionaire on the phone, Mitch Daniels called Republicans in his state to yank their union-stripping legislation that they had put forward.
Quoting from today's Washington Post, "Walker is now calling for other governors to join him in fighting unions, but there aren't many takers so far. In addition to Daniels, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Iowa Governor Terry Branstad have now become the latest governors to balk at going after the unions. They join Mitch Daniels, Michigan Governor Rick Snider, Florida Governor Rick Scott, and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett in shying from that."

Walker sees himself as a leader. The national Republican party clearly is trying to make him into a national republican leader here.

But are you still leading if there's nobody behind you?