If I was a martian who had just landed on Earth at the Waukesha County Expo Center Monday night, I would probably vote for Scott Walker for president with enthusiasm.

The problem is I’ve lived in Walker’s Wisconsin for the past few years. And some of the bromides he uttered on the presidential announcement stump just don’t match his recent leadership here. If you were that martian, though, unaware of the stuff Walker left out, you’d think, sure, elect this man now. Because the speech sounded good and made you feel good.

I’ve seen Walker give political speeches since the 2005-06 gubernatorial primary, and he’s grown a lot on the stump. This was Walker at his sharpest. He used to be a wonky speaker. He’s not really anymore. He used to be laden down in policy and a bit boring. Now, he’s mastered the art of the political speech – be uplifting, be relatable and more than anything, give people the emotional narrative they want (and without a teleprompter!). He’s very much like George W. Bush in that way and not, say, Bill Clinton, who always seems like he’s just certain if you listen to him long enough he can convince you with esoteric logic.

On Monday, Walker nailed something critically important for this kind of announcement speech: You could imagine him as president. And he made you FEEL like you’d be better off if he was (Ronald Reagan had that gift of pathos). Don’t underestimate the power of a narrative.

A few references to Reagan? Check.

Folksy anecdotes about frugal Kohl’s sweaters (his log cabin?), local veterans, Boy Scouts and flipping burgers? Check.

A few specific examples cherry picked from his tenure as governor, at times misleadingly presented? Check (although when you stop and actually think about it, the evidence he cited for his leadership was pretty paltry. Really? Concealed carry, Voter ID and defunding Planned Parenthood qualifies him to be president?). It got a rise from the crowd, though.

Conservative meat and potatoes stuff.

Walker didn’t harp on unions as much as I expected him to do. If you step back and think about it, this was a speech with a lot of foreign policy focus.

What Walker really nailed here was the narrative that people want. I wrote about this narrative in a column last fall that argued Walker could be president someday. In a world of economic uncertainty, mass shooters, American cities burning and terrorists beheading people on TV, people want someone who speaks in absolutes and seems strong, especially after an incremental, checked out president. They want someone who won’t back down. This was a narrative that Walker muddied (perhaps disastrously) with too much pandering, flip flopping and equivocating in the past few months. Walker on that Waukesha stage Monday was the old guy with certitude.

Would I vote for Walker for president? It depends on his opponent. Hillary has her own problems. In the primary, likely not, although I need to see how all of the candidates hold up. This doesn’t mean I think he’s going to win the nomination or the presidency, either (although he has a better chance at the former). His aides trying to tamp down expectations by telling the media recently that his fundraising has been weak because he’s so busy boning up on foreign policy knowledge is not a good sign. The early Walker boomlet nationally has faded into a more mixed narrative that emphasizes "let’s wait and see whether he makes more gaffes. Still, he’s the only candidate who can unite all factions of the party." So time will tell.

As to the narrative, told in broad strokes: Who doesn’t want to be more empowered to spend their own money, to have freedom from governmental interference and to be protected from "radical Islamic terrorists" as Walker put it to much applause? To be honest, I liked what Walker said on foreign policy more than what he said on domestic policy, although it was all platitudes. But that’s (to go back to that martian example again) probably because he doesn’t have a foreign policy record to analyze. Thus, it’s easier to say stuff that sounds good and easier for us to believe him when he does. One of his best lines was when he knocked Obama for calling ISIS a JV team; he was also very convincing on Iran and had a great line about Putin testing Obama and Hillary and finding only "mush."  But it will get a lot muddier when he actually has to outline a plan. Or make tough choices.

Like he has had to do in Wisconsin. Eventually you have to actually govern without a Lee Holloway to override your policies and save you from the consequences of them. And that’s where reality starts to counter the myth.

Here’s the bottom line, sadly: I don’t think our education system is better because of Walker. I don’t think private sector job growth is better. I don’t think our state’s urban center is in better shape. I don’t think the general climate is better (heck, everyone’s still demonizing everyone else, threatening to leave the state and at each other’s throats). I don’t think most people are doing better when it comes to their bottom line (a lot of middle class people are going to be making less money in their paychecks under this administration, and some of those tax cuts were offset by locals making up for state aid losses besides).

I don’t even think our parks are better. We’re spending more; we’re borrowing a lot. We’re not safeguarding our environment as well. Our cherished principles, like open government, are in peril. Our university system’s reputation is less. That leaves me with serious questions about Walker’s leadership. His talking points on domestic policy sounded good once, too (in fairness, his harshest critics always outdo themselves with their own platitudes, as they did Monday night, standing on the street outside the Expo Center and waving name calling signs, some with words I can’t reprint here).

Political speeches like the one Monday tonight are just Kabuki Theater. This speech will give him a positive bump, but time will tell what happens when he gets into the debates and is pressed for specifics again. Walker’s good at the talking points. Always has been. He’s mastered the environments that he controls absolutely, like this one (just as he aced the debates against an untested and nervous Mary Burke). It’s when he’s pressed with follow up questions or gets asked questions he wants to avoid that things unravel (just look at the gobbledygook that emerged from his mouth on open records and evolution).

So, here are 10 things Walker largely left out. I think if that martian took a closer look at those specifics, he’d be concerned.

1. Not taking federal money

He said that, as president, he would take federal money, such as Medicaid money, and send it back to the states. He left out the fact that he didn’t take all of that Medicaid money when the feds offered it to us. He turned down a lot of federal money for that train, too. So as president he’d send money back to states that he himself rejected. OK ...

2. Who his enemies have been

When he painted himself as a fighter, saying that America needs a president who will fight and win, he left out whom he was battling against here. "I know how to fight and win," he said. He left out the fact that those he’s fought against in Wisconsin tend to be the very folks he claims to be helping – those middle class types who shop at Kohl’s.

If he’s fighting against state workers who earn on average $40,000 a year or poor people on benefits or my kid’s teacher or some professor who bothered to obtain a terminal degree and perform cutting-edge research or scientists in the DNR or a construction worker wanting to make a good wage (or open records laws) or even liberals (those are our neighbors too, and they also shop at Kohl’s), you see the problem. Walker leads through demonizing and division, by pitting groups of people against another, by rooting out pots of ideological opposition and by making people resent what others have. I don’t want a governor who is a fighter, at least not in this way, against our own neighbors. Nor do I want a president who leads by demonizing others. Unless it’s ISIS. Then demonize away.

3. The Wisconsin economy

When he said he’s for building a better economy, I wondered what he’s done here that’s supposed to make us think he’s equipped to do that on a national scale. Instead, he was talking about the castle doctrine and Voter ID. Was it the spending increases since he took office? The big shortfall? The disaster at WEDC under his tenure? The excessive borrowing in the budget for roadbuilding? The sluggish private sector job growth? Of course, those things were left out. What’s the evidence that the economy is doing so well we’d want to use this model on the entire country? Those issues matter a lot more to most Wisconsinites (and Americans) than the chum he threw at the crowd (like defunding Planned Parenthood).

4. Education cuts and the UW system

Walker went on and on about how he wants to improve education as president by sending more federal dollars back to schools, and he actually said he wants to help people get more education and skills so they can succeed in the workforce. I had a hard time keeping a straight face when I heard that one. Of course, what he left out: Walker’s slashed budgets for K12 and higher education funding (and, although the legislature restored K12 funding, he wanted to gut the public schools more). So as president he would send federal money to local schools, but as governor, he wants to cut the amount of state money he sends to local schools. Got that?

His changes to the UW are harming the institution’s reputation, ability to recruit and retain quality staff. He’s supported school choice, but some advocates of it don’t think he’s gone far enough there, either. He cites how good our schools are, but they were good before, and MPS doesn’t seem to have improved much. Yes, Act 10 removed teacher seniority and tenure, but there’s no evidence this improved teacher performance at all. It was galling to the extreme that Walker is trying to run as a pro education candidate. It was interesting he didn’t bring up the UW much if at all, focusing more on K12.

5. Gay marriage

When he talked about people being free from governmental interference, how people need to be able to lead their own lives and also talked about strengthening marriage and families, I thought of his opposition to those things for gay couples. It was interesting he never mentioned gay marriage, not once.

6. Immigration

It was interesting that he didn’t talk about immigration. I’m not suggesting it would have been better to pull a Trump, but it was still interesting. Of course, that was an issue he’s been accused of flip flopping over. When he talked about opposing Common Core, he didn’t mention that Common Core is one of the many issues he’s been accused of waffling on over the years too.

7. The Bucks

Have you noticed the governor has stopped talking about the Bucks?

8. Assorted bad stuff

The Kenosha casino, WEDC, John Doe witchhunts, open records laws, cuts to Seniorcare and IRIS, evolution, the Wisconsin Idea – those are all things Walker didn’t mention. Why would he, though? Those were all disasters or just not good things. He waxed on about the importance of local control, without mentioning the various examples of usurping local control that peppered the most recent state budget.

9. Jobs

I didn’t hear Walker say much about jobs. I remember during the first governor’s race, all the governor wanted to talk about was job creation. He made the mistake of promising those 250,000 jobs that, of course, didn’t materialize, and he rejected a couple thousand new jobs from that Kenosha casino on top of it. Job growth is sluggish compared to other states. So, suddenly, jobs vanish as a talking point.

10. The budget he just signed

Walker just signed a big budget with lots of vetoes, but he didn’t talk about the budget much.  Again, the specifics he cited aren’t things we were all talking about much recently (concealed carry, really? How about mentioning that habitual misdemeanants can still qualify for permits then?) He talked about reducing taxes by $2 billion without mentioning his budget increased spending by more than that or that he plugged a huge deficit with painful cuts besides or that he wanted to borrow a record amount for roadbuilding or that the Republicans in the legislature made the budget more conservative.

Here’s an obvious point: When Walker gets back in an uncontrolled environment where he gets asked about such things, it will get tougher.