Posted on 07/03/2014 1:33:09 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We don’t know who the GOP candidate will be, but we know what he needs to be.
This week, Gallup found Americans are losing faith in their government: “Americans’ confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30 percent) and Congress (7 percent), and a six-year low for the presidency (29 percent).”
Gallup also finds Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with their freedom to choose what they can do with their lives:
Gallup also finds Americans increasingly believe corruption is widespread throughout the government. Note that this question does not specify federal, state, or local:
This is about as ripe an electorate as you can hope for if you’re a candidate of limited government.
This is not to say electing a Republican candidate, pledging to limit and reduce the size, scope, cost, and reach of government is going to be easy, of course. For starters, no matter who the 2016 Republican candidate is, that person is going to face some variation of this:
All of the celebrities of Hollywood and the music industry will come out to rally and endorse the Democratic candidate — Ms. Perry and her latex dresses, Bruce Springsteen, Eva Longoria, the Black Eyed Peas, Ben Affleck, and all the other usual suspects. This reflects their reflexive insistence that the Democratic president candidate is the “cool” one. Most of these figures insisted John Kerry was the cool one in 2004 and that Al Gore was the cool choice in 2000. Ahem.
The 2004 experience ought to reassure us that Democrat-friendly celebrities cannot, by themselves, convince the public that the Democratic nominee is cooler and thus a better choice for president.
The 2016 Republican nominee is also certain to face some variation of this:
In some senses relating to the campaign, it does not matter whether Republicans nominate Jeb Bush, or Rand Paul, or Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or Bobby Jindal, or Chris Christie, or Scott Walker, or Rick Perry, or any other GOP rising star. The 2016 Republican nominee will be attacked for being insufficiently “cool” and attacked for being “not one of us.”
The Democrats are so conditioned by their success with these themes that they’re confident — probably way too confident — that they can convince the electorate that a 68-year-old former senator and secretary of state with a net worth of $200 million who has lived under Secret Service protection in Washington, D.C., for the past 25 years and who ranks as strikingly scripted, even by the standards of Washington politicians, whose recent book is either “a testament to caution and calculation” (Maureen Dowd) or “mush” (Mark Halperin) . . . is the “cool” one who is simultaneously “one of us.”
Thinking back to those Gallup poll numbers, the next Republican nominee will need to be someone who can restore an appropriate amount of public faith in American government. Thus, some tangible success in making government work the way it’s supposed to, perhaps at the state level, will be a major advantage. An ability to keep promises is a must; the spectacular failure of Barack Obama to live up to the astronomical hype of 2007–2008 means the public will probably be more wary of pledges to heal the sick and stop the oceans from rising.
The next Republican nominee needs to be not merely free from the whiffs of corruption all too commonly associated with rising in the hardball world of politics but ideally will have been someone who has actively fought against it. In this area, it is okay to be a “maverick” or to have made enemies within the party. What many politicians see as the routine compromises of the reality of governing — helping out a donor here, a back-slapping off-the-record meeting with bigwigs there — strikes a lot of Americans as organized systematic corruption.
Ideally, the Republican nominee will offer self-evident contradictions to the “uncool” and “not one of us” criticisms. “Cool” is always an intangible factor hard to measure and quantify, but in politicians, it helps to have a life outside of politics. Has this person been obsessed with his personal ambitions since adolescence? Did he ever do anything before entering politics? Does he play a musical instrument? Play a sport? Have the corny-embarrassing photos of himself in his younger years? Can the candidate laugh at himself? That’s a leading indicator of genuine confidence. Does the candidate laugh at all? Does his humor come naturally, or is it forced? When he talks, does he speak English or is it some version of bureaucrat-ese or candidate-ese that inevitably reverts to the prepared talking points?
As for being “one of us,” it is hard to overstate how vulnerable Americans feel right now. Any serious presidential candidate has probably spent at least the past decade living a materially comfortable life, with a nice home, secure income, many opportunities, considerable savings, and a standard of living exponentially better than that of the average American. (The lone candidate on a major-party ticket who lived anything resembling a middle-class lifestyle in recent years was Sarah Palin. She was savaged for the hastily purchased Neiman Marcus wardrobe, but that was perhaps the clearest indicator that Palin was like most other Americans.)
Odds are that the 2016 Republican presidential candidate hasn’t lain awake, too worried about paying the rent or the mortgage to sleep, in a long time. But has this person always lived with wealth? Has this potential president struggled earlier in life, and how? How did he overcome those tough times? How long did they last? How many years has he spent in the bubble that comes with being a major political figure, moving from a nice house to a staff-driven car with tinted windows to an air-conditioned office with staff awaiting him and wealthy people wanting favors, the weeks a blur of rapidly accumulating frequent-flyer miles, sitting in business class or private jets, shuttling to fundraisers with more wealthy donors?
We don’t know who this candidate is quite yet. But the qualities he or she will need to win are increasingly clear.
I don’t like that when he listed possible candidates, he started with stupid Jeb Bush.
A) He’s never going to run anyway because he will be torn to shreds everywhere including FreeRepublic, Breitbart, and all other actual conservative outlets
B) He’s named Bush for crying out loud!
These lists should not include Jeb going forward. No fan of Communist Core should be anywhere near the WH, especially if the job is cleaning out the turds from the cage that Moochelle probably throws at the walls, yelling “score!” if she nails the portrait of Washington.
I dread to think how the Oval Office smells.
Stand foursquare against all the misery caused by Obama/rat policies. This must be pounded every day, for Obamunism is an assault on what it means to be an American. Humans are not the playthings of the Left and it is not the purpose of government to create “the new man.” Be specific, irt repeal of Obamacare, his executive orders, our borders.
Promise to root out the corruption of administrative agencies w/felony investigations. Say outright that Lois Lerner belongs in prison.
Paint the rat party as the evil oppressors they are. There is no shortage of material for this. There is no need to sit back and accept rat rantings about the GOP as the party of the rich and uncaring.
Offer classic American optimism. We are supposed to be a free people. Promise to restore free government for a free people.
Restore balance of trade w/China, by any means necessary.
Secure the southern border.
There is much more. Add to this as desired.
The GOPe will nominate a current or former governor acceptable to their Rovian RINO constituency and financial contributors. They want Bush 3.0, even though Hitlery would crush him. They might try Walker, Jindal, Kasich, or Pence...or even their secret crush, Krispy Kreme. They won’t allow a Reagan-like candidate who actually could win; one may not exist. [Yes, I like Palin, too, but she can’t beat Her Royal Heinous.]
If the GOP candidate is not 100% Illegal Alien Deportation, they will not get my vote, period
Voting for a GOP Liberal is just voting Democrat
American Leftism is an assault on nature. Promise to rip it out, this assault on American traditions, manners and morals that destroys happiness, and will assuredly turn us into a third world sh!thole.
D@mn the old media, ignore them entirely. No interviews with the alphabets. They cannot be neutral. Use alternative media and public events to get the word out.
Attack, attack, attack! No war was won through defense.
“This is about as ripe an electorate as you can hope for if you’re a candidate of limited government.”
In a normal time, that would be the case, but America isn’t the kind of country that wants limited government anymore. Americans just want their overlords to be more efficient, that’s all.
You’re reading too much into what he wrote.
Palin is popular here in FR and among the conservative base, but has no chance of winning the Presidency.
Call out the left forcefully and aggressively when they launch into their predictable “war on women” or whatever other imagined attack on the victim group of the week the dredge up. Attack back, harshly and mercilessly.
Get on top of the narrative early. Challenge the left’s positions as anti-American. Give examples of the plethora of crimes committed by this administration.
TV advert:
First Scene: A delightful family picnic. Mom, dad, kids playing in a sunny grass field. Overlay, “This is what the democrat party promises.”
Second Scene: Overhead pan and still shots of Detroit. Overlay, “This is what the democrat party delivers. Destitution in the name of equality. Isn’t it time to return to American freedoms?”
It probably smells OK since they never go in there.
“D@mn the old media, ignore them entirely. No interviews with the alphabets. They cannot be neutral. Use alternative media and public events to get the word out.”
That’s exactly correct. The conscious act of ignoring the alphabets will get the candidate all the attention he/she wants. Adhering to their templates has failed for over 50 years.
Yep. American voters understand optics; you’ll lose them quickly when you dump a bunch of dry numerical data on them, a mistake often repeated by conservatives. Within seconds their attention will wander, looking for the next squeaky toy. They need visually stimulating messaging in very small, digestible morsels, the themes of which must focus on the failures of current policy.
Hope that’s not the case with Ted Cruz!
Katy the Obamatrash.
There’s so much to hammer the Rats with: Obamacare, decline in middle class standard of living, runaway inflation on basic goods and services, high unemployment, government corruption and incompetence, failed foreign policy, on and on.
Pick three or four themes that affect people in their everyday lives and hammer them relentlessly. Offer clear and concise solutions.
It will be tempting to run against Obama, but he won’t be on the ballot and there’s no sense riling up the Obama lovers and defenders. Best to just discard Obama to the ash heap of history and not even mention his name.
Run against liberal policies at large and run FOR solid conservative solutions that have worked.
I like Cruz for a host of other reasons, but many of us thought Marco Rubio would be far stronger on immigration than he proved to be.
Anyone.. ANYONE who pushes for amnesty is dead to me.
That’s what campaigns are about. Let the electorate decide that, not the deeply incompetent K-Street GOP consultant class.
Geraghty just came as close to describing Palin as he could get away with without being shown the door over at the Bushista Propaganda Organ that NRO has become.
Okay, maybe so. But why do they write dozens, if not hundreds of articles about her EVERY DAY? They don’t cover Biden, Warren, Bush, Christie, Rubio, Paul, Walker or any other potential candidate anywhere nearly as much. You know that I’ve been posting threads about her since 2008 and therefore have done thousand of Google searches. Take my word for it, nobody, save for Mr. Obama, gets as much coverage, not even Hillary. Cheney, Mondale, Quayle and Gore ACTUALLY WERE vice president and they don’t receive 5% of the attention, combined, that she gets, day in and day out. And don’t tell me that she’s now a “Kardashian” or some such $#*+, that doesn’t explain it.
Everything is beginning to point to a 2016 run by Gov Palin. Fortunately there are those of us here who can read between the lines.
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