Posted on 08/07/2013 2:32:18 AM PDT by iowamark
We do not yet know who the Republican presidential nominee will be in 2016. We do not even know for certain who the candidates will be, although several are visibly positioning themselves to run. We all have our own ideas about who should run and what the substance of their platforms should be. But even leaving those aside, it’s possible to draw some lessons from the past few GOP campaign cycles and offer some advice that any prospective candidate should heed, the sooner the better. Some of these rules are in a little tension with each other; nobody said running for President was easy. But most are simply experience and common sense.
1-Run because you think your ideas are right and you believe you would be the best president. Don’t stay out because your chances are slim, and don’t get in because someone else wants you to. Candidates who don’t have a good reason for running or don’t want to be there are a fraud on their supporters.
2-Ask yourself what you’re willing to sacrifice or compromise on to win. If there’s nothing important you’d sacrifice, don’t run; you will lose. If there’s nothing important you wouldn’t, don’t run; you deserve to lose.
3- If you don’t like Republican voters, don’t run.
4-Don’t start a campaign if you’re not prepared for the possibility that you might become the frontrunner. Stranger things have happened.
5-If you’ve never won an election before, go win one first. This won’t be the first one you win.
6-Winning is what counts. Your primary and general election opponents will go negative, play wedge issues that work for them, and raise money wherever it can be found. If you aren’t willing to do all three enthusiastically, you’re going to be a high minded loser. Nobody who listens to the campaign-trail scolds wins. In the general election, if you don’t convey to voters that you believe in your heart that your opponent is a dangerously misguided choice, you will lose.
7-Pick your battles, or they will be picked for you. You can choose a few unpopular stances on principle, but even the most principled candidates need to spend most of their time holding defensible ground. If you have positions you can’t explain or defend without shooting yourself in the foot, drop them.
8-Don’t be surprised when people who liked you before you run don’t like you anymore. Prepare for it.
9-Be sure before you run that your family is on board with you running. They need to be completely committed, because it will be harder than they can imagine. Related: think of the worst possible thing anyone could say about the woman in your life you care about the most, and understand that it will be said.
10-You will be called a racist, regardless of your actual life history, behavior, beliefs or platform. Any effort to deny that you’re a racist will be taken as proof that you are one. Accept it as the price of admission.
11-Have opposition research done on yourself. Have others you trust review the file. Be prepared to answer for anything that comes up in that research. If there’s anything that you think will sink you, don’t run.
12-Ask yourself if there’s anything people will demand to know about you, and get it out there early. If your tax returns or your business partnerships are too important to disclose, don’t run. (We might call this the Bain Capital Rule).
13-Realize that your record, and all the favors you’ve done, will mean nothing if your primary opponent appears better funded.
14-Run as who you are, not who you think the voters want. There’s no substitute for authenticity.
15-Each morning, before you read the polls or the newspapers, ask yourself what you want to talk about today. Talk about that.
16-If you never give the media new things to talk about, they’ll talk about things you don’t like.
17-Never assume the voters are stupid or foolish, but also don’t assume they are well-informed. Talk to them the way you’d explain something to your boss for the first time.
18-Handwrite the parts of your platform you want voters to remember on a 3×5 index card. If it doesn’t fit, your message is too complicated. If you can’t think of what to start with, don’t run.
19-Voters may be motivated by hope, fear, resentment, greed, altriusm or any number of other emotions, but they want to believe they are voting for something, not against someone. Give them some positive cause to rally around beyond defeating the other guy.
20-Optimism wins. If you are going to be a warrior, be a happy warrior. Anger turns people off, so laugh at yourself and the other side whenever possible, even in a heated argument.
21-Ideas don’t run for President; people do. If people don’t like you, they won’t listen to you.
22-Your biography is the opening act. Your policy proposals and principles are the headliner. Never confuse the two. The voters know the difference.
23-Show, don’t tell. Proclaiming your conservatism is meaningless, and it’s harder to sell to the unconverted than policy proposals and accomplishments that are based on conservative thinking.
24-Being a consistent conservative will help you more than pandering to nuts on the Right. If you can’t tell the difference between the two, don’t run.
25-Winning campaigns attract crazy and stupid people as supporters; you can’t get a majority without them. This does not mean you should have crazy or stupid people as your advisers or spokespeople.
26-Principles inspire; overly complex, specific plans are a pinata that can get picked to death. If you’re tied down defending Point 7 of a 52 point plan that will never survive contact with the Congress anyway you lose. Complex plans need to be able to be boiled down to the principles and incentives they will operate on. The boiling is the key part.
27-Be ready and able to explain how your plans benefit individual voters. Self-interest is a powerful thing in a democracy.
28-If you haven’t worked out the necessary details of a policy, don’t be rushed into releasing it just because Ezra Klein thinks you don’t have a plan. Nobody will care that you didn’t have a new tax plan ready 14 months before Election Day.
29-Don’t say things that are false just because the CBO thinks they’re true.
30-If you don’t have a position on an issue, say that you’re still studying the issue. Nobody needs an opinion on everything at the drop of a hat, and you’ll get in less trouble.
31-When in doubt, go on the attack against the Democratic frontrunner rather than your primary opponents. Never forget that you are auditioning to run the general election against the Democrat, not just trying to be the least-bad Republican.
32-Attacking your opponents from the left, or using left-wing language, is a mistake no matter how tempting the opportunity. It makes Republican voters associate you with people they don’t like. This is how both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry ended up fumbling the Bain Capital attack.
33-Be prepared to defend every attack you make, no matter where your campaign made it. Nobody likes a rabbit puncher. Tim Pawlenty’s attack on Romneycare dissolved the instant he refused to repeat it to Romney’s face, and so did his campaign.
34-If your position has changed, explain why the old one was wrong. People want to know how you learn. If you don’t think the old one was wrong, just inconvenient, the voters will figure that out.
35-If a debate or interview question is biased or ridiculous, point that out. Voters want to know you can smell a trap. This worked for Newt Gingrich every single time he did it. It worked when George H.W. Bush did it to Dan Rather. It will work for you.
36-Cultivate sympathetic media, from explicitly conservative outlets to fair-minded local media. But even in the primaries, you need to engage periodically with hostile mainstream media outlets to stay in practice and prove to primary voters that you can hold your ground outside the bubble.
37-Refuse to answer horserace questions, and never refer to “the base.” Leave polls to the pollsters and punditry to the pundits. Mitt Romney’s 47% remark was a textbook example of why candidates should not play pundit.
38-Hecklers are an opportunity, not a nuisance. If you can’t win an exchange with a heckler, how are you going to win one with a presidential candidate? If you’re not sure how it’s done, go watch some of Chris Christie’s YouTube collection.
39-Everywhere you go, assume a Democrat is recording what you say. This is probably the case.
40-Never whine about negative campaigning. If it’s false, fight back; if not, just keep telling your own story. Candidates who are complaining about negative campaigning smell like losing.
41-”You did too” and “you started it” get old in a hurry. Use them sparingly.
42-If you find yourself explaining how the Senate works, stop talking. If you find yourself doing this regularly, stop running.
43-Never say “the only poll that matters is on Election Day” because only losers say that, and anyway even Election Day starts a month early now. But never forget that polls can and do change.
44-Voters do not like obviously insincere pandering, but you cannot win an election by refusing on principle to meet the voters where they are. That includes, yes, addressing Hispanic and other identity groups with a plan for sustained outreach and an explanation of how they benefit from your agenda. Build your outreach team, including liaisons and advertising in Spanish-language media, early and stay engaged as if this was the only way to reach the voters. For some voters, it is.
45-Post something as close to daily as possible on YouTube featuring yourself – daily message, clips of your best moments campaigning, vignettes from the trail. You can’t visit every voter, but you can visit every voter’s computer or phone.
46-Never suggest that anybody would not make a good vice president. Whatever they may say, everyone wants to believe they could be offered the job.
47-If you’re not making enemies among liberals, you’re doing it wrong.
48- If you don’t have a plausible strategy for winning conservative support, you’re in the wrong party’s primary.
49-The goal is to win the election, not just the primary. Never box yourself in to win a primary in a way that will cause you to lose the election.
50-Don’t bother making friends in the primary who won’t support you in the general. Good press for being the reasonable Republican will evaporate when the choice is between you and a Democrat.
51-Some Republicans can be persuaded to vote for you in the general, but not in the primary. Some will threaten to sit out the general. Ignore them. You can’t make everyone happy. Run a strong general election campaign and enough of them will come your way.
52-Don’t actively work to alienate your base during the primary. Everyone expects you to do it in the general, and you gain nothing for it in the primary.
53-Don’t save cash; it’s easier to raise money after a win than to win with cash you saved while losing. But make sure your organization can run on fumes now and then during dry spells.
54-If you’re not prepared for a debate, don’t go. Nobody ever had their campaign sunk by skipping a primary debate. But looking unprepared for a debate can, as Rick Perry learned, create a bad impression that even a decade-long record can’t overcome.
55-The Iowa Straw Poll is a trap with no upside. Avoid it. Michele Bachmann won the Straw Poll and still finished last in Iowa.
56-Ballot access rules are important. Devote resources early to learning, complying with them in every state. Mitt Romney didn’t have to face Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum in Virginia – even though both of them live in Virginia – because they didn’t do their homework gathering signatures.
57-If you can’t fire, don’t hire. In fact, don’t run.
58-Hire people who are loyal to your message and agenda, and you won’t have to worry about their loyalty to your campaign.
59-Don’t put off doing thorough opposition research on your opponents. By the time you know who they are, the voters may have decided they’re somebody else.
60-You can afford to effectively skip one early primary. You can’t skip more than that. You are running for a nomination that will require you to compete nationally. (Call this the Rudy Giuliani Rule).
61-Use polling properly. Good polling will not tell you what to believe, but will tell you how to sell what you already believe.
62-Data and GOTV are not a secret sauce for victory. But ignoring them is a great way to get blindsided.
63-Don’t plan to match the Democrats’ operations and technology, because then you’re just trying to win the last election. Plan to beat it.
64-Political consultants are like leeches. Small numbers, carefully applied, can be good for you. Large numbers will suck you dry, kill you, and move on to another host without a backward look.
65-Never hire consultants who want to use you to remake the party. They’re not Republicans and you’re not a laboratory rat.
66-This is the 21st century. If you wouldn’t want it in a TV ad, don’t put it in a robocall or a mailer. Nothing’s under the radar anymore.
67-Always thank your friends when they back you up. Gratitude is currency.
68-Every leak from your campaign should help your campaign. Treat staffers who leak unfavorable things to the press the way you would treat staffers who embezzle your money. Money’s easier to replace.
69-Getting distance from your base in the general on ancillary issues won’t hurt you; they’ll suck it up and independents will like it. Attacking your base on core issues will alienate your most loyal voters and confuse independents.
70-If you are convinced that a particular running mate will save you from losing, resign yourself to losing because you’ve already lost.
71-Don’t pick a VP who has never served in Congress or run for president in his or her own right. Even the best Governors have a learning curve with national politics, and even the best foreign policy minds have a learning curve with electoral politics. And never steal from the future to pay for the present. Your running mate should not be a Republican star in the making who isn’t ready for prime time. In retrospect, Sarah Palin’s career was irreparably damaged by being elevated too quickly to the national level.
72-Never, ever, ever take anything for granted. Every election, people lose primary or general elections because they were complacent.
73-Make a few rules of your own. Losing campaigns imitate; winning campaigns innovate.
Most here but not me..
Back as far as Spring 2011 I was posting here that Palin had zero intention of running in 2012.
Making believe you are running for POTUS or ‘seriously thinking about it’ brings many benefits for those desiring attention. Look at Trump.
The reason why I was sure that she was not running when mostly everyone else was SO sure she was is because she was allowed to stay working for FNC as a political commentator the whole year while Newt and Rick were told to resign in early 2011 by FNC management. They knew.
There was no way FNC would have kept her on if she was considering it, instead they let or encouraged her to tease about on Greta to pull her (FNC) ratings up knwoing full well she wasnt.
Nuts on the right?
There are NO candidates right now. My Palin example for this was intended to illustrate how she was called a ‘candidate’ thousands of times here over a couple of years when she really wasnt., But many swore she was especially to me.(Iowa trip, NH, Bus tour, passion video, ...all solid proof LOL)
Once again going against the flow, my list was not intended to define who I will ‘like the best’. It was a list of what the GOP needs as a strong candidate to beat a Dem. I found last years line-up very weak and in many cases flawed, perfect for Obama.
Now a candidate might appear who meets all those conditions but has positions I disagree with. Like what if Christie does everything on that list? That wouldnt work for me.
“And you earn votes because your ideas, your plans, and your principles align with a greater number of voters than your opponent’s”
That is why RINO candidates like Mitt Romney live and die by polls .... and hiring advisors who obssess over polls that purport to tell them what their candidates’ principles should be, week by week, as they chase voting blocs
Being unprincipled works for democrats whose voting blocs care only about the letter “D” by the name on the ballot
but hasn’t worked yet for a republican, never will
As the summer came to a close the doubters grew and grew and the Palinistas came up with many crazy explainations around the above.
One favorite was that Palin hated her employer FNC so much and so she would spit in their face by simply announcing a run and quitting FNC at the same time ~ in Fall of 2011. Yep, that would be a blast to watch since near end of summer FNC stopped talking about her ‘possibly running’ and instead focused on the actual candidates. How dare they do that? It would be sooo sweet to see her publicly diss them like that.
This far out, we have to start touting or drafting. Ain’t like the old days when you could run in the same year as the election. When I refer to “candidates”, I’m talking of the prospective ones, of course. I don’t hesistate to vet potential ones at this point, as they should be.
re: #71: Sarah Palin’s career was not damaged. The damage was done by the McCainiacs, who were terrified of her ability to connect with the American people and tell them the truth. So, they muzzled her.
In addition, the McCainiacs worked hand and glove with the LIEberal press to ensure that she did not overshadow McNasty.
And since McNasty’s testicles were locked up, Ophonybama and the LIEberals made mince meat of the Republicans.
Run, Sarah! Run!
Rule ZZ: Be able to articulate why a smaller government is important. Do not simply say, "A smaller government means more freedom to you, the people!" That's not enough. We need to make one of our core principles tangible for the common man.
How about one general catch all rule: be a true conservative! The rest will fall into place.
This isn’t rocket science.
Be my guest,
but after what happened last time I personally have to wait and see who looks serious and that will be a while to tell.
- Be nice to dogs!
- One wife ONLY, please! (*gender of your choice)
- Don’t give people cancer.
Unfortunately, it looks like the ones the establishment will drag in will be thoroughly unacceptable (Christie, Jeb, Rubio, et al).
I smell GOP-E. The stench clogs the nostrils.
"27-Be ready and able to explain how your plans benefit individual voters. Self-interest is a powerful thing in a democracy."
Perhaps a bit surprising that Dan McLaughlin doesn't know we don't live in a democracy. But perhaps only a bit.
"69-Getting distance from your base in the general on ancillary issues won’t hurt you; they’ll suck it up and independents will like it."
Tell that to President Romney. And finally:
"2-Ask yourself what you’re willing to sacrifice or compromise on to win. If there’s nothing important you’d sacrifice, don’t run; you will lose. If there’s nothing important you wouldn’t, don’t run; you deserve to lose."
The Republican Party loses Presidential elections because it's one big compromise. Nobody ever asks a Democrat what they will give up or how they will meet in the middle. Ever. The only correct answer to that question is 'I'll sacrifice my opponent's principles, not my own'." I think people would be amazed at the kind of conservative candidate that might emerge.
All of O’s disingenuous campaign rhetoric would not have passed his lips unless it had been intensely focus-group tested.
Also, according to Jerome Corsi’s cogent analysis, “What Went Wrong? book, swing state Dem voter fraud will be a fact of life unless voter ID happens.
I will add my own rule for candidates. How to get elected but still keep to your principles.
Make a list of your core values. Try to list 50 things you are certain about. *Do not* order the list from most to least important. Since they are core values, they should all be about equal.
Next, poll the public about *your* core values. Ask them which of *your* core values matters most *to them*.
Then take the “top 10” of *your* core values favored by the public, and make them your clear, easy to understand election platform. “Bullet points” of one sentence each.
That doesn’t mean at all that you ignore the other 40 core values, just that you run on the 10 most popular core values.
So why do things this way?
First of all, because it lets you keep your integrity and honor.
Second of all, because voters adore clarity in politics.
They are more inclined to vote for a candidate when they know “where they stand” than one who obscures what they think in doublespeak and exceptions.
(Though he is a bit off, Patrick Buchanan once got a heck of an endorsement from a political opponent who said, “Agree with him or not, you know that if you injected him with sodium pentothol (truth serum), he would say *exactly* the same things he says right now.”)
Speaking simply, without being patronizing, is appreciated by voters, because besides being clear, it projects this clarity, which is usually interpreted as honesty.
And another rule, kind of an odd one.
Americans distinguish between ethics and morality. Candidates who assert they are ethical are seen as obeying the written law, which is an objective thing: either they are, or they aren’t. The public likes that.
However, candidates who proclaim they are moral are looked at with caution, because morality is seen as following religious rules that vary tremendously between religions. So voters don’t know where a candidate stands.
So while you may be moral as the day is long, it is still better to run on being ethical.
There’s a difference between deeply held principles and the marketing gimmicks adopted by RINOs. When Romney busts his butt to develop socialized health care in Massachusetts then claims he’s opposed to its ideological clone — obamacare — then either his Romneycare efforts were misplaced or his resistance to obamacare is a lie of convenience. In either case, his actions belie his (stated) principles.
The true princples of conservatism — respect for the individual over the collective, respect for established tradition, fiscal responsibility, a sense of transcendent right and wrong, pride in community and family — are values that resonate with voters ... and not just conservative voters either. The GOP and its tepid, milquetoast candidiates have done a piss-poor job of articulating those values, perhaps because they don’t truly believe in them.
THAT is the reason Republicans keep losing elections.
Not only is it a disgrace, it's a cowardly disgrace. Anyone who turns chicken a** and runs when their country needs them most is no longer an American, IMNSHO. If you turned chicken a** and ran, don't come back when the smoke is cleared and the heavy lifting is over.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Food for thought to those promoting Ben Carson for president.
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