The GOP 2016 pack is off on a 16-month war for the nomination, which means performing for the party's base and the money men. Yet whoever comes out on top won't take the White House unless he starts now on connecting with an entirely different class of people.
They're the voters who didn't come out for John McCain in 2008, and mostly not for Mitt Romney in 2012: They're middle- and working-class — mostly men and mostly white, though some minority voters and women will respond to the same appeal.
When these voters have come out for the GOP, it's seen congressional landslides like 1994, 2010 and '14 — but no national Republican since Ronald Reagan has fully drawn them in.
In '94, liberals sneered about "angry white men." OK, but the anger is because these folks have seen their ability to provide for a family under assault for decades, by everything from economic change to politics.
Actually, listening to [voters] … informed Reagan's entire political future — how he spoke, what he said, his occasional breaks with GOP orthodoxy.
They know they're losing, not gaining, when Democrats "spread the wealth" — but they need reason to believe a Republican will fight for them.
Why could Reagan talk to these voters? He'd talked with them. He spent 1954 to '62 as a spokesman for General Electric — hosting "GE Theater" on TV, but also giving speeches at GE plants. And eating that day in the cafeteria, talking to the workers.
Actually, listening to them — getting an earful on how they saw their work, the country, the world. That experience informed Reagan's entire political future — how he spoke, what he said, his occasional breaks with GOP orthodoxy.
No candidate today has time left for such deep exposure — but any of them can get a start. And the smart ones will learn to signal that they're on these voters' side.
Quick tips for the candidates:
- When you're asking a CEO for donations, also ask him what his workers worry about. Keep track of which ones can actually answer. Oh, and make 10 minutes to talk to his secretary, plus another 10 to chat with the security guards.
- Then tour the office or (better) factory floor — and not just as a photo-op. Talk off-camera to these men and women about their lives and their concerns. Take notes.
- Visit truck stops, again without the press pack. Spend a couple of hours chatting. You're not there asking for their votes, you're learning what they want to vote for.
- On the campaign trail, don't just hit party events. Go to a baseball game — and sit in the bleachers, not the luxury box.
- Make your overpaid consultants do the same drill, and report back. Fire the ones that don't get it — you'll win twice when they go to "work" for your opponents.
All this has to make its way into your agenda, your stump speech and your ad-libs.
Happily, some eggheads are already promoting policies that address these voters' concerns. The "reformocon" thinkers aren't popular with the high priests of GOP economic orthodoxy.
That's a plus — because, unlike most Republicans, you're going to be bashing Wall Street.
You're not anti-business, but you are anti-corporate-welfare — and today's financial sector is full of what Reagan called Welfare Queens.
The voters you need (heck, most Americans) know damned well that the big banks not only blew up the economy and then got rescued by the taxpayers — but also have been getting even bigger in the Obama years, without putting their money to work growing the economy and creating jobs.
On the campaign trail, don't just hit party events. Go to a baseball game — and sit in the bleachers, not the luxury box.
You've got to thunder that we haven't ended too-big-to-fail; we just got a law that only pretends to do it, one written by the same politicians that played footsie with the special interests all those years.
And the bankers are back to playing the same games, ones so complex even they don't really understand them — which, again, is how they blew everything up in 2008.
You want to get America working again. Fracking has made us an energy superpower — and that should mean huge growth right here at home in industries and jobs making stuff. Not software or movies, but physical products.
Wages are up enough in China that jobs are coming back home — but too slowly, even though the American workforce is vastly higher-quality than anything overseas.
The politicians have made it too hard to open a new plant, to launch a new product, even to get the oil and gas to where it can fuel a US manufacturing revolution.
The other party panders to ignorant environmentalists. That is, to people who think the only folks who should be able to earn a living by getting their hands dirty are the guys who work the recycling truck and the mechanics who fix their Prius.
You're all for college, but you don't think the only good-paying jobs should be for college grads. Too many Americans are stuck with a choice between getting work as a Wal-Mart greeter or seeing if they can make a disability claim stick.
About college: Something's badly wrong there. We're graduating too many kids with $100,000 in debt and no skills to earn enough to pay it back. While the rest of America is busy doing more with less, these schools keep on paying way too much money to way too many people who don't even teach.
It's time to put strings on the billions Washington sends to higher education, demanding that these schools deliver value.
And that's true for a heck of a lot that Washington does with our money these days. It's time the federal government stopped siding with the takers and the fakers, and started backing America's makers.
A winning Republican has to connect with regular Americans in ways that call out the liberal establishment. The New York Times and the networks always called Reagan an extremist. He kept right on talking past their noise.
His ability to do that was what they really hated about him. America needs a Republican they'll hate every bit as much.
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