Rick Perry and Sarah Palin: A Case Study

I will not proclaim to be smart enough to know what makes American politics tick at the level others do.  Yet there are certain rules I generally live by, and it was those rules that told me early on that Mitt Romney would be a losing presidential candidate.  It was the Establishment's insistence that it was his turn, the belittling of the conservative alternatives that cropped up, and the aversion to the Tea Party that had my Spidey-sense going off.  The epitome of this is Jennifer Rubin, but there are scores of others.  They tell us we need to "modernize" in order to have a "broader appeal."  In reality, they are just embarrassed to have to defend their party to their friends.  That is not to say the GOP's overreliance on issues like Planned Parenthood, gay marriage, and strident anti-immigration rhetoric hasn't hurt.  But we can solve that issue more in finding smarter and better candidates than changing what the party believes in.  Freedom nationally and values locally is a phrase I heard somewhere and I really like.

So I've been looking at the 2012 election results with wonder.  Barack Obama lost close to 8 million votes from four years before and Mitt Romney won both married women and independent voters.  Yet, he underperformed McCain-Palin by 3 million votes and lost Hispanic votes that had helped George W. Bush carry Nevada, Colorado, Florida, and New Mexico eight years earlier.  He also lost the entire election.  How did that happen?  The problem goes back to two incidents over the last four years that set the GOP on this course of disaster.  It was the Establishment's shunning of Sarah Palin and Rick Perry.  And by extension, both the grassroots and thoughtful conservatism

Say what?

That's right.  First, Palin.  I think about those 3 million votes that Romney-Ryan trailed McCain-Palin by.  I know for a fact that the Romney Campaign had more money, more resources, and a much better organization than the haphazard embarrassment that was the Steve Schmidt-led McCain campaign (and we let Schmidt tell us what's wrong with the party!).  The difference was Sarah Palin.  Its revisionist history by asshats like Schmidt that pin the blame for 2008 on Palin claiming she embarrassed the campaign that started the narrative of her being a joke and ended with her becoming a celebrity.  But I think 2012 has proven that Palin might be the greatest vote-getting VP nominee in history.  Those 3 million votes were Palin voters.  She connected with the conservative base on a visceral and emotional level that I've never seen before.  The Romney-Ryan ticket did not have that connection with the base that Palin did (and Bush did before her).  I saw it with my own eyes how Palin energized the party, it is only because of the terrible operation and campaign set up by Schmidt that that energy could not be harnessed.  Palin was a true game-changer and ALMOST saved the country from Barack Obama.

Now, to Rick Perry.  This is not a post to argue whether Rick Perry could have beaten Barack Obama or not.  Instead, Romney and the Establishment's glee it painting Perry as a cross between Yosemite Sam and the governor from Blazing Saddles (harumph!) obscured a deeper political message Perry could have provided to Hispanic voters.  Romney took glee in attacking Perry's positions on Hispanics and the Texas DREAM Act, which allowed in-state tuition for kids of illegal immigrants.  It was the hokey Perry, not the debonoir Romney, that understood the costs of continuing the Republicans stridency on this issue.  For Perry, it migth be as cynical as just needing Hispanic votes in Texas to become governor, but it also showed that Perry had an understanding of how conservatism can help solve this problem rather than keeping these people in the shadows, as they say.  In the cast of Perry vs. Romney, it turns out the simple Texas governor's message was deeper and more nuanced (a favorite word of the Establishment) while it was the urbane and moderate Mitt Romney that had the black and white harsh rhetoric that paints the party in a bad light to Hispanic voters.  Romney lost the election when he demagogued Rick Perry on immigration.  

The lessons from Sarah Palin and Rick Perry are what needs to be applied to the GOP moving forward.  Ignore the Establishment who say we need to modernize and moderate, they have had those candidates in McCain and Romney, and they have lost.  Americans won't vote for a watered down conservatism.  We need to find young and exciting candidates that connect with the base like Palin and have a deeper understanding of all Americans than what just polls like Perry.  I know some of my more liberal friends might not understand or believe that someone like Perry has any deep thinking.  I bet he does, he has run a very diverse state that has blacks, whites, hispanics; it has urban, suburban, exurban, and rural areas; it also has a border with a foreign country.  Perry had much better understanding of how to get elected and how to massage issues that are troublesome for the party but shouldn't be run away from.  Perry's views on immigration aren't liberal, he simply understands that a fence is a joke and we can't waste the time and money we have invested in these young kids just because their parents brought them here.  Perry gets that we need to capture the talent we have taught those kids and keep that talent here in America.  That isn't amnesty, and Romney probably sunk his chances the minute he attacked Perry for taking a responsible approach.  The irony is that it is oftentimes the Establishment that demagogues more than the grassroots.  Is it any coincidence that the caricatures of both Palin and Perry that have now all but defined them were instigated not by the left but by Establishment Republicans?

My advice, for whatever its worth, is to embrace conservatism and not hide from who conservatives are like Palin.  Yet we should also be willing have a deeper conversation about thorny issues like immigration and find solutions that fit our principles the way Perry did.  We cannot allow the Establishment define who's electable anymore.  Because for people like Jennifer Rubin, its about who doesn't embarrass them on the cocktail party circuit.  For all the gifts Romney might have, I would bet that both Rick Perry and Sarah Palin have a much better understanding of the needs of the average folks out there and know best how to talk to them and find solutions in conservatism.  For Palin and Perry, conservatism is not a second language that you really don't know how to speak so you just pander.  Palin and Perry understand how you can apply conservatism to the every-day issues of the day and connect and maximize our base.  It is THIS combination that will win us the presidency, not some smushy Establishment hack who spends as much time lecturing the base as they do anything else.  We don't need to run campaigns to line the pockets of consultants or make Jenn Rubin happy, we need to run campaigns that connects to every citizen.  Palin and Perry understand this and it is in this model we should find our candidate and run in 2016.

Comments

[Sane Person]

This is hilarious, thank you so much.
Palin-Perry 2016! They Speak Conservative! Yes!
Good one.

[Chris]

You COMPLETELY miss the point of this. I'm not saying Palin or Perry should be the nominee, I'm saying the way conservatives allowed them to be pushed aside in favor of a DUD like Romney is a reason why he lost so badly, especially compared to four years earlier.

[Sane Person]

Uh no, you missed the point COMPLETELY, which was that you are disconnected from reality. The ideas of Perry and Palin have been rejected, and are those of a rapidly shrinking minority "base." Most of America does not want to be dictated to by old white Christian men. They're no fun. They don't care about anyone who doesn't look like them. They are increasingly irrelevant. Moving Republicans further to the right ensures this.

[Chris]

If we aren't a conservative party we aren't anything at all. That is why libs and Dems always want us to move to the center, they know that is why we lose and that is why every time we lose we hear this nonsense. Remember after Obama won in 2008? There were books written about the death of the GOP, about how it was finished for a generation. Two years later, it was a conservative movement that demolished Pelosi's majority.

[Mike]

But how do we explain Romney doing better in many states than down-ticket Republican candidates? Rick Berg, Denny Rehberg, not to mention Akin and Mourdock -- the nomination of the latter of whom exemplified the victory of the grassroots over the "Establishment." No way we should have lost Senate seats, but we did. Romney may not have been perfect, but he did a decent job of talking about getting the government out of people's lives, cutting back regulation, etc. I do think he gave people a clear choice between free markets vs. statism. The people picked statism. We need to understand why.

[Chris]

To understand why is my point. We never gave a true alternative to that statist vision on all levels. Rick Berg, George Allen, Tommy Thompson, Denny Rehberg, even Todd Akin - all around during the Bush years (accept for Berg). None of these guys were new, fresh candidates - hell, Mourdock's been running for office in Indiana for 20 years. Look who did win - Deb Fischer and Ted Cruz are younger and fresher making their first statewide bids, and beat tired old candidates who have run for office after office. Jeff Flake, though an established officeholder, voted against every big government legislation in both the Bush and Obama years. A true conservative. We need candidates like that, not old retreads that DC insiders feel comfortable with. We were playing prevent defense from the beginning and the Dems nominated aggressive candidates like Tammy Baldwin and Heidi Heitkemp that weren't afraid to win.

[NMM]

so in order to win we need to become more conservative because conservative voters stayed home this time?????

Do you really think there is this magic army of conservative voters that is waiting to act until there is a more conservative candidate?

[NMM]

Hi Chris here is another case study for you;. California which is a very good predictor for where the rest of the country is headed.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/16/165216636/in-california-republican-is-becoming-a-toxic-label?ft=1&f=1014&sc=tw

The main point is less and less people are identifying as republicans as the number of minorities increases. Its not just minorities its the young educated and suburban/urban as well. If something isn't done Republican days are numbered.

Schnur says they face other demographic challenges: "an electorate that is younger, an electorate that is more single, an electorate that is more urban."

"Each of these constituencies have favored Democratic candidates in the past," he says.

So much so that in California, "Republican" is now a toxic label, Sonenshein says.

"Some Republicans are now re-registering as independents to run for office — simply not to have the word 'Republican' next to their name," he says.

Schnur believes the GOP will not allow this to a happen on a national level.

"If national Republicans begin to rethink their outreach to some of these voting communities, then maybe that drags California Republicans along with them as well," he says.

Preventing California from once again being a national trendsetter.

[Mike]

Excellent point. I absolutely agree that we need to give a good alternative to the statist vision, and we need great candidates to do that, and fresh faces. And I agree Perry (and Bush, for that matter) probably had a better approach on immigration. I suspect this election was a bit of a watershed and new candidates will be coming up through the ranks.

[Robert Kenyon]

This thread is ridiculous.

What is the point of the Republican party? To exist as an alternative to the Democrats?

Or do we actually have history and principles of our own, drawn from men like Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan? Do we STAND for anything? If not, and we move to the center and/or alter our principles even more than we already have to suit whatever minority or other special interest group or voter bloc we're losing with, we should just hang it up.

Stand for principle, or sit down.

I agree with Chris, other than on immigration policy, essentially, BTW.

That is all.