What is a great campaign? Just what sort of campaign is required to invigorate the American People?
I am not thinking in terms of what the voters would respond to, per se, because a great campaign doesn’t necessarily lead to a victory for the candidate that performs it, but rather to those who come after, and who come invigorated.
Certainly a candidates’ positions matter, but the narratives for almost every conceivable position are already established in the psyche of the voter. A candidate cannot be nuanced or smarter than those narratives, because no demographic understands political nuance and the voters hate it when a candidate appears smarter than them. (Just look at our last three Presidents as proof of that assertion).
I am aware that I am not representative of “the American people”, but I do know exactly what kind of campaign I’d like to see from a candidate with whom I generally agree on political philosophy and policy. First and foremost, I would like to see a campaign fueled by an excited passion for the positive proposals that candidates’ campaign represents. In other words, I am tired of hearing “repeal and replace”, and would prefer to hear someone talk about bringing freedom to heath insurance and to health care in general. I would like to hear a candidate talk about bringing freedom back into the private lives of the American citizen, back to the environment of business, back to the sovereignty of the States, back to our churches, our communities, and our homes.
I would not go on and on about how bad things are now, because everyone knows things are bad. I would not attack the character of our current public officials, because the American People truly do distrust and despise Washington D.C. I would not talk about corruption, because we know, everyone knows, how corrupt our country has become.
I would make every answer to every question about my pursuit of something better. I would employ only one or two principles behind each proposal I made; for example, everything would come back to “freedom” and a “robust economy”. I would disregard my opponents and every disastrous reality of our status quo, with a single line, easily repeated whenever a question would prompt it. For example, “I’m not hearing anyone saying that our government is working for them”, and then proceed to speak about reform and freedom and a robust economy.
Eventually my opponents would be forced to refute my only criticism of their campaigns, namely, that no one is talking about government working for them. Regardless of whether or not they were a Republican or a Democrat, they’d be caught, on camera, talking about why our government does work and is working, and everyone would hear them and no one would believe them.
Finally, when it came down to the difficult questions that no libertarian or republican or constitutionalist can apparently address (Welfare, Subsidies, Social Security, etc) I would simply and briefly say, “our government costs the American People X amount of dollars and for all that money and all those laws and regulations, you still have precisely the same problems this government claims it is trying to solve. Well, either this government is lying, and they are not interested in solving problems, or they are incompetent, and cannot be trusted to solve them”. Then back to freedom, freedom, freedom, economy, economy, economy.
A great campaign must be a simple campaign. It must be about one or two unifying principles. It must be positive. It must not get bogged down in the old narratives of two failed political parties. It must answer loaded questions with loaded questions and real questions with actual answers. Lastly, it must be a campaign, not about the candidate themselves, or about a single issue, or about the party, or about special interests; but rather about actionable ideas the public could embrace, if they could only focus on what is possible to them, beyond what their current rulers have promised.
Article written by: Steven Brodie Tucker
About Steven Brodie Tucker
Graduated with a degree in Philosophy from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Also studied economics and political science at George Mason.
