Stay the course. Don’t change horses in midstream. Let them
finish the job they’ve started. It’s always darkest just before
dawn.
Or maybe, less pithily but more positively, this: On second
thought, look around your hometown, because life may be going
better than you realized.
Republicans trying desperately to hold their congressional
majorities still lack a simple message that resonates with voters
who usually or at least often lean right, but who this year are
disaffected. They need something like (but better than) one of the
examples above, something that gets voters to say, “Okay, dammit, I
may not be happy with them, but I’ll give these guys one more
chance. The Democrats sure haven’t given me anything to vote for,
and at least these Republicans are in my general vicinity on the
issues…. Yeah, dammit, okay.”
The truth is that voters who are enthusiastic about
these elections are already showing up in the poll results. The
challenge for Republicans is to reach out to the other voters — to
the huge number of unhappy citizens out there — not by trying to
make them feel an enthusiasm that just doesn’t ring true to them,
but by finding them in the doubt-filled mental places where they
are and convince them to vote Republican despite their doubts.
There’s an electoral virtue in respecting voters enough to tacitly
acknowledge their concerns.
That’s what Ronald Reagan did in his “Stay the Course” campaign
in the difficult year of 1982, and while the approach wasn’t
exactly inspiring, it did serve to help his party keep a majority
in the Senate.
At an American Spectator breakfast on Monday,
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Ken Mehlman said that
the simple message Republicans would stress is that they are better
than the Democrats on keeping taxes low, on keeping the homeland
and American interests safe, and on appointing good judges. Well,
let it be acknowledged that Mehlman is one of the most impressive
and talented political operatives in the country — but that while
his RNC operation is a wonder to behold, this message doesn’t quite
do the trick. The reality is that voters are starting to doubt how
safe the world is and that Republicans have done a terrible job
this year of fighting for good judges or even of highlighting the
issue. And they certainly haven’t done the necessary work to
explain how anything they would do would actually affect voters’
individual lives for the better.
And speaking of individual lives, that’s what matters to most
voters. Sectarian violence in Iraq is “over there.” What they want
to know is whether their own families are safe and comfortable. And
the reality is that they are.
On second thought, life right now looks pretty
good.
The message needs to be delivered by a trusted and believable
figure, somebody with a “common touch.” Looking straight into the
camera — but interspersed with appropriate footage to reinforce
the truth of the words.
Imagine Rudy Giuliani in a full one-minute commercial, or maybe
Arnold Palmer, or actor Robert Duvall, saying something like
this:
Fellow Americans, forget the over-hyped newscasts. Take
a second look around your hometown. Life may be better than you
realize.
Of those in the job market, more than 95 percent of you are
working.
If you have a pension or investment plan, you’re doing well: The
stock market is at an all-time high.
If you’re a homeowner, you’re in good shape: Home values are
strong and steady.
Wages have been rising for months. But gas prices are falling
rapidly, helping out your family budgets.
In most places in America, crime is down a lot in the past five
years. And our homeland hasn’t suffered new terrorist assaults
since 9/11.
Under Republican leadership, American life is pretty good. And
why shouldn’t it be: We Americans are good and hearty and sensible
people.
Why rock the boat? Keep a steady team in place in
Washington.
Now imagine a series of commercials, all delivered by trusted
people. Each commercial would start with the same first line
(through the word “realize”), so that “take a second look” becomes
a recognizable tagline in the campaign’s last two weeks. Each
commercial would end with the same final two lines (from “under
Republican leadership” on). But the middle five lines would change,
as would the footage.
While most of the commercials should focus on kitchen-counter,
domestic concerns, one version could perhaps remind people that
Muammar Qaddafi gave up his nukes, Osama bin Laden is hiding in a
cave somewhere, Saddam Hussein is overthrown and in jail, Saddam’s
sons and decapitation specialist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are dead,
and, again, that our homeland has been free from terrorist assault
since 9/11.
In all these advertisements, the tone of voice would be
important: not rah-rah, but low-key, matter-of-fact, calm and
reassuring, and delivered with the sense that the speaker himself
(or herself) is taking the same second look and just now coming to
the conclusions delivered. In other words, the speaker should be
inviting skeptical Americans, rather than telling them, to
see things in this new light.
Individual campaigns could rip into liberal opponents all they
want, or stress whatever local issues they want. But a concurrent,
national, mega-buy, RNC commercial run, one designed like this to
soften the anger and frustration that voters now are aiming at the
GOP, could go a long way toward bringing right-leaning voters home
to the party they’ve been supporting in recent elections. As of
now, rather than coming home politically, they are threatening to
avoid the polls altogether and stay home instead. Less than three
weeks remain to convince them to take that second look.
