Candidates Give Us What We Want … Or Do They? … Can They?
Two things we look for in elections from candidates. Who agrees with me? Who can I trust? Issues and character matter.
For the candidate, delivering on that order is not simple.
Seeking votes from a majority, the candidate has the task of figuring out which issues to talk about and how to talk about them while at the same time coming across as genuine and trustworthy. Not easy, since we as voters are not one dimensional. We all differ from each other and within ourselves we have values that conflict.
As one voter told a reporter, “I tend to be a more liberal thinker from my background in social work, but I have a lot of Christian values that put me on the other side, too.” Another was undecided because for her both gun rights and abortion rights are important. For some, those conflicts are not resolved until the moment of voting.
The temptation for candidates is to talk about issues that poll well. Polls, however, may be a weak stick to lean on. What is popular may not be significant. Few issues determine how one finally votes and they are usually controversial.
In Kathleen’s first campaign for State Senate, campaign advisers in Madison wanted her to include landfill fees as one of her issues and avoid health care reform. The first polled well. The second, not so much, because there was little agreement on what to do. At campaign events, however, people wanted to talk health care and how to fix it. It was affecting their lives. They wanted to know Kathleen’s thoughts. They might not have agreed with her, but in talking candidly about the difficulties she was genuine. No one ever mentioned landfill fees.
And polls don’t capture the whole of reality. Nothing is known about what is not asked. What is asked often reflects “accepted wisdom”.
In Kathleen’s second campaign, the Party consultant put together a series of questions about effective strategies for economic development. In the list of possible answers, he included the usual suspects: cutting business taxes, reducing regulations, investing in infrastructure, developing renewable energy, and providing tax incentives. After some persuasion, he agreed to add “making sure our schools are good and our communities are safe” as a potential strategy.
It turned out that “good schools and safe communities” topped the poll, five percentage points higher than tax incentives. 17 points higher than reducing taxes, and 22 points higher than cutting regulations—opening up a whole new way of talking about economic development.
What polls tell candidates and what they tell us reflect the knowledge and creativity of the pollster, the methodology used, the wording of the questions, and the list of possible answers one can choose from.
Two recent Wisconsin polls using different methodologies painted very different pictures of the issues of most concern to the state’s voters. One, which asked people to rank their level of concern about each of 10 issues, concluded inflation and crime are the most concerning to most people. In the second, which asked respondents to list the one issue that concerns them the most, the “future of our democracy” was the overwhelming first choice, followed by climate change and gun policies.
For candidates, the alternative to trying to persuade voters on the basis of shared beliefs is to connect on a personal level, acting out the role of “ordinary person.” Vote for me because I am like you. I share your experience. “I feel your pain.” You can trust me.
The goal is to shed the role of politician. Become a “real” person. Act out one’s authenticity. At a time when all politicians are suspect, that requires creativity.
One-on-one contact provides the opportunity. There is not enough time, however, to make that kind of retail campaigning the center piece of strategy. Unless you can do it in an interesting enough way, generating media coverage that magnifies the effect as viewers and readers put themselves in the place of those who are actually there.
One of the first to combine retail with wholesale campaigning and a personal story in a successful one-act play was Dan Walker who ran as an anti-machine Democrat for Governor of Illinois at a time when Mayor Daley was still boss.
The play started with Walker, a LaSalle Street corporate lawyer, pulling on jeans, tying a red bandanna around his neck, lacing on a pair of hiking boots and beginning a walk the length of Illinois, 425 miles from Cairo in the deep south to the Wisconsin border on the north.
He walked with people, he talked with people, he stayed in people’s homes. He acted out his identification with ordinary voters in contrast with relying on political clout to win. His route, not surprisingly wound through the media centers of Downstate Illinois.
Walker became “Walking Dan”. The red bandanna, a symbol. As he walked north, the media coverage increased. His walk became the story. His identification with the “average” person solidified.
His campaign pollster knew they were ahead when the polls showed that more rural and small-city folk could imagine themselves living next door to the Chicago corporate lawyer with the walking boots and red bandanna than to Paul Simon, his primary opponent, who actually came from Downstate and had lived all his life in a small town.
This summer, Beto O’Rourke, running for Governor of Texas as a Democrat, travelled the state’s most rural and reddest counties, talking with folk who will never vote for him, but demonstrating to a much larger media audience his openness and willingness to listen and engage.
Basketball shorts and a hoodie are the long-time visual signature of John Fetterman, lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and candidate for the US Senate. Interviewed (also in a strong Republican county) Fetterman says, “I’m just a dude that shows up and just talks about what I believe in, you know? … doing my thing.”
The reporter writes, “(Fetterman) does not sound like any other leading politician in recent memory. And standing roughly 6-foot-8, with his uniform of basketball shorts and hoodies bearing occasional schmutz, he plainly does not look like one.”
It used to be that consultants told candidates to dress like and act like the office they were seeking. No longer. The goal now is to look like, talk like, and act like a voter.
The hope is the personal connection will persuade. Success is when a voter says, as one did in a rural Ohio county after several conversations, a shared workout and a beer with the candidate, “If I look hard at his policies, I probably wouldn’t agree with him. But I can tell you that he does care, and he is willing to listen, and I don’t think I have seen that from anybody in a long time.”
It takes a certain kind of personality to be both authentic and appear authentic. Some candidates are natural. Others have to be coached.
Faced with the difficulty of persuading a majority of voters you agree with them on their important issues while also demonstrating you are authentic and trustworthy, few campaigns and candidates try.
The alternative is to go negative and focus attention on the opponent instead. My opponent does not believe what you believe. My opponent does not feel your pain. My opponent can’t be trusted. It is so much easier to attack, to raise questions, to sow doubt.
Consultants push candidates to go negative. The harshest statements get the most media coverage and the loudest partisan cheers.
We still have to vote, however, using our best judgment. Keeping in mind that whatever the candidates say or whatever is said about them, the actions of whoever is elected will reflect where they come from. Their friends. Their supporters. Their funders. The political party they belong to, its leaders and its members. All will influence. It is a package deal you buy with your one “x”.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press