A lot of old faces in the GOP wasted a lot of time and money this cycle.
People of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and all of our fine states: Let us come together and crush the hopes of unrealistically ambitious politicians, and clear the clogged arteries of this and all future Republican presidential primaries from the globs of human cholesterol we call the “lower-tier” candidates.
As Mike Huckabee drops out, this is where we’re supposed to quote Teddy Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” and declare, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
Nah. Sometimes the guy in the arena never should have stepped into it.
Several old Republicans came out of retirement this cycle, offering the political equivalent of take-out food left in the back of the fridge for way too long. Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Jim Gilmore, and George Pataki (who departed the race at the end of December) all wasted our time. There’s a strong argument that Jeb Bush belongs in this group, too.
We’re supposed to say, “More voices, not fewer,” and that it’s good for the GOP primary electorate to have lots of options. We’re supposed to cheerfully greet the news that there are too many Republican candidates to fit on a single debate stage, and we’re supposed to take them all seriously. We’re not supposed to tell the forgotten faces of the party, “Your time has passed, your style is dated, your past base of support has dissipated, and you’re the answer to a question that no one is asking.”
No more. The line must be drawn here. We’ve been too nice to these figures. We’ve coddled them.
No more. The line must be drawn here. We’ve been too nice to these figures. We’ve coddled them. They’ve demanded that we treat them seriously and we’ve (mostly) stifled our eye rolls and played along. We’ve listened to their arguments that they’re seeing enthusiastic crowds everywhere, that the polls aren’t measuring their true level of support, that they’re great closers, and that the only poll that matters is the one on Election Day.
Despite not registering any support in most of the polls this year, Gilmore appeared in the final “undercard” debate before the Iowa caucuses. On January 28, he was declaring, “There is now Gilmentum in this race.”
On caucus night, Gilmore got twelve votes. Twelve. That’s only twelve votes ahead of you, and you weren’t even running. He finished 107 votes behind “other.” It’s hard to argue that some potential reserve of Gilmore supporters got stuck in the snow or stayed home; turnout was an all-time record high, above 180,000. At what point does Gilmore’s effort stop being a lovable long-shot bid and start becoming an uncomfortable public exhibition by a man in deep psychological denial?
Rick Santorum finished with 1 percent, 1,783 votes. Despite his 2012 win, he offered Iowans the least-anticipated sequel this side of Fifty Shades Darker. In November 2014, Santorum was at 11 percent in Iowa. That was the last time he was in double digits.
He recently complained that the undercard debate “wasn’t advertised significantly. In fact, the entire hour lead-up to this, there was no conversation about any of the four people on this debate stage.” Yeah, because all of the participants were in the low single digits in Iowa polls! Iowans know who he is. There hasn’t been a mass exodus or mass statewide amnesia. They know you, Senator. In most cases, they like you. They just don’t want to vote for you.
Let’s at least give Huckabee some credit for acknowledging his circumstance with some humor: “Voters are sick of me.”
Yes, in February of 2015, Mike Huckabee was actually leading in Iowa, the state he won in 2008. But he slipped to single digits in June and never finished above 5 percent from November to last night. Had Huckabee remained hosting his weekend show on Fox News, the GOP primary would have continued, largely unchanged from today. His campaign spent about $4 million, and he finished with 3,344 votes, just under 2 percent. He announced his departure from the race Monday night; let’s at least give Huckabee some credit for acknowledging his circumstance with some humor: “Voters are sick of me.”
George Pataki raised $2 million. His top performance in any poll in Iowa, New Hampshire, or nationally was 3 percent. He hit it once. As Harry Enten noted, “In the 221 polls that asked about Pataki, he registered 0 percent 149 times.” Who were the people telling Pataki that the Republican electorate was clamoring for him? Who was telling him he had a legitimate shot at winning the nomination?
#share#The inevitable complaint of the long shots will be that the nefarious donor class wouldn’t support them, because they were standing up to the fat cats, because they stood for Main Street, not Wall Street, blah blah blah. Money runs politics? Jeb Bush got 3 percent. Carly Fiorina raised $24 million and she finished with 1.9 percent. (Undoubtedly, her team will insist that a strong performance in New Hampshire was their true early-state goal all along.) The long shots will point to every possible reason except the possibility that they’re simply not appealing-enough candidates.
Running for president and succeeding is extremely difficult. It is not just a book tour on a larger scale.
If the GOP old guard’s campaigning skills seem rusty, it’s because they are. Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, and George Pataki last won a general election in 2002. Rick Santorum last won a general election in 2000. Jim Gilmore last won a general election in 1997. For perspective, that year Marco Rubio was fresh out of law school and hadn’t been elected to anything yet.
Some of this is your fault, Iowa Republicans. You helped Santorum enjoy an improbable, undetected-by-the-final-polls victory in 2012, and now every little-known Republican thinks, “Hey, I could do that, too!”
No! No, you almost certainly can’t. Not even Santorum could do it again. Running for president and succeeding is extremely difficult. It is not just a book tour on a larger scale. It requires careful planning, a national network, the ability to generate enormous resources, and the ability to genuinely inspire and motivate people who aren’t your blood relatives. Lesser-known Republicans have begun treating the presidential primary like it’s the New York Lotto: “All you need is a dollar and a dream.”
#related#No, you can’t effectively move to Iowa or New Hampshire, pledge to visit every county, shake hands at diner after diner and answer questions at town hall after town hall, and become president of the United States. You cannot win the nomination on a shoestring and good intentions. Every major-party nominee for the past 30 years had a serious national network of supporters in place by caucus night. Even if a candidate can somehow handshake his way to victory or respectable finishes in those first few states, at some point, usually Super Tuesday, you reach a point where you need to compete in multiple states at once.
You’re not supposed to run for president because you’re trying to build name recognition, a huge mailing list, a book deal, a Fox News gig, or because you’re lonely. If you’re really desperate for attention, you should turn to a completely different nationally televised competition of somewhat-remembered figures from yesteryear, bickering with each other and attempting to show leadership and salesmanship. It’s called “The Apprentice.”