The policy activists vs. Sarah Palin: Lessons for 2012 presidential hopefuls

Ryan Streeter

On Tuesday, ConservativeHome featured a group of “policy activists” – Governors and members of Congress who see their mission as policy innovation. The policy activists are an important group. Why? Because the big issues we face as a country (debt, deficit, sluggish growth, health care, energy) require both courage and a willingness to innovate, think differently, and veer outside the lanes of accepted party dogma.  Yesterday’s policy solutions, on which many party-line talking points are based, are increasingly insufficient.

Yesterday, we published our verdict on Sarah Palin: she’s not presidential timber. We arrived at this verdict for the same reasons that we think highly of the policy activists – namely, the challenges we face require bold thinking and the courage to break with conventional party wisdom.

Ms. Palin’s habit of breaking with “the establishment” is simply not the same thing. Energizing the base by beating up on elites is quite different than, say, proposing creative, and often unpopular, reforms that take on the deficit – as a few policy activists have done.

Now, the policy activists and Sarah Palin have a couple of important things in common: they are both decidedly outside the class of politicians who see their mission as advancing purely political goals or protecting special interests.

But the differences between the policy activists and Palin help us paint a picture of the kind of leader Republicans should be looking for as we head into 2012. This is not to say that all of the policy activists are likely presidential candidates. Rather, traits they share in common would be good traits for the Republican 2012 nominee to have. All the names of elected officials except Palin in the bullets below come from our Tuesday feature on policy activists:

Popular appeal rooted in political courage and policy innovation.

• Chris Christie doesn’t grandstand. He delivers hard-hitting truths that many don’t want to hear. He picks fights not with the GOP “establishment” but with the highly protectionist union establishment in his state with a clear purpose of rescuing New Jersey’s future – and he has become popular as a result.
• Mitch Daniels’ has remained popular while slashing government expenditures in Indiana. His popularity didn't just happen. He has had to barnstorm the state to explain the innovations he has pursued to a public that has often been initially skeptical.
• Sarah Palin’s popularity proceeds from very different sources. She strikes a chord with voters by appealing to their justified disgust with the political class. But that only gets you so far. As Jay Cost astutely pointed out over at the Weekly Standard blog yesterday, the “establishment-versus-grassroots” model for 2012 is flawed. What matters is how conservative candidates are.
• A policy activist whose conservatism is backed by a string of compelling solutions for a solutions-hungry populace can be just as popular as a “populist” such as Palin.

Solutions, solutions, solutions.

• Early in his term as Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal cut taxes, created scholarships for poor students in failing schools, pursued health care reform, more than doubled the number of charter schools in the state, and vetoed cost-increasing legislation that resulted in boosts in Louisiana’s credit rating. There was no grass growing under his feet.
• Devin Nunes has proposed fresh free-market ideas on energy and has proposed legislation prohibiting bailing out states’ bankrupt pension systems – and he’s from California of all places. Why? Because he’s looking to provide real answers to real problems.
• Nothing in our post yesterday on Sarah Palin suggests she’s incapable intellectually or otherwise of being solutions-oriented. Our point was simply that she’s not solutions-oriented, preferring instead to be distracted by unserious jaunts down rabbit trails. The national mood wants solutions more than it wants entertainment right now. The 2012 candidate will understand this.

Honesty about where we are as a country.

• One distinctive about the “policy activists” is their honesty about the issues before them. Paul Ryan made more than a few Republicans uncomfortable (and still does) by being so loud – so consistently loud! -  about the long-term implications of fixing America’s growing deficit: reforming Medicare and Social Security.
• Our fight is not with the “lamestream media” or other sensational bogeymen. If ever there was a time to go light on sensationalism and heavy on honesty, it’s now. My children’s tax rate when they are my age depends much more on the latter.

A track record of being contrarian in service of big national goals.

• Palin “feels” contrarian in her anti-establishment zeal. But Ryan’s pushing for entitlement reform when others wished he wouldn’t was the kind of contrarianism that matters.  And, in the end, it certainly didn’t hurt him. He has emerged as one of the leading voices of the GOP, as evidenced by his response to Obama's State of the Union. But he earned it through his steadfastness.
• Tom Coburn supported the deficit commission’s recommendations because they got us one step closer to addressing a crisis, which he described (rightly in my view) in apocalyptic terms, than we would otherwise do by maintaining the status quo. One may disagree with his decision to support the commission (Ryan did), but no one can question his conservative credentials or zeal for his country.  
• Trying to be seen as a contrarian by distancing yourself from the political class has its advantages in the short-term, but the contrarianism of the policy activist will have broader appeal.

Let's look for the leading policy activist to put on the 2012 ticket.

Comments

[AZWHIG]

The article yesterday bashing Sarah Palin left me so angry that I stewed about it all day. Today you try to put some salve and a bandage over yesterday's unwarranted commentary. POINT: Sarah Palin has not declared her candidacy for ANYTHING. POINT: Each time Palin opens her mouth on any topic, critics on both the left and the Right pounce. Bottom line, The People love her and what she stands for. She is one of US, not a Beltway talking head.

[Westie]

I concur with AZWHIG, I'm a voting US Conservative that has become repulsed by 50%+ of the Republican Party and I especially put the blame on the folks listed as supporting your smear on Sarah Palin yesterday, Frum, Douthat, Thune, Myth, Gerbleman Gringrich, troll Rove, mushy McCain and all the rest of the Bush Repubs....you will drive off the T-Party voters and deliver the Obama a 2nd term. This is a despicable alliance and just as toothless as the wretched 'Conservative' Party in Britain!