John Rossomando
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During World War II, the catchphrase was “Loose lips sink ships,” but this is a lesson that many in the GOP presidential field have yet to learn.
Reagan won in 1980 because he made the campaign about the issues of the day and less about himself.
According to Reagan campaign handler, Craig Shirley, the late president won by connecting with the people on their terms.
But this time around, the present GOP field seems more interested in engaging in oneupsmanship than in stating a positive vision for America that positively contrasts with Obama’s.
It’s one thing to highlight President Obama’s failings, and there are many. But it is quite another to state a clear vision for ending the financial crisis and getting America moving again.
But Michele Bachmann’s comments about vaccines, Perry’s embrace of anti-intellectualism, and the rest of the field’s focus on themselves serve as distractions.
If today’s candidates want to be the next Reagan and Obama to be the next Jimmy Carter, they had best stop focusing on themselves and identifying with the average American the way Reagan did.
You don’t win campaigns by focusing on what is wrong with the other guy. Instead, you have to focus on “getting the country moving again.”
So far, Perry hasn’t enunciated a positive message and has appeared shrill and arrogant at times – hardly the way to win. And Romney strikes many as a person who frequently impresses independent voters as someone who wants to be all things to all people. Neither approach will be enough to beat Obama.
Beating Obama will require taking the high road and reaching out to the same blue-collar voters who elected Ronald Reagan twice.
Polls show Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other blue-collar industrial states with large Catholic populations are winnable for the right candidate. But doing so will require meeting them on their own terms and empathizing with their inability to put food on their tables because of Obama’s policies.
In 2001, I wrote an article in Crisis Magazine titled, “Why Blue Collar Catholics Don’t Vote Republican.”
I found they key to winning the Catholic vote was identifying with the poor and emphasizing how conservative policies will benefit them.
Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in large part because he convinced blue-collar Catholics and others that he had a vision far different than the incumbent’s vision of America as a nation in a state of “malaise”.
If you want to beat Obama, pick a different theme of where he has failed and create a positive vision that will deliver the sort of positive change that Americans thought they were buying in 2008.
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