Presidential campaigns are never perfect. Troubles occur. What is supposed to happen doesn’t happen. There’s an old saying that no one has ever become a better person for having run for president. That’s about as close to a reliable expectation of presidential campaigns as there is.
The 2016 race has had its own set of imperfections. Here are five that come to mind:
(1) Candidates without campaigns: The Republican race attracted 17 candidates, some without the faintest chance of winning the nomination. To name a few of the also-rans, there were George Pataki, Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, and Carly Fiorina.
These candidates, who’ve now dropped out, had a few staffers, a contact or two in important states, but not much more. A number of others had only skeletal networks left over from earlier bids for the GOP nomination or based on old friendships and connections. But in neither case did they have national organizations, which are necessary to win a presidential nomination. And they lacked money and much chance of raising it.
Yet they fashioned scenarios that imagined their being crowned presidential nominee at the Republican convention in Cleveland in July. The basis for such dreams? Lightning would strike in nationally televised debates. They would perform superbly and generate a national wave of support. Fiorina actually did shine in debates, but that didn’t create a national organization.
The problem is that candidates with no chance—often driven by no more than vanity—clogged the process. To accommodate them, two debates were required each time for months. These candidates made it difficult for more credible candidates to get their message across. To the extent major issues might have been clarified, they weren’t.
(2) Likability: A candidate doesn’t have to be liked by voters to win the presidency. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon weren’t. But being liked sure helps. Ronald Reagan’s appealing personality took away the sharp edges of his ideology and strengthened his presidency. Had John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton not been enormously likable, they might never have been elected president.
But who among the presidential candidates in 2016 is especially likable? One candidate: Ben Carson. John Kasich can be charming in a goofy kind of way, though his moralizing detracts from his appeal.
The rest appear to misunderstand what they need to accomplish in debates, where most people see and hear them. They don’t need to score points, as Ted Cruz often does, or prevail in arguments, which Marco Rubio is good at. Debates are personality contests. The idea is to persuade voters to like you and feel it would be nice to chat with you about issues, assuming you are up to speed on issues. Reagan fit that bill.
(3) Electability: When Republican activists gathered for a conference in New Hampshire last March, they were asked which mattered the most, a candidate’s stand on issues or his or her chances of being elected president. By a large margin, electability won.
Given the importance of the 2016 election, I thought Republicans had gotten serious about winning the White House. It turns out I was wrong. As the Washington Examiner‘s Michael Barone has noted, exit polls found that only 20 percent of Iowa caucus attendees and 12 percent of voters in the New Hampshire primary were motivated by “who can win in November.”
Instead, Republican voters prefer Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the two candidates that Democrats believe they can beat. Trump does well with Republican voters, but when the rest of the political universe is factored in, his negatives are as high as 60 percent. Cruz appeals to hardline conservatives and evangelicals, but it’s questionable whether he can reach beyond that corner of the electorate.
To defeat the Democratic nominee, a Republican must win the political center. That means doing better among Hispanic and Asian-American voters, the fastest-growing voting blocs. Mitt Romney got 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012. A Republican candidate this year needs about 40 percent, which George W. Bush got in 2004. Likewise, a Republican will have trouble winning while losing the Asian-American vote 3-to-1, as Romney did.
This points to Rubio. He leads in the Real Clear Politics average of polls by 48 to 43 percent over Hillary Clinton. Cruz leads by one point, 46 to 45 percent, and Trump trails her 46 to 42 percent. And “in polls going back to September, Rubio runs perceptibly better than others in most target states—better than Cruz in Florida, better than both Cruz and Trump in Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Iowa,” according to Barone.
(4) Debates and polls: There are too many of both. When there are so many debates, they tend to dominate the presidential race. Issues are reduced to debating points rather than being fully explored. Trump is the master at this. He says he’ll build a wall along the border and Mexico will pay for it. He doesn’t have to say how he’d pull this off. In debates, evasion is easy.
Polls corrupt reporting. It’s difficult to keep them from being the main influence on political analysis. A candidate whose poll numbers rise, even just a little, must be doing something right. That has become the rule of thumb, though polls are often misleading or fickle. Also, in the early stages of a presidential race, polls are meaningless. And polls leading up to caucuses and primaries are often not predictive.
(5) The joy deficit: Presidential races have always been serious, but they once had an element of fun. From time to time, candidates found it enjoyable to be running for the highest office in the land. While traveling in presidential motorcades in 1976, Gerald Ford would use a loudspeaker to address people in other cars or along the road. Those who heard him were often puzzled. But Ford found it enjoyable. I did too.
Fred Barnes is an executive editor at The Weekly Standard.
