OKLAHOMA CITY — In the first day of Oklahoma’s Republican presidential cattle call, populism was a theme from the conservative candidates who spoke.
Scott Walker, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum all sounded populist notes in their addresses at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, reflecting a shift in tone for the party that four years ago nominated Mitt Romney, who excoriated the “47 percent” of Americans too poor to owe federal income tax.
Stocks are rising, but wages are falling, Santorum and Perry both said. Santorum tied this dynamic to policy and political problems with the GOP.
Republicans lost in 2012 because they “ignored the people who are hurting the most,” Santorum said, pointing to poll numbers about how voters felt Mitt Romney didn’t “care about people like me.”
Santorum, who throughout the 2012 primaries sounded populist notes, again brought up the “snobbery” of the view that everyone in America needs a college degree. He turned immigration into a populist issue, differentiating himself from “corporate America” and the Wall Street Journal who, he said, want more immigrants to bring down “labor costs.” He called for “incentives” for manufacturing.
Perry’s populism focussed on bailouts. “Capitalism is not corporatism,” he said, pointing out that capitalism involves the risk of loss as well as the hope of profits. Regulations like Dodd-Frank, he argued, kill small business while protecting the big guys from risk.
“American people see this rigged game,” Perry said, “where the insiders get rich and the middle class pays the price.”
Walker, as always, played up his everyman persona. He wore a blue shirt, no jacket, with sleeves rolled up. “I did not inherit fame or fortune,” Walker said.
Walker also took aim at the politically-connected. He portrayed his battle against the government-employee unions as a fight against “the big-government special interest.” He emphasized that 6 of the 10 wealthiest counties in America are around Washington, D.C.
