Randy Bryce kind of looks like Ken Bone, sounds a bit like Bruce Springsteen and sports a gloriously thick mustache exactly like Ron Swanson. With that unconventional profile, the full-time iron worker and part-time union boss has decided to work House Speaker Paul Ryan out of a job.
And while his chances are probably slim to none, that doesn’t mean Democrats can’t learn from Bryce’s example. If the Democrat National Committee watched his first campaign ad closely, they might find their bearings and then maybe their way out of the deep-red Midwest wilderness.
That recently released two-minute spot shows Bryce talking with his mother and walking with his boy, testifying in front of Wisconsin lawmakers and welding inside a workshop. “Let’s trade places,” Bryce says addressing the GOP speaker, “Paul Ryan, you can come work the iron, and I’ll go to D.C.”
After serving in the military and earning a real blue-collar paycheck, he’s got rust on his resume, the kind of personal narrative that tempts feature writers and attracts populist voters. If the candidate, as Eric Levitz ponders over at New York Mag, was engineered by Democrat operatives, then those politicos may have stumbled onto a prototype for a working class juggernaut.
A candidate like Bryce can walk into union halls, work a high school auditorium, and glad-hand factory floors without looking or sounding like a fraud. He seems authentic. And unlike current DNC Chairman Tom Perez, he doesn’t have to attempt an embarrassing tough-guy routine.
After President Trump thrashed Hillary Clinton in the so-called fly-over states, Democrats got into their head that they needed to start talking tough. Poking their heads out of their bubbles just long enough to pick up some idle chatter, they concluded that the rural voter is a vulgar boor, uneducated, idiot willing to vote for someone who sounds sort of like them.
Maybe that’s why the ivy-leaguer Perez sounded like a caricature of a crass construction worker when he said in April that Speaker Ryan “doesn’t give a shit about Americans.” And perhaps it explains why New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has put on salty airs suddenly describing everything from Girl Scout cookies to co-sponsoring legislation as a “fucking” ordeal.
To be sure Trump was no model of civic virtue on the campaign trail. But the appeal of the anti-establishment populist originated ultimately from Trump’s promises not his antics. On Election Day, plenty of voters seemed to say “Trump’s a jerk but damn if he doesn’t tell it like it is.”
The contrasting tough guy pulled by Democrats won’t win back many voters. Of course, only refurbished policies and priorities will ultimately carry the day. Unencumbered by the patronizing gimmicks of Perez and Gellibrand though, Bryce seems like an authentic spokesman for that future message.
So while Bryce will probably lose in Wisconsin, his example might help Democrats win elsewhere in Middle-America.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
