So much for executive experience.
The first three Republicans to exit the presidential race were governors. Among them, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a conservative hero for taking on the public employee unions and originally predicted to be a finalist for the 2016 nomination; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a one-time rising GOP star who led his state’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina; and Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who presided over the best economy in America amid the Great Recession.
Pacing the field are a celebrity businessman, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, and two 44-year-old first-term senators whose resumes are about equal to that of President Obama when the then-first term senator launched his 2008 White House bid at the age of 45. That runs counter to what Republican voters thought they would want after eight years of a president they deride as an amateur whose lack of having ever run anything is painfully evident.
What happened?
Jeff Miller, who advised Perry until he became the first candidate to end his campaign, dismissed the theory that governors are ill-equipped to win a national campaign in the modern political and media environment. Miller said that voters simply changed their minds from what they said they wanted, as opposed to governors finding themselves vulnerable to a lack of experience in dealing with the national media lack of knowledge about national issues.
“I think it is the dramatic shift in the mood of the Republican electorate,” Miller said. “In March of 2015 when polled, a huge majority of Republican voters preferred a candidate with experience and track record over a candidate that was a new face with new ideas. As of September 2015, those numbers had completely flipped.”
According to Pew Research polling, Republicans favored experience and track record over “new ideas” and “new approach” in March by a margin of 57 percent to 36 percent. By late September, just after Walker become the second Republican to drop out, those numbers were reversed, with 65 percent preferring a change candidate, and only 29 percent wanting know-how. It’s an unusual dynamic for the GOP.
Since World War II, the five Republicans elected president had previous executive experience. They were drawn from the ranks of governors (George W. Bush of Texas and Ronald Reagan of California) and vice presidents (George H.W. Bush, who served under Reagan, and Richard Nixon, who reported to Dwight D. Eisenhower.) Eisenhower, though not previously elected to public office, was a five-star U.S. Army general and the supreme Allied Commander during WWII.
Curt Anderson, Jindal’s top strategist, agreed with Miller’s assessment that the Republican governors’ difficulty in gaining traction can be traced to GOP voters’ apparent preference for political outsiders. It’s not, he said, due to any built-in disadvantage they face by virtue of coming from the states. As Anderson noted, correctly, even the two surging senators, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, have some ground to cover if they’re going to catch Ben Carson and Donald Trump.
“The one thing they do all have in common is that they are or were elected officials, and Republican voters don’t like any politicians at present,” Anderson said. “So the two leaders are total outsiders. But the senators aren’t lighting the field on fire either.”
The governors still running have been stalled in the middle of the pack for months.
In the RealClearPolitics.com average of national GOP surveys, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush registers 5.4 percent, good enough for fifth place. His numbers are the highest of the chief executives left. Of the others, Ohio Gov. John Kasich trails Bush with 3.4 percent; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is running ninth with 3 percent; and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is right behind him at 2.8 percent. Veteran Republican operatives are undecided on what is to blame for their poor standing.
Some attribute it simply to these particular sitting and former governors being flawed candidates.
Perry never recovered from mistakes he made when he first ran for president in 2012. Walker suffered from verbal gaffes and an incoherent message. Jindal never caught on and couldn’t raise money. Kasich tends to antagonize voters he disagrees with. Christie could still be hampered by a scandal related to his aides ordering the unauthorized closure of lanes on a major traffic artery. Bush’s calm temperament could be a bad fit for an electorate that values passion.
Or, maybe the problem is that some of them have placed too much value on their resume, and not focused enough on a “compelling” agenda. Republican pollster David Winston said many candidates make the mistake of leading with their resume as validation that they are qualified to serve, rather than emphasizing ideas to make voters’ lives better, and then pointing to their professional experience as proof that they have the skills to implement them.
“Candidates who have records need to understand that a record is something that can show that they have the ability to implement ideas,” Winston said. “But if they don’t have compelling ideas, what is the point of discussing your record?”
Other Republican insiders are considering the possibility that state houses are no longer good places to look for potential presidents, for the primary reason that they don’t prepare potential candidates for the rigors of the modern White House campaign. Governors are typically focused in state issues, while senators are immersed in national and international issues.
Where governors who run for president often spend months or years boning up on issues like foreign policy, senators live it everyday, especially if they are members of the Foreign Affairs or Intelligence committees. And, where governors only have to deal with a state house press corps that has probably been neutered by the changing economics of journalism, senators are regularly confronted by a swarm of experienced and adversarial national political reporters, both in person and on television.
Those differing backgrounds can give senators a head start in a fast-paced media environment that that makes it almost impossible to hide mistakes. Kevin Madden, a top communications advisor to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, put it this way in an interview with the Washington Examiner on the subject in late September:
“If you make a mistake in Sioux City in the morning, by the time you’re having lunch in Davenport your opponents are making you pay for it; and by the time you’re having dinner in Manchester it’s a full blown national news story. If you come from a statehouse environment that’s very hard to get used to.”
