What Each Republican Candidate's Message Appears to Be

Judging by last night's debate

Image from Win McNamee via Getty.

A primary debate is a candidate’s first chance to introduce themselves to voters. Not all voters, of course — we’re talking about primary voters, who are generally more informed, engaged, rabid, and ideologically blinded to the point of total lunacy than general election voters. Plus, we should note that a someone who watches a debate 15 months before the general election is a lot like someone who camps out in front of the box office before the opening of Love Again: They have needs and priorities that are totally alien to most people.

I watched the debate. It wasn’t easy; the debate was so stupid that just allowing it to hit my eyes and ears probably caused me to lose IQ points equal to the amount I would lose if a railroad spike was fired through my brain, Phineas Gage-style. But I watched because I have a dog in this fight: I think that the only way we’ll ever really be rid of Trump is if he loses the Republican primary. So, I’m rooting hard for any candidate who will accept the results of the election and who can beat Trump.

We can’t know if anyone can beat Trump from one debate, but we can get a glimpse of what each candidate’s message might be. A savvy candidate will use a debate to squawk their message as many times as possible. One of my jobs when I was a speechwriter was to find a dozen different ways to say the same goddamned thing; that way, if the listener remembers anything you said (not a guarantee), they’ll remember your message. Also, any candidate who has passed Political Debate 101 knows to ignore the moderator’s question and reiterate their message. Which is why this debate included several answers along the lines of: “Thanks for that question about the wild fires in Maui, Bret: We need to put the brakes on runaway spending in Washington.”

Based on what I saw, here’s what I believe each candidate’s message to be:

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Doug Burgum: “I am an odd man from a sad place.”

Some of what he said to make me think that:

“I’m from a town of 300 people, it’s a big deal to make it on this stage with all these folks.”

“I grew up in a small town. My dad died when I was a freshman in high school. My mom, widow of three, went back to work. Every job I had growing up was one where I took a shower at the end of the day, not the beginning of the day.”

Burgum opened with a joke about his injured leg. Did you know that Doug Burgum recently injured his leg? Actually, let me back up: Did you know that there’s a human being called Doug Burgum? Well there is, and he recently hurt his leg. Of course, you probably didn’t know that, because you — like 99.99999% of the country — don’t follow Burgum on Twitter and don’t subscribe to the Burgum Bugle, or whatever his campaign newsletter is called. In fact, you probably don’t have any source of up-to-the-minute Burgum news. Which is why it’s odd that Burgum started with a joke that requires that you know that he hurt his leg.

Burgum tried to play the “humble origins” card several times, but some of his stories felt a bit like side-swipes at North Dakota. There’s a fine line between venerating your hardscrabble roots and making your home town sound like Shit City, USA. Burgum might have gotten on the wrong side of that line a few times.

Late in the debate, Burgum said this in response to a question about education:

“As governor, I go, I shadow a student. The night before I find out the student — the student finds out I’m going to sit in every class with them.”

I don’t know why Burgum thought “I follow children around” would be a good message for his campaign, but good news for him: Nobody was listening by then, anyway.

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Tim Scott: “Doug Burgum’s town looks like Shangri-La compared to where I grew up: I am the ‘humble origins’ candidate.”

Some of what he said to make me think that:

“As a kid who grew up in a single-parent household mired in poverty, I wondered: Was the American dream real for kids who were devastated by poverty, devastated by the challenges of life?”

“I was a disillusioned young man growing up in a single parent household mired in poverty. … I had the good fortune to have a mom who worked 16 hour days making sure we had food on our tables.”

It’s good to be the humble origins candidate: If you’re a Democrat, you make your opponents look like pointy-headed dandies (because they mostly are), and if you’re a Republican, you make your opponents look like stick-up-their-butt corporate stooges (because they mostly are). Whichever candidate has the best humble origins story inevitably plays that song more than Lynyrd Skynyrd plays Freebird. Tim Scott sure as hell wasn’t going to let his status as the Humble Origins Candidate be stolen from him by something called Doug Burgum.

Tim Scott would also like you to know that he really likes America! He called America “The greatest country on God’s green Earth” at least twice. Just once, I would like a candidate to say: “America is a top-three country behind obviously Italy and Peru.”

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Asa Hutchinson: “I will make the country a lot more like Arkansas.”

Some of what he said to make me think that:

“The Supreme Court gave [the ability to pass abortion legislation] back to the elected representatives, whether it’s the states or the United States Congress. So there is authority [for federal abortion legislation].” … “Arkansas has the record of being the most pro-life state in the nation. I signed 30 pro-life pieces of legislation when I was governor.”

“On education, first of all: Look at Arkansas. We have to compete with China — I built computer science education, we led the nation in computer science education, going from 1,100 students to 23,000 students taking it. This is how you compete with China.”

Ah yes, Arkansas: The Silicon Valley of the Ozarks.

I don’t want to shit on Governor Hutchinson’s proposal to increase computer science education, because it might have been the only good idea floated all night. But context reveals the limits of "we did it in Arkansas!” arguments. Arkansas has about 150,000 high school students. Hutchinson became governor in 2015. If Hutchinson’s numbers are correct, then that means that less than one percent of high school students were taking computer science classes when he took office…in 2015! I was alive in 2015: We had computers. Arkansas probably had a few. But one is forced to wonder if Arkansas had more than a handful of computers in 2015 (plus the electricity to power them) if computer science classes were that rare. I’m just saying: 20-fold increases are easier to achieve when you start from a low baseline.

On abortion, Hutchinson apparently didn’t get the memo that Republicans are supposed to dodge the question of whether they’ll ban abortion at the federal level. In a general election, “Arkansas’ social values for all” is probably not a winning message. Of course, Hutchinson won’t end up in a general election, but he might end up being appointed to some cabinet position to appease people who think “Arkansas’ social values for all” sounds like a great idea.

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Vivek Ramaswamy: “I’m the outsider, and I reject the measured professionalism that has become synonymous with the Republican Party.”

Some of what he said to make me think that:

“I find it offensive that we have professional politicians on this stage who will make a pilgrimage to Kiev, to their Pope, Zelensky, without doing the same thing for people in Maui, or the South Side of Chicago, or Kensington.”

“We live in a dark moment, and we have to confront the fact that we’re in an internal sort of cold cultural civil war.”

BRET BAIER: “You’ve called for eliminating the Department of Education, the FBI, the ATF, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the IRS, and the Department of Commerce.”

RAMASWAMY: “That’s correct.”

Folks, we got a live one here! This debate was Ramaswamy’s coming out party, and he came out as a frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic who has internalized the batshit populism of the right-wing fever swamp. He typified the extremist accelerationism of the Internet Age, which adopts outlandish views seemingly just to be provocative, and which dismisses anyone who doesn’t share those views as corrupt. He appears to be a cynical dilettante with the worldliness of soft-boiled egg spouting nonsense to a noisy throng of self-lobotomized dweebs. All of which is to say: I think he’s the new frontrunner.

Ramaswamy is obviously trying to be the GOP’s back-up Trump, which might come in handy in the likely event that the first-string Trump gets sentenced to lots of jail. It’s a coherent — if evil — plan. I am equal parts intrigued and sickened by the thought of where Ramaswamy might go from here.

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Chris Christie: “Unlike my opponents, I am in faint radio contact with reality.”

Some of what he said to make me think that:

“Someone’s got to stop normalizing this conduct.” [referring to Trump]

“Mike Pence stood for the Constitution, and he deserves not grudging credit, he deserves our thanks as Americans, for putting his oath of office and the Constitution of the United States before personal political and unfair pressure.”

So, it’s come to this: Chris Christie is the voice of reason. Christie appears to be living in a world that is broadly recognizable to me. I can’t say that of any other candidate.

Is Christie motivated by personal animus against Trump? Sure, maybe. Who gives a shit? I don’t care if a dog is whispering missives into his ear like Son of Sam: Someone needs to do what he’s doing. Someone in the GOP needs to say that it’s not okay for a president to try to steal an election. And someone needs to call out Ramaswamy as an obvious goofball.

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Nikki Haley: “I am less crazy than these guys but still crazy enough for the GOP.”

“I do think that Vice President Pence did the right thing [when he refused to overturn the election], and I do think we need to give him credit for that.”

“Ron Desantis, Tim Scott, Mike Pence: They all voted to raise the debt.”

Haley often sounded generally sane, but also seemed to feel the need to balance her sane answers with some goofy Fox News bullshit. To wit: The barb about the debt ceiling

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came at the end of a standard-issue Republican rant about debt that definitely doesn’t represent my views, but is broadly sane. But, as Haley wrapped up, she seemed to think “uh oh, I’m loosin’ ‘em” and threw in the bit about the debt ceiling. Which is the type of Fox News nuttery that I consider not-sane.

I don’t think Haley is a nut. But I think she knows she must appear to be a nut to win the nomination. So, she’s facing an age-old political question: Will voters find her to be sincere? Which in this context means: sincerely batshit. If Haley shows up at the next debate wearing a tin foil hat and a “Jeffrey Epstein killed Kennedy” t-shirt, will voters buy it? This is the challenge Haley is facing.

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Mike Pence: “I will not fully break with Donald Trump even though he attempted to have me murdered by proxy.”

Some of what he said to make me think that:

“I’m incredibly proud of the record of the Trump/Pence administration.”

“We proved in the Trump/Pence years that you can turn this country around faster than you could imagine.”

[raised his hand to say that he’d support Trump if Trump wins the nomination]

Called me a grudge-bearer, but if someone I was close with stood back while an angry mob attempted to lynch me, I would put that friendship on pause. Not so with Mike Pence; he seems to have extended the Christian principle of forgiveness to the most deserving of targets, Donald Trump.

Look: I know Pence needs to run on his record. And it’s not like he put on a cheerleader outfit and did back handsprings across the stage to drum up enthusiasm for Trump (sorry about that mental image). But he had several opportunities to separate himself from Trump, and he took none of them. Personally, I think “man who stands on principle and bends the knee to no-one” would be a good foundation for a campaign, but clearly I know nothing about Republican politics.

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Ron DeSantis: “Behold: Fox News narratives hath taken the form of man, and I am that man.”

Some of what he said to make me think that:

“We cannot succeed as a country if you are working hard and you can’t afford groceries, a car, or a new home while Hunter Biden can make hundreds of thousands of dollars off of lousy paintings.”

“These hollowed-out cities — this is a symptom of America’s decline. And one of the biggest reasons is ‘cause you have George Soros funding these radical left-wing district attorneys that get into offices and say they’re not going to prosecute crimes they disagree with.”

“In Florida, we eliminated critical race theory from our schools. We eliminated gender ideology in our K-12 schools.”

I write a lot about the relationship between media and its viewers. We, the media (I count!), need you, the marks, to give us your money. So, we tell you what you want to hear. Through trial and error, we figure out which narratives you like, and then we cram those narratives down your throat like a farmer force-feeding a goose. Eventually, stories that contradict the preferred narratives fade away, and you end up with a deeply-distorted worldview, while we end up with a lovely beach house with a wrap-around porch and a heated pool.

If it works in media, could it work in politics? Of course it could — it arguably did with Trump. DeSantis seems to have made the top Fox News narratives of the past few years the core of his campaign. He’s spent the his governorship tilting against drag queens and “woke capital”, and he now sounds largely indistinguishable from Sean Hannity. Which places him a similar spot on the political spectrum as noted Fox News super-consumer Donald Trump.

I think it would be funny if Trump, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy ended up splitting the addled-by-the-right-wing-media-fever-swamp vote. If that happened, a candidate who consolidates the would-like-to-start-drifting-back-towards-Earth vote could win. But who would that candidate be? I think the only answer we got to that question last night was “probably not Doug Burgum”.

1. Though Haley’s construction — “raise the debt” — is vague, she must be talking about the debt ceiling, not the first Covid stimulus bill (which she referenced earlier in her answer), because Pence and DeSantis didn’t vote for that bill.