In an interesting analysis of Fred Thompson's entry into the presidential race, Morbo - posting over at Steven Bennen's place - makes the following mistake:
Remember Ross Perot? In 1992, he built an entire political movement on pithy sayings and managed to capture 19 percent of the vote in a general election — and he was laboring under the additional handicap of being hopelessly insane.
That's not what Ross Perot did at all. Or rather, that's only partially what he did. Perot's language may have sounded "homespun," but his campaign was actually remarkably substantive. Here, for example, is how the NYT described one of his 30 minute infomercials from his 1996 campaign:
Displaying his trademark charts, the Reform Party candidate assured viewers that their Social Security payments to Washington go ''out the door to people who are retired faster than Domino's can deliver pizza.''
A pay-as-you-go retirement system worked well in the 1950's when there were 16 people at work for every retiree, Mr. Perot lectured. But in 2020, in the middle of the wave of the baby-boomer retirements, two people will be working for every retiree, he predicted.''People wonder how much cash is in the Social Security and Medicare trust fund,'' he said, with the hint of a sly smile. ''There is no cash in these trust funds -- just a note from the Federal Government.'' Turning to a graph showing rocketing Medicare and Medicaid spending, Mr. Perot argued that both programs ''must be re-designed and re-engineered now.''
Comparing Medicare to ''a 30-year-old car,'' he said: ''It's hard to start in the morning.''
''If you froze your business practices, no matter how successful your business is, you would be out of business within five years,'' said Mr. Perot, who was later described by a narrator as a man who ''created a $12.4 billion company from the ground up.''
Today's half-hour broadcast, titled ''Just the Facts, No Free Candy,'' is expected to be one of series, paid largely by $29 million in Federal election campaign funds that Mr. Perot received in August.
In addition, Mr. Perot may participate in three debates that are to be held, starting Sept. 25.
In his commercial, Mr. Perot reserved some of his most withering disdain for the tax-cut proposals of both major-party candidates.
''We love free candy,'' he said, without mentioning his opponents by name. Tying the Republican tax-cut proposal to the ''Voodoo Economics'' that caused massive deficits during the Reagan years, Mr. Perot warned viewers: ''It will put us in deep voodoo if we go through this again.''
In pitching his message, Mr. Perot, a onetime I.B.M. salesman, frequently resorted to homespun, easy-to-digest images.
''Let's assume you stopped by to see me and say: 'Ross, I'm hopelessly in debt. I can't pay my bills. Could you give me some advice?' '' Mr. Perot asked, referring to Government's budget deficit quandary.
''And I replied, 'Sure, I can give you some great advice: get your boss to cut your salary,' '' he continued, referring to tax-cut proposals.
Turning to the nation's trade deficit, Mr. Perot predicted that the American trade deficit with China would jump to $50 billion this year, from $38 billion last year.
''To show you how one-sided our trade deals are, we're the only industrialized country in the world that has a trade deficit with China,'' said Mr. Perot, who campaigned actively against the North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, United States and Mexico.
For those who don't remember Perot's campaigns, these infomercials were incredibly popular campaign events. Back in the 1992 campaign there were times when his policy specific infomercials was the highest rated show in its time slot. Again from the NYT:
Then in early October, Ross Perot went on the air with a set of cardboard graphics and 16.5 million people tuned in for what amounted to a 30-minute lecture. Since then, Mr. Perot's paid political programs have consistently outdrawn many sit-coms. (On Friday night, a half-hour program in which Mr. Perot introduced his family attracted 10.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.)
If you are somehow still not convinced that Perot's campaign was substantive, consider this: Deficit reduction and trade policy were Perot's two major campaign themes in 1992. Prior to that those issue had no real national constituency. After that, the issue were politically unavoidable, a fact that led directly to Clinton's deficit reduction efforts over the next 8 years.
Perot may have lost the race to the White House, but along the way he undoubtedly shifted the nation's agenda in a very lasting and substantive way. His style may have been simplistic, but his substance was not.
Which, when you get down to it, is something you can say about Reagan, too. Reagan may have sounded like a simple man, but he knew both what he was doing and why he was doing it. He had a coherent philosophy for both the role of government in society and the role of the United States in the world. His critics said it was too simplistic; Reagan answered by saying they were missing the point. Something can of course be both simple and true.
Which brings us full circle to Fred Thompson. Thompson, like so many other Reagan worshipers these days, seems to have forgotten that there was substance behind Reagan's style. Which, when you think about it, is a problem he shares with virtually all of the leading lights in Reagan's party today. They know what to say, and they sometimes even know how to say it, but they apparently have no idea what the things they are saying actually mean. Tax cuts were never meant to be an end unto themselves; neither, for that matter, was the use of military force. Reagan's call was for "peace through strength," not simply "strength," or worse, "peace through war."
[Post updated after accidentally hitting the Publish button far, far too soon!]
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