Washington Report: Crunch Time

By Craig Piercy, ACPA Washington Advocate

It’s crunch time in D.C., as all of the unfinished legislative business piled up over the course of the year comes to a head. ACPA is making good progress on the Hill related to the overtaxing of concrete pumps for job site fuel use. For more information on that initiative, see the article on page 32 of this issue.

I want to turn my attention to today’s political main event: the 2016 presidential election. There is always a danger in writing about current events, as your keen political insights of today (“Hey, Trump is just a summer fling!”) could be completely overtaken by tomorrow’s political events. I will try to stick to underlying trends and observations that have some enduring quality. So, in no particular order, here are four:

The 2016 presidential election season will be a month shorter than it was in 2012. Both national parties have successfully clamped down on the practice of “election creep,” where states were moving their elections forward to get more attention and influence. In essence, the entire arc of the 2016 campaign is now one month later. In 2012, the Iowa Caucuses took place on January 3, whereas in 2016 they will be held on February 1. At this point four years ago, the GOP found a new sweetheart every month: Texas Governor Rick Perry was leading in the polls for the GOP nomination in September, followed by Herman Cain in November, Gingrich in December, and then Rick Santorum, who topped out in February. We still have a long way to go, and the GOP electorate may engage in the same kind of “serial dating” we saw in 2011-2012.

The GOP field will be shaped by the number of podiums on stage. There are so many contenders in the GOP field that we have seen the emergence of the “undercard” debate, where trailing candidates are relegated to the political minor leagues, hoping for a breakout performance that earns them a ticket back to “The Show.” The most recent debate at the Reagan Presidential Library was over three hours long, even though most of the candidates on stage only had 10 minutes of speaking time. Pretty soon, the number of podiums on stage will have to shrink to allow for quality exchanges on complex issues.

Outsiders (real and/or perceived) have a distinct advantage. Polls consistently show that Americans are more distrustful of Washington now than at any other time in recent history, including during the financial crisis of 2008 and the post-Watergate years. However hard it may be for the party faithful to accept, outsider candidates like Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Ben Carson have real power in today’s political environment. There is a flip side: historically, outsider candidates who win during these periods—i.e., Carter and Obama—tend to make for relatively ineffective presidents (sorry to my Democratic friends, but—just sayin’).

Early campaign fundraising is becoming less important. OK, so there are many smart people that would disagree with me on this, but hear me out. Yes, every campaign needs some base level of funding to complete the basics: collecting signatures to get on the primary ballot in all 50 states, campaign travel, pizzas for volunteers, polling, etc. Traditionally, however, the big ticket item has been paid media (TV, radio and print ads), which I would argue are becoming less important in this first truly digital election. Today, a campaign can cut a 60-second spot and post it on You-Tube for pennies. If it’s interesting, the cable news networks and political blogs will include it in their coverage of the day’s events for free. Run a clever campaign and you can get to the top of the polls, where you then leverage your earned media into real fundraising dollars. Ben Carson is Exhibit A of this new way of campaigning and I think that’s a good thing.

The real issues will largely remain untouched. It’s not that modern presidential primary campaigns have ever been a good venue for tackling the substantive issues of the day, but now we find ourselves in a 140-character political environment with a Snapchat attention span. We all need to dial up our political B.S. detectors a bit, even with the candidates we like. We can’t be satisfied by vague generalizations; we have to demand specifics. How will we control runaway entitlements? How will we pay to fix our crumbling infrastructure? Should our foreign policy be based on moralistic principles or economic interests?

The 2016 election promises to be quite a show. I just hope it is more 60 Minutes, and less Keeping up with the Kardashians.