House Speaker Tip O'Neill is widely credited with popularizing the phrase, "All politics is local." This seems especially important as supporters of President Donald Trump are thinking about the 2018 Congressional Elections and which candidates to support. In life and politics, we often confront the choice between the perfect and the good. If we, as voters, could have the perfect candidate, we would choose them. However, we're often confronted with the good enough candidate who isn't perfect on every issue but is at least acceptable on most of the important issues.
Trump was elected, at least in part, because of his promise to Make America Great Again (MAGA). Many of President Trump's supporters are dedicated to him personally, believing he is the only one who can restore America's greatness. This leads to concerns about the President having sufficient support within Congress to push forward his agenda. A significant portion of President Trump's supporters are relatively new to the political process and there is nothing wrong with that. It often takes a pair of fresh eyes to look at a situation and find a solution that was missed or overlooked by old hands who didn't think it would work.
President Trump has certainly accomplished a number of things that old hands in the past couldn't accomplish from cutting regulations massively to opening up ANWAR to oil exploration and passing massive tax cuts which are resulting in rising wages and big bonuses. So, Trump supporters are understandably pleased with his performance and want more candidates for the House and Senate who will support his MAGA Agenda.
The question becomes, "What is the best way to find MAGA candidates?" Voters, for good reason, are distrustful of political parties. People are tired of politicians making promises that they later break. Trump supporters look at his historic election as President and want to find more candidates that are like him. The challenge is, there are differences between presidential politics and local politics. Additionally, as much as many voters, myself included, distrust and dislike many aspects of political parties, they do serve the purpose of screening candidates for problems that may keep them from being successfully elected.
President Trump is a fairly unique figure in American political history. He, more or less, launched a successful takeover of a major political party and won with the help of his supporters. He was able to do this because of his personal qualities, intelligence, wealth, understanding of marketing, name recognition, the political mood of the country and much more. President Trump was a known quantity before he ran for President. Many people had already formed an opinion about him as a leader and as a person years before he became a serious contender for the White House. In contrast, many candidates running for the House or Senate are not as widely known. Some are drawn from the business world, others are pundits and moderately well-known personalities from social media, acting, news, political activists, etc. Others are lesser known and have never run for office.
Aside from being known or unknown, getting elected to office often turns on whether people like and trust the candidate. Not everybody likes President Trump, but many of the people who voted for him absolutely love him and appreciate his sense of humor. People do business with people they like and trust. People vote for people they like and trust. Given the option of voting for someone who is likable and trustworthy and someone who is less so, people, generally, are going to go with the more likable and trustworthy person. People also want to deal with successful people. If a person has succeeded in one area it feels like they are likely to succeed in another. One of the appealing things about President Trump was that he had succeeded in so many fields - real estate, writing as an author of multiple best-selling books, and as a TV personality. He may have failed at times, but he also succeeded multiple times in different fields.
With President Trump voters had the good fortune of having seen his successes and failures play out in public for all to see. With many Congressional candidates, we don't always know too much about them except what they say about themselves, what other candidates say about them, and what we hear from the media. Today, many don't trust the media to tell the whole story about a candidate. Opposition candidates, of course, are going to try and dig up dirt on opponents. The candidates themselves, as we would expect, are going to put the best face on their qualifications and successes. So, with candidates for Congress, we often have a vacuum of information about who has the right combination of experience, personality, trustworthiness, networks and other qualities needed to not only run for office but to win.
This brings us back to the political parties. Traditionally, the political parties have groomed candidates for office. Political parties are like a business. They are in the business of promoting the party and winning elections. They are in the business of raising money to promote the party and its agenda. Political parties are often amorphous. They are sometimes amoral. They are not necessarily the ideal instrument to Make America Great Again. President Trump's own Republican Party was largely against him from the time he announced his campaign for President and even after he was elected and took office. So, it's understandable that many people don't like or trust the Republican Party still. I don't always trust them either.
The difficulty is, the political system is rigged in favor of the parties. They, naturally, like it that way. It insulates them from outside influences. It helps them keep a monopoly, or duopoly (Republicans and Democrats) if you will, that locks out alternatives. This is part of the reason why President Trump chose to run as a Republican vs. running as a third-party candidate. Third parties typically do poorly in elections. This will likely be the case until one or both major parties collapses - which eventually, one or both will. Today though, the party still wields a lot of power and influence. They write the rules that determine how candidates get on the ballot. They direct the money to the candidate or candidates they believe can win and help the party. Notice, there isn't very much said about you, the voter.
Party influence isn't going away soon. It might now ever. So, what are we as voters to do? For better or worse, it makes sense to try and work together with the Republican Party to find MAGA candidates. There are many local Republican Party officials and state officials who are good people and who want to help Make America Great Again. People get sick of hearing this, but many of us could / should get more involved with our local and state Republican Party. I'm as guilty as anyone of not being involved as much as I could. From the primary campaign in Missouri, I know that there are many good people in the local party. There are many good people in the Congressional District. Many want to MAGA. They want the party to win. They want the country to win. At the same time, there are elected Republican officials who oppose the President and his agenda. There are also Republicans who opposed President Trump but are now supporters - whether on specific issues or his whole agenda. As Trump supporters, we need to continue to reach out and work with Republicans, Independents, and Democrats who are willing to help move the MAGA Agenda forward.
The state and local Republican Party wields a tremendous amount of influence. They have knowledge and experience that a candidate for Congress will likely want to be able to plug into in order to launch a successful campaign. The party has an interest in picking candidates who can succeed and who help the party become more successful. Like business, the party looks to exchange value for value. The party provides a network and support system for individual candidates to succeed. The candidates provide voters, attract donors, and help the party translate its agenda into laws that allow the party to grow. It is an often messy process. It's also a process which has worked, more or less, for hundreds of years. Sometimes the process gives you a James Buchanan (a failure) and sometimes a Lincoln, imperfect in many respects, but who held the country together in the face of Civil War. The same process that gave us President Obama, gave us President Trump.
All politics is local - this is especially evident in House races, although it applies to some degree for Senate races as well. The MAGA Agenda may require a different flavor and personality in one state vs. another. While many would prefer pure MAGA, that may not be possible in every Congressional District across America. President Trump's style may play well enough for him to win the Presidency, but a similar style isn't appealing everywhere. My taste isn't your taste. Slowly but surely, the Republican Party is beginning to see that President Trump is good for America. Just as importantly, they are beginning to see that President Trump is a boon for the Republican Party. The party is flush with cash, the economy is growing, unemployment is down, business is growing, and the party is getting the credit. The President needs the Republican Party and the party needs him. In order to continue to MAGA, the President needs to maintain a majority in the House and get a super-majority in the Senate. To do that, the Republicans need to put forward a candidate who is not only a supporter of the MAGA Agenda but who have the right qualities to win. They won't always be the ideal candidates. They may or may not support the full agenda in the way Trump supporters would like.
However, I believe it is critical for Trump supporters to consider that in order to help President Trump MAGA, we may have to sometimes accept the good candidate that can win over the perfect candidate that cannot. Get involved with the local and state Republican Party. Respectfully, let the party and elected officials know you expect them to support our President. With President Trump already announcing that he will stand for re-election in 2020, the Congressional Elections of 2018 are going to be critical in determining whether or not he has the support he needs to succeed. If President Trump succeeds, America succeeds. While the Republican Party is imperfect, it's likely the best shot we, as voters, have at vetting candidates who are both supporters of the MAGA Agenda, and who have a reasonable chance of winning an election. We may not always like the party, but we need them. The party hasn't always liked Trump and his supporters, but they need us too. We can, and should work together to find good candidates. A perfect losing candidate can't help MAGA. A good candidate, with the right background, personality, experience, network, trustworthiness, integrity, etc. can. Let's get to work finding those good candidates!