Evan Vitale Consulting: Paul Ryan vs. the GOP Consulting Class

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Paul Ryan vs. the GOP Consulting Class – National Review Online (blog)

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‘We can fix these problems,” Paul Ryan tells me. He’s referring to the sluggish economy, the rising cost of living, broken immigration and health-care systems, burdensome regulations, and stifling tax code. What would it take? The Republican party has to win the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016.

Easier said than done. Especially when conservatives face an enemy inside their own party: the GOP consultant class.

“Everyone calls it ‘the Establishment,’” Ryan says. “That’s a loose word.” What he has in mind are Republican ad makers, lobbyists, public-relations guys, media consultants, speechwriters, pollsters, retired officials, and fundraisers — the hundreds of thousands of Washington operatives who make a living from center-right politics.

Affluent, secure, beholden to the bipartisan conventional wisdom that avoids social issues and ideological fights, they are alienated from and hostile to the conservative base that keeps the GOP in business. These are the real takers (a term Ryan now abjures).

“The consultant class always says play it safe, choose a risk-averse strategy,” Ryan says. “I don’t think we have the luxury of doing that. We need to treat people like adults by offering them alternatives.”

Only by forcing voters to choose, he says, can you “win the kind of mandate you need to fix the country’s problems.” The alternatives are drift, aimlessness, inertia, and hoping that liberals will somehow doom themselves.

Fat chance. Presidential politics do not favor a GOP that has lost the popular vote in five of the last six elections. Ryan points to other obstacles, such as the rising share of minority voters and the Electoral College “Blue Wall.” His conclusion: “We’re in a tough place.”

Ryan is promoting his new book, The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea. Part memoir, part policy brief, it is a revealing and thoughtful account of his ascent in the Republican ranks, from intern to congressional staffer to protégé of Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett to congressman to vice-presidential nominee. It also shows just how difficult it can be for a politician to ignore the consultant class.

Take Ryan’s experience with the Romney campaign, which awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses to staff, and millions to outside vendors, despite losing the election. Sometime in late 2011, Ryan writes, “someone from Mitt Romney’s team gave an interview and explained that they saw the election as being overwhelmingly about Obama’s economic record.”

Ryan was concerned. He called Boston. “‘Look,’ I said, ‘I have to tell you that when you say things like that it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to conservatives. This guy’” — he’s talking about President Obama — “‘is good. He’s gifted. We’re not going to beat him like that.’”

The response? “It was fairly silent on the other end.”

By the time Romney won the nomination, Ryan says, the former Massachusetts governor had broadened his argument. And by picking Ryan as his running mate, Romney made the election not only about the economy but also about entitlement spending.

The Left pounced, denouncing the ticket for leaving seniors in the cold. Ryan held town-hall meetings across the country, explaining his plan for Medicare. He appeared in Florida alongside his mom. It seemed to work: Republicans won seniors (and white Millennials).

But the moment when Ryan defined the terms of the election was short lived. The campaign’s emphasis returned to the jobless recovery even as the Obama team pummeled Romney on social issues and national security. The election was called for Obama before the eleven o’clock news.

It is not only presidential candidates who are captured by members of the consultant class. They run Congress, too — at least when Ted Cruz is looking the other way.

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