As we all know, the Conventional Wisdom in an election is to "play to the base" for the primary, then "shift to the center" for the general election. We see all the Very Serious People spend endless amounts of time speculating on how this candidate will do this, or do that, and how it will affect their shift. In fact, they often help provide that shift themselves and help set the narrative.
Let's take three Republicans as examples: Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, and John Kasich. All three campaigned as moderates. All three said they would not do things like sign so-called "right to work" legislation, all three said they would not worry about abortion legislation--Walker even said that was a "conversation between a woman and her doctor".
And what happened when elected?
Immediately they did the opposite of what they campaigned on. Walker and Snyder did things openly. Kasich at first did things openly, but there was a revolt by the voters. All three also did things in the middle of the night, suddenly and without any input or even discussion. One minute it was there, and literally the next minute it was voted on without any warning.
It was almost as if they were ashamed of saying out loud what they wanted to do and were ashamed of campaigning on what they were going to do.
This is a narrative we must establish now.
We can use these three governors as examples. We can point to how they campaigned and then to how they governed and accuse them of being "ashamed of being conservative".
We should drive the narrative that a real conservative shouldn't have to feel ashamed about his beliefs and that he can win by openly saying what he would do without having to "pivot to the center".
We should drive the narrative that he shouldn't be ashamed of his conservative beliefs because they come from his faith in God and he shouldn't have to hide it in order to win an election.
We should get Republicans to ask at town hall meetings questions like:
"Governor Walker campaigned on this, yet when he was in office he did the opposite. It was like he was ashamed of being conservative. Will you run your campaign like Walker's and be ashamed of your conservative beliefs in order to get elected?"
Or something like that.
