It's Labor Day weekend, and a new phase of the campaign is beginning. You didn't ask for my advice, but here it is:
-- Donald J. Trump: This one is easy. Stay out of jail. Stay on course. The latest Iowa Poll shows that 46 percent of the Republicans who plan to attend the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses consider themselves "MAGA Republicans." That number is precisely twice as large as the Republican likely caucus-goers who consider themselves "anti-Trump" (23 percent).
There's good news and bad for you. One in 4 caucus-goers are definitely not going to support you. And 54 percent of those expecting to brave a wintry Monday night in the middle of the Great Plains are going to vote for someone else. If a lot of those who support another candidate split their support, you're the easy winner. If several of those destined to finish in single digits pull out of the race and that 54% coalesce behind a single competitor, you're in trouble.
-- Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida: Not quite as easy. Smile. Mean it. And maybe adjust your target of supporters.
Right now, you're seeking virtually the same followers Trump has corralled. If they're MAGA Republicans, they are not DeSantis Republicans. Don't fantasize about peeling some of those MAGAs away from Trump. The Iowa Poll shows that only 4% of those who describe themselves as MAGA Republicans indicate that they don't support Trump. The MAGA magnetic force is not transferrable, perhaps especially to someone Trump derides as DeSanctimonious.
But remember this: You have advantages the 45th president doesn't possess. You can serve two terms in the White House; Trump is limited to a single additional term. You have a record of accomplishment; he does not.
You're young (turning 45 later this month); he's not (77) -- and about half of Republicans nationwide think he's too old to be effective for four more years. That's important in the nomination phase of the campaign to the extent that Republican voters in the winter and spring will be more concerned with capturing the White House than they are with returning Trump there. That AP poll shows that that 77 percent of the public (and 69 percent of Democrats) said Biden, who would be 85 years old at the end of his second term, is too old to be effective for four more years.
-- Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina: Remember that biography is not destiny. You have to give voters a reason to support you besides your admittedly inspiring up-by-your-bootstraps story.
Voters like that narrative, but when Barack Obama spun his version in 2007, he attached it to a message that always has resonated among Americans, from Andrew Jackson to Ronald Reagan and beyond: Change. Right now, you are basically campaigning on "I'm nice and I'm religious."
The "change" message worked in two dimensions for John F. Kennedy in 1960; he campaigned for a change from the Eisenhower-Nixon years and portrayed himself as the advance guard of a "new generation of leadership." You can copy that formula, and perhaps you should graft on a slogan from the Republicans' 1946 midterm congressional election campaign, which delivered 55 new GOP representatives to the House and catapulted Joe Martin to the speakership. It was two words and a punctuation point: Had enough?
-- Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina: Refine that debate message and slam it home.
You're poised to have your Big Moment, as long as Vivek Ramaswamy doesn't outshine you between now and the Sept. 27 debate. Your calling card is experience (domestic affairs in the state capitol, foreign affairs in the United Nations) and temperament (calm and soothing, yet determined and disciplined). Ramaswamy has neither of those advantages. Your moderate message has more appeal than the commentators believe.
-- Vivek Ramaswamy: You need a rationale for victory besides being this year's John Lindsay, who won the mayoral election in New York in 1965 because, as the fabled columnist Murray Kempton put it, "He is fresh and everyone else is tired."
That rationale -- which, by the way, doesn't apply to DeSantis, Scott or Haley -- must be accompanied by some rational thinking, specifically on the topic of your biggest logical contradiction, carelessly revealed during last month's debate: If Trump is, as you put it, "the best president of the 21st century," then why are you trying to deny him a second term? Also this: Being the best president of the 21st century puts him in contention with only three others, George W. Bush, Obama and Biden, which doesn't exactly land him at Centre Court at Wimbledon.
-- Former Vice President Mike Pence: Widen the distance between you and Trump, and broaden your appeal generally.
You're Enemy No. 1 among MAGAs, so forget about attracting any Forever-Trumpers. Identifying yourself ("Trump-Pence administration" or "our administration") with tax cuts and immigration restrictions accomplishes nothing in a field where everyone advocates them. The faith angle helps in Iowa, where 55 percent describe themselves as "devoutly religious" and where evangelicals are a vital voting group, but abandon it when the campaign moves eight days later to New Hampshire.
-- Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey: You're running for legacy and respectability, so there's no dividend in moderating your anti-Trump rhetoric. Call him what you like, trash him with your acid tongue, deride him till the corn is harvested in Iowa (the top agricultural product there), but don't expect the cows to come home in New Hampshire (where dairy is the top agricultural product). You're campaigning for your obituary, not for the presidency. So far you are winning the former, losing the latter.
-- Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas: You're probably the most qualified candidate in the field. Tough luck. Though your reputation is soaring, your campaign is tanking. If you believe what you say about how odious Trump is, you must depart the race to prevent him from winning with a small plurality in a crowded field.
-- Former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, radio talk show host Larry Elder, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota: You've had fun. Follow the example of Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami and recognize that your national political campaign song is the same as a tune released two decades ago by the American singer JoJo with this reprise line: Get out (Leave!) right now.
David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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