Jeff Moore
Carolina Journal
It’s August of an election year, and media outlets are understandably focused on covering the campaigns of myriad candidates. Indeed, for the last several months, talking heads have talked a lot about personality, polling results, and approval ratings.
As we enter the final stretch to the general election finish line, with the foresight that the intensity of the popularity contests will only increase, Americans will benefit by returning to debates on policy.
Personalities
That being said, the media’s focus on people (over policy) isn’t exactly atypical. Americans have long been frustrated by politicians’ empty talking points on the campaign trail, feeling overlooked when it comes to the substantive policies that affect our everyday lives.
However, this election cycle has been full of atypical factors that seem to have catalyzed the focus on the personal. For one, the failing mental and physical faculties of incumbent President Joe Biden — long pointed out by many on the other side of the aisle — became clear for all to see, following an alarming debate performance against the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump in June.
After months of blanket denials regarding Biden’s health status, a collective panic overtook Democrat insiders and influence peddlers following the debate. Is he healthy enough to stay in the race? How low can poll numbers go? Is a second Trump presidency inevitable?
None of the reactionary conjecture dealt with policy matters.
Then, at a campaign rally in rural Pennsylvania, Trump was nearly murdered on live television in a dramatic assassination attempt. What if he hadn’t turned his head? How could secret service be so negligent? Is a second Trump presidency inevitable?
The takeaway, for obvious reasons, is the iconic image of Trump with a raised fist, blood streaming down his face, somehow capturing his larger-than-life personality in a photograph. For a week or so, the temperature was lowered back into the range of civility, and a return to substance seemed in the offing.
Not so fast.
At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump revealed his pick for running mate, US Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, giving political media and chattering classes a whole new personality to chew on.
Is this a MAGA pick or a “bigger tent” pick? How does this affect Trump in the suburbs? Is JD Vance “weird”?
Meanwhile, Democrats concluded Biden’s poll numbers were just unacceptably low, making Democrats’ election prospects too bleak to not deliver yet another news-shattering announcement.
Biden dropped out. Reportedly pressured by former President Barack Obama and other Democrat leaders, the president withdrew himself from his party’s nomination just weeks before the Democratic National Convention. Historic, unprecedented, and no time to discuss because we must now pivot to the over-saturation of a completely new individual personality, current Vice President Kamala Harris.
Is she likable enough? How is this democratic? Is the second Trump presidency… avoidable?
It’s easy to see why we can be so focused on the individual personalities in politics, and how they can affect patterns in the voting booth. But we ignore the policy details at our own peril.
Now, there was a brief period this summer where a great many politicos were hyper-focused on policy. Actually, for a bit, all eyes were on a whole set of policy recommendations from right-leaning think tank Heritage Foundation, called Project 2025 (cue the dramatic score!).
Alas, it turned out to be less of an interest in debating policy solutions and more of an opportunity to demonize any politician embracing them.
Policy matters
Yet, it is the policies that support (or suppress) the politician’s poll numbers; it is the policies that make the biggest tangible difference in “Right Track/Wrong Track” dichotomies; and, whether understood or not, it is the policies that lie at the root of the very political frustrations and movements that, ironically, have tended to elevate personalities above all else.
Whether Harris is likable, or Vance is weird, doesn’t really put food on the table, growth in our economy, or hope in our futures. Good policies do that.
In North Carolina, we’ve shown just how much policy matters, even as personality contests carry on. For the better part of the last eight years, local political narratives have focused on the power struggle between Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and Republican leaders of the General Assembly, Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Senate Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham.
The dramatic segments outlining the personalities of ambitious politicians, fighting over power, have appeared on evening newscasts regularly.
All the while, North Carolina has steadily reaped the rewards of good policy. The Tar Heel State became one of the top states in the nation to do business, precisely because policy solutions are bigger than personalities. By lowering rates at both ends of the bracket, and eventually flattening them altogether, tax-reform policies catapulted our economy into an overdue recovery following the Great Financial Crisis.
Those policies meant families and businesses keep more of their hard-earned money, and voters have shown their approval of said tax cuts at the ballot box.
Similarly, a commitment to a policy of regulatory reductions made it easier to operate a business in North Carolina without the ever-present burden of bureaucracy. Simpler regulations mean business-owners can better establish a foundation for success, meaning jobs and thriving communities. Conservative fiscal policies have resulted in multiple years of tax-revenue surpluses. Instead of brinksmanship and ultimatums, lawmakers discuss budget and policy items so long that sometimes they don’t even reach a conclusion.
Although “politics is local,” the impact of policy is at least doubly true at the federal level. Even with a bend toward good policy in North Carolina, the federal government is so large and intrusive, it’s hard to escape the consequences of bad policies emanating from DC.
So, while voters will no doubt drown in puff pieces, attack ads, naked appeals for popularity between now and Election Day, it is wherever the conversation returns to policy that will really matter.
Does Harris replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket make for any real difference in policy? What are her policies?
How will the GOP manage its emergent battle of policy prescriptions? Where is the common ground between free market conservatives versus the MAGA populists, who are less tethered to those economic principles? Will the policies reflect the base, or the fringe, of recent political movements?
As we enter the summer doldrums of this election year, we should long for a return to policy — tax policies, environmental policies, energy policies, border policies, fiscal policies, and on, and on — to really know if we’re headed in the right direction, or are stuck on the wrong track.
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