TJ Walker evaluates three GOP candidates on their communication skills and presidential potential. Carson is TV-friendly but has no elected experience. Fiorina has a business background but a failed previous run. Huckabee has governor experience and media skills but hasn't held office in years and offers little new policy.
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It's a big week in presidential politics as three new candidates hop into the race. Last night, retired surgeon Ben Carson entered the presidential race for the GOP nomination. And this week, also Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of hp, is entering, plus Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. So how do we rate these three as communicators? Those of you who watch this channel routinely know that I do believe that political campaigns are primarily series of communications.
Doesn't mean the only thing that matters.
With a presidential candidate is his or her ability to communicate. But it is huge because that's what candidates have to do all day long. Communicate to voters, to the media, to party insiders, to contributors. That's what they're doing, speaking all day long. So how do I rate these three candidates? Let's start with Ben Carson. Ben Carson is a skilled communicator. He comes across quite well. He resonates with certain audiences. He's obviously highly intelligent as one of the most successful surgeons and respected surgeons, pediatric surgeons in the world. He's had movies made about his life. So how do we anticipate? And he's good on tv. He's a Fox regular. He's great with the sound bite that galvanizes support and hits his message on the mark. How do I rate him as a presidential candidate? Frankly, as a joke. And that is because he's never run for office before. He's never held public office. And folks, I realize it's fun to say that all these morons in Washington are all clowns and they're all insiders and we need to have a clean sweep, get new faces in there. And that's just not the way it works. It's not reality. Governing is actually an extremely difficult business. And that's where you have to contrast.
Governing with what Ben Carson does now.
I'm not talking about his previous career as a surgeon. What he does now, what Carly Fiannarina does now is they go on tv, they say wildly inflammatory comments made specifically to alienate anyone who disagrees with them.
And to get people who already agree.
With them to go like this. I'm not being partisan here. There are certainly commentators on msnbc, the occasional liberal talk radio, who does the same thing. Being a commentator is a different business model. It's a different skill set from being a successful presidential candidate. So in my view, saying that Ben.
Carson is qualified to be president is.
Like saying, here's a smart English teacher in your high school.
And because this person seems sensible and.
Likable, this person is now qualified to perform surgery on your child's skull.
Now, I don't know a single parent alive who really would be persuaded by that argument. That's essentially the argument Ben Carson's making.
Similarly with Carly Fiorina.
She was a rocky CEO of hp, was forced out, but certainly by all accounts had a wildly successful business career, made a ton of money, was one of the very few females to be the CEO of a huge publicly traded company. You can't take that from her. But she's run for office once and was a spectacular failure out in California. I'm sorry, you don't fail once and then get the top position in the entire world in a particular industry. That's as if someone or a 24 year old had had one startup company, failed, not never made any money, and then called up the board of directors at HP and said, I would like to apply to be the CEO of this many, many, many billion dollar publicly traded company. What would the board of directors do to a 24 year old with that sort of business experience? One failure, they'd laugh him out the door. Well, he'd never get in the door. So that's the problem with Carly Fiorina. Mike Huckabee is a little different. He, he was the governor of a not insignificant state, the same state Bill Clinton came from. Huckabee was the governor for more than 10 years. So he has a lot of experience, he's a great communicator, he's funny, he's warm, he's good on tv. He's had his own TV show and radio show and did actually pretty well in 2008. I think he could have won the nomination in 2012, but he decided not to run. Here's the big problem for Huckabee though. It's been eight years since he was in public office. What has he done, what has he actually done to introduce new ideas into the political debate about how to solve America's foreign policy problems, our security problems, our economic problems, our employment problems. What has he done to actually add serious ideas into the debate? As far as I can tell, all he's done is been sort of a junior varsity rush limbo on the radio and TV shows where he's just saying things to alienate liberals, Democrats, moderates, independents, and to say things that appeal to his guns, grits and gravy, to use his phrase, that crap. He's basically spent all of his time just communicating to white, conservative, evangelical, Christian, heterosexual, longtime born in America, people who are already Republicans and already conservatives. He spent all of his time going after that crowd, plus giving Ted Nugent airtime on his TV show.
So, in short, he hasn't done anything.
To show he can actually communicate to the public, to the whole country. That's what presidents have to do. That's what good presidential candidates have to do. That's what Ronald Reagan did after he lost the 1976 campaign for the nomination. He spent his time communicating to the whole country through radio broadcasts, speeches, TV appearances. He didn't try to just focus on the extreme right wing base of his party. So that's the problem I see with Micacabi. He's certainly not as bad as Carson or Fiorina, but I do not predict the party establishment and the money to go with Mic Huckabee. I don't see him breaking out of this very, very narrow ghetto he's placed himself in. I'm TJ Walker. Post your comment.
