{"id":15522,"date":"2015-09-23T08:06:34","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/ranks-thinning-traditional-gop-candidates-try-to-adapt\/"},"modified":"2015-09-23T08:06:34","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:06:34","slug":"ranks-thinning-traditional-gop-candidates-try-to-adapt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/ranks-thinning-traditional-gop-candidates-try-to-adapt\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranks thinning, traditional GOP candidates try to adapt"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong> \u2014 Scott Walker and Rick Perry entered the 2016 presidential race with a combined 18 years of experience as governors. They exited the Republican primary\u2014 the first candidates to do so \u2014 with negligible support and dwindling bank accounts.<\/p>\n

While Walker and Perry were both flawed candidates, their swift demise is a warning to others who hope to win the White House on the strength of their political resumes. And it leaves the governors and senators still in the turbulent Republican race scrambling to adapt to a political environment that is rewarding those with the least governing experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe country is very unhappy now, and a winning candidate must be viewed as a change agent,\u201d said Scott Reed, a longtime Republican strategist who advises the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n

So far, billionaire Donald Trump has been the biggest beneficiary of the public\u2019s demand for an outsider. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina are also attracting voters eager to express their anger with Washington. None of the three has ever won an election.<\/p>\n

Republicans voters\u2019 apparent desire for a political novice is striking given that conservatives have long attributed some of what they see as President Barack Obama\u2019s weaknesses to his inexperience when he took office. Obama spent a little less than eight years as an Illinois state senator and ran for president during his first term in the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

As traditional candidates among the current GOP contenders try to break through, they\u2019re employing a two-track strategy: distance themselves from Washington\u2019s political elite while also building a campaign that can outlast voters\u2019 discontent if the anti-establishment mood ultimately fades.<\/p>\n

In the hours after Walker\u2019s stunning withdrawal Monday, his experienced rivals intensified efforts to pitch themselves as Washington outsiders and political disruptors.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot say that Scott Walker, Rick Perry or myself were insiders in Washington,\u201d said Jeb Bush, the former two-term Florida governor who is also the son and brother of presidents.<\/p>\n

Advisers for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a second-term governor and long-serving congressman, touted his efforts to challenge the status quo and even his own party. Kasich has pushed the GOP to do more to address poverty, mental illness and drug addiction, and he created an alternative to party leaders\u2019 spending plans while serving in Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can either say you\u2019re a change agent and have nothing to show for it but talk, or you can say you\u2019re a change agent and have proof and results that have worked,\u201d Kasich spokesman Scott Milburn said.<\/p>\n

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul casts himself as \u201ca new kind of Republican,\u201d one who courts younger voters and minorities. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has infuriated GOP leaders during his two-and-a-half years in Congress. And Florida Sen. Marco Rubio jumped at the opportunity to distance himself from Congress during last week\u2019s Republican debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my years in the Senate, I\u2019ve figured out very quickly that the political establishment in Washington, D.C., in both political parties is completely out of touch with the lives of our people,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of anti-establishment candidates isn\u2019t lost on Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. On Sunday, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state tried to pitch herself as an outsider, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot imagine anyone being more of an outsider than the first woman president,\u201d Clinton said in an interview with CBS\u2019 \u201cFace The Nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s campaign, however, serves as a cautionary tale for experienced candidates trying to earn outsider bona fides. As Walker grappled for ways to save his candidacy, he denied he was a career politician \u2014 despite having been in elected office for 22 years.<\/p>\n

Advisers to several GOP campaigns say they expect voters to ultimately gravitate toward experienced candidates as next year\u2019s early primaries and caucuses draw near. Unlike Walker and Perry, who struggled to build sustainable campaigns, some of the more traditional candidates are banking on building organizations that will still be standing if the electorate\u2019s mood does indeed shift.<\/p>\n

For Bush, that means having money \u2014 and lots of it. The former Florida governor raised $120 million for his super PAC and campaign in the first half of the year, vastly more than any of his rivals.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s financial stability has already allowed him to pour $24 million into television advertising in early voting states.<\/p>\n

Rubio\u2019s strategy is to run a lean campaign through the fall, expending as little money as possible on staff, travel and advertisements until the early primaries draw closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve run such a lean campaign at times, taken knocks for it,\u201d said Terry Sullivan, Rubio\u2019s campaign manager. \u201cBut keeping control of the budget is such an important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio\u2019s strategy is driven in part by necessity. His campaign and outside groups supporting his candidacy have raised about one-third of Bush\u2019s totals.<\/p>\n

Still, Rubio\u2019s advisers point to Walker\u2019s financial woes as validation. Walker built a large network of staff and consultants, but quickly burned through the money he needed to keep the expensive organization afloat.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP writers Julie Bykowicz in Washington and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Steve Peoples at http:\/\/twitter.com\/sppeoples and Julie Pace at http:\/\/twitter.com\/jpaceDC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Scott Walker and Rick Perry entered the 2016 presidential race with a combined 18 years of experience as governors. They exited the Republican primary\u2014 the first candidates to do so \u2014 with negligible support and dwindling bank accounts. While Walker and Perry were both flawed candidates, their swift demise is a warning to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-15522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15522"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}