Lessons from his predecessors.
Lessons from his predecessors.
J. D. Vance is undergoing the trial by fire that all newly prominent Republicans suffer. He will probably get through this, but he should learn from the mistakes and successes of his predecessors.
Sarah Palin is the best modern example of how to self-destruct under pressure. The then-obscure first-term Alaska governor flew out of the political gates with a dynamite convention speech. This propelled the McCain-Palin ticket into the lead for the first time in months. It looked like a new star was born.
We know what happened next. Democrats and elements of the media started to pepper the newbie candidate with all sorts of questions about national affairs. She was frequently unable to offer serious, coherent replies. She had clearly neither been deeply immersed in national policy, as most people to ascend to the national stage are before they enter, nor had she done whatever homework the McCain campaign provided.
This sent her into a doom loop where she drew within a protective shell. She rarely interacted with the press, which of course only caused them to focus even more on her. Palin then agreed to do an interview with then–CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric. She fluffed so badly that she was even unable, or unwilling, to tell Couric what newspapers or magazines she read.
That sealed her fate with the broader electorate. Palin reinvented herself as a barnstorming, Tea Party “Mama Bear” and became a conservative favorite, but she never regained the overall star quality that her breakout introduction had promised. She passed on running for president in 2012 and subsequently faded into the background. She lost her race for the House in 2022 to Democrat Mary Peltola, as even Alaskans had soured on her.
Vance so far has not made any of the mistakes Palin has. He engages with the press rather than retreats. He doesn’t run away from his past comments that progressives call “controversial,” but he also hasn’t doubled down on explosive rhetoric either. Vance is instead plowing through the maze, just as he ought to.
This approach harks back to the most successful example of combatting a media-generated frenzy, that of Richard Nixon in 1952. Nixon was a 39-year-old senator in just his second year in that chamber, just like Vance, when Republican nominee General Dwight D. Eisenhower selected him as his running mate. But in mid September, Nixon came under fire for having maintained a “secret fund” wherein his backers contributed to reimburse him for certain political expenses. The media pounced, and for a while it looked as if the controversy would force Nixon off the ticket.
Nixon struck back with a then-unprecedented move. He addressed the nation in a live televised address in which he methodically denied the charges and explained the details of the fund. He laid out, in painstaking detail, his personal family finances to prove he had not benefited from the fund. Nixon even used his wife and young children in the speech, having Pat Nixon sit on stage as he exposed the family finances and saying that he would keep the one gift he had received, a small spaniel named Checkers, because his six-year-old daughter loved it so.
The “Checkers speech” put the controversy to rest and saved Nixon’s career.
Nixon’s response was roughly the polar opposite of Palin’s. He relied on his own judgment, not the advice of those close to Eisenhower whose interests didn’t match his own. He addressed the matter directly and in detail, refusing to grovel or apologize. He avoided what must have been a strong temptation to simply launch a partisan attack laced with whataboutism, something the plethora of scandals oozing out of the Truman administration would have allowed him to do.
This combination of courage, sincerity, and intelligence showed Republicans and independents alike that Dick Nixon was someone to be reckoned with and was worthy of being next in line for the presidency.
Vance needs to keep his eye on the ball over the next few months. The ball is, like in Nixon’s case, the broader national electorate. He should not run away from his past, as his past defines him — it’s why he is where he is. But Vance should recognize that appealing to the American middle is different from appealing to a faction of the Republican base.
Trump’s personality often obscures how much he is a master at doing both at the same time. He has created a new coalition by using language that excites independents and conservatives, while also instinctively knowing which conservative issues are safe to push and which need to be held at arm’s length. Nixon was also a master at that while Palin was a disaster.
J. D. Vance is meeting his rendezvous with his destiny. Doing so successfully requires courage, intelligence, and the right type of moxie. He can’t worry about the brickbats his foes fling at him, nor can he worry over polls that purportedly show that many — likely partisan Democrats — don’t like him. He has to power through and demonstrate that he will neither cower nor combust in response. If he can do that, and the first signs are positive, he’ll come out of this ordeal as what Palin could have been: the conservatives’ new hope.