I may have mentioned this before here on the site — I was recently reminded that I’ve been hanging around these parts for nearly three and a half years, matching herpes for both persistence and intrusiveness —but I’ve never forgotten a piece of trivia Ed Gillespie (then Counselor to President Bush) shared with a group of us speechwriters during the 2008 campaign: the single biggest fundraising issue for the RNC during that cycle — the one that could inevitably galvanize conservative checkbooks — was the Law of the Sea Treaty.
Despite the fact that it was virtually unknown to the press and the wider GOP establishment, the underlying issue of surrendering a chunk of national sovereignty lit a fire under the base. It’s forgotten now, but Mike Huckabee’s emphasis on the issue during the pre-primary period was one of the factors that shifted his campaign into high-gear. There was a limit, of course, to how far Huckabee could ride that one issue, but let us not forget that the feelings stirred up during that campaign would ultimately block the treaty’s adoption four years later.
During the recent Ricochet meetup in Charlotte, as talk turned to the possibility of Jeb Bush running for president in 2016, I floated a theory — essentially off the top of my head — that one of Bush’s difficulties might be that opposition to Common Core (which he supports) could play precisely the same role in 2016. Looking at the huge debate that’s erupted in the press this week after Louis C.K. went on an anti-CC tirade on Twitter, I’m only more convinced.
This is precisely the kind of issue that sneaks up on the political class; one that irks everyday Americans down in their bones, but that seems so obviously beneficent to managerial types as to not even merit serious debate (recall Secretary of Education Arne Duncan — usually one of the few sober figures in the Obama Administration — dismissing Common Core criticisms as the clucking of “white suburban moms”).
What do you think? Is Common Core likely to be a sleeper issue in 2016? What other relatively minor issues could you see taking an outsized role in the fight for the GOP nomination.
Published in General
Public school teachers (My wife and son-in-law, for instance) hate common core.
With the teachers union, and public school teachers in general, being reliably democrat votes, it may be possible to turn a sizable chunk of them with reasoned opposition to an issue they already hate.
The people concerned about Common Core are already going to vote Republican. And if they were seriously concerned about their children’s education, they wouldn’t have them in government schools to begin with.
In 2016 (as in 2014) issues really aren’t going to matter as much as whether the Republicans are actually prepared to engage the Democrats. It will be the metaphorical equivalent of Okinawa, and if the Republicans think they can win with Marquis of Queensbury decorum they’re going to lose.
That’s the point. This is about issues within the Republican primary.
Filling the Skills gap for American employers. Getting the 92 million long term unemployed back to work with real incentives and real skill training. Encourage small employers to run training coops for real skills they WILL hire. A real private sector run program incentivized by the government.
I understand the general nature of the Common Core debate, but am sadly lacking in specifics. Can anyone point to detailed studies of the problems with it? Has Heritage, for example, weighed in?