David Perdue Will He Run Again
This is a column past Editorial Page Editor Adam Van Brimmer.
David Perdue's political time to come comes down to a simple question.
Not "Volition you run for the Senate again?" We know the recently defeated ane-termer volition. He has filed paperwork that is the initial procedural step toward challenging for the seat at present held by Raphael Warnock. The still-to-come formal announcement is probable to clear the 2022 GOP primary field.
Assuming a Perdue-Warnock showdown is inevitable, the question for Perdue is this: "Did you learn anything from the concluding time?"
Senate runoffs:How Georgia went blue with Warnock, Ossoff and tipped the balance of ability in the Senate
Perdue's failed 2020 Senate runoff bid was a how-not-to guide to campaigning.
With access to tens of millions of ad dollars, he went near entirely negative. He frequently misrepresented his opponent's deeds and background.
He as well skipped two debates and thereby eschewed opportunities to connect with swing voters on policy. He appeared cowardly in his absenteeism, especially given the fact that the challenger, Jon Ossoff, had wounded him in an earlier forum.
Finally, he immune himself to be defined as a Donald Trump toady. He fifty-fifty emulated the president'southward churlishness in his intentionally mispronouncing the name of Kamala Harris during a rally. This tactic appealed to the Trump base, just as Nov. three and so Jan. v showed, Trumpists aren't enough in number to behave a candidate to statewide victory.
The mail service-mortem on Perdue'south campaign is all-time summarized this manner: He declined to tell his story and share his vision and went from the height vote getter in a single ballot in Georgia history on Nov. 3, 2020 to the runner-upwards to Ossoff on Jan. v, 2021.
Senate spoiler:Man who spoiled Georgia US Senate race for Perdue, Ossoff to run for governor in 2022
Perdue best heed those lessons, because the 2022 election promises to look eerily similar to 2020.
The opponent is different but and then the Democratic candidate's identity mattered footling in 2020. A pregnant percentage of Ossoff voters saw the race as a second referendum on Trump, and information technology appears the now former president will insert himself and his influence, for better and worse, into the college-profile 2022 races.
The Senate is changed also, with the Democrats at present in the majority. Nonetheless, bedchamber control will be in play again next year, just as it was in the 2020 runoff when Perdue'southward loss, coupled with that of Kelly Loeffler to Warnock on the same day, decided party power.
Lastly, there's the fractured land of the Republican Political party. No one seems to possess the gravitas to force self-awareness and a pivot abroad from the politics of grievance to 1 of pragmatic ideas. Without such a shift, the GOP volition go on to lose basis in battleground states — such equally Georgia.
Perdue will demand to reinvent himself — and hire a bright team of campaign strategists — to overcome the circumstances.
He must highlight the federal dollars he delivered for Georgians in his six years in the Senate while rebranding himself. He can't run on a fiscal responsibility platform every bit he did in 2014, non afterwards showing as much regard for the debt clock as a run-and-gun basketball game team does the shot clock during his previous term on Capitol Hill.
2020 election:'Kamala' becomes a rally call against Sen. David Perdue in Georgia
Perdue would likewise do well to soften his partisan tone. You'd think Perdue, fresh off a loss to a greenhorn with a political résumé thinner than a supermarket flyer, might realize lacing his rhetoric with the phrase "radically liberal individuals" is a turnoff to less-ideological swing voters.
Yet that'due south what Perdue said last week when filing his 2022 campaign paperwork. Let's non forget how the last person to talk that manner nearly Warnock fared. Radical Liberal Raphael Warnock, as Loeffler infamously referred to him again and again in a pre-runoff argue, is now Sen. Radical Liberal Raphael Warnock.
If Perdue wants to hold that title again — the senator part — he'll demand to show he's a good learner.
Contact Adam Van Brimmer at avanbrimmer@savannahnow.com.
Source: https://www.savannahnow.com/story/opinion/2021/02/19/david-perdue-need-avoid-repeat-2020-election-senate-trump-georgia-warnock/4495994001/
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