There’s not much time before the May 20 Republican U.S. Senate primary, but for David Perdue, 30 seconds might have been enough. That’s how long that two of the wealthy businessman’s campaign TV ads last. And it’s largely those two commercials that have vaulted Perdue into the lead in the GOP field, despite his being a political unknown.
Right now – just eight weeks from the primary – the presumed least-known of the major Republican candidates is actually the best-known. If nothing else, it proves once again that media ads, with their bumper-sticker simplicity on issues, may be the single most important factor in most political elections.
Perdue’s ads depict his major primary opponents as crying babies – established politicians who can’t get along and can’t get anything done. And that summarizes Perdue’s campaign theme: He’s the can-do, get-it-done businessman who will go to Washington and sluice out the pigsty.
Of course others in the race are holding their TV money for later in the campaign, and it’s likely they will at least close the gap with Perdue. But Perdue has other advantages in the race.
In a field in which all the candidates hold nearly identical conservative policy views, most are trying to distinguish themselves with their personal biographies and management/governing styles. And nobody has a biography like David Perdue’s.
He has the humble beginnings: The son of two Houston County educators. He met his future wife in the first grade. He earned degrees from Georgia Tech. Then he launched a business career that took him all over the world as an executive for the likes of Sara Lee, Haggar, Reebok and Dollar General. (He’s also the first cousin of former governor Sonny Perdue.)
Indeed, Perdue resembles a Georgia Mitt Romney – a sort of handsome Eagle Scout with an unblemished resume. And Perdue won’t have to suffer from a mega-million-dollar character assassination campaign, as Romney did when he ran for president.
But Perdue is not the only ‘outsider’ in the race, and there may be the rub. Paul Broun, though a congressman, holds such unapologetically conservative/libertarian views that most people see him as a sort of ideological quack. Nevertheless, many tea partyers and others view him as the bona fide ‘anti-establishment’ candidate in the race.
That could drain votes away from Perdue. Moreover, Perdue may lose – and also gain – votes for his self-styled pragmatic approach to governance in Washington. Perdue has proposed working with Senate Democrats to reform the Dodd-Frank financial services laws, instead of repealing them wholesale, as the other major Republican candidates advocate.
This is an example of Perdue’s refusal to do little more than posture on the right. This philosophy probably would serve him well in a general election campaign. But in the GOP primary – and a likely July runoff – it’s not clear whether this pragmatic approach to compromise will separate him from the field or eliminate him from it. Will enough Republican voters buy into this ‘electability’ theme? Or will they be too angry with what they see as a pusillanimous Republican Party that barely distinguishes itself from the Democrats?
The irony of Perdue’s candidacy is that if the ‘none-of-the-above’ vote goes largely to him instead of to Broun, he could end up saving the GOP ‘establishment’ from the possible problem of Broun being the outsider in the runoff, or even the general election.
