Live from Music Row, Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – guest host Gulbransen welcomed political consultant Aaron Evans of Winning Republican Strategies to the newsmaker line to describe his job and comment upon the sentiment of both Democrat and Republican constituents across the country.
Gulbransen: On the newsmaker line we have the national political consultant – and we’re going to have to call the segment like “A-squared” or something, because his name is Aaron as well – Aaron Evans of Winning Republican Strategies. Good morning, Aaron.
Evans: Great to be on the show today. Thank you. No problem.
Gulbransen: Thank you so much for getting up. You don’t have to get up quite as early as I do today, but we appreciate it. And of course, real quick, we talk to political consultants all the time, and the audience knows that I used to be a political consultant for a zillion years, and you and I are good friends, but what exactly does a political consultant do? What is your typical day like, so the audience can understand?
Evans: It’s funny, because the conception of political consultants from generally when people watch House of Cards or watch Scandal or whatever else they watch on TV, it kind of paints a very different picture than what we really do.
But I think it’s really a great job because we get in the weeds. We help the candidates. We look at the district, analyze the data, and then really develop customer messaging to help the candidates really connect well with their respective districts.
We put out a lot of fires. So obviously the day is full of variety. Normally a typical day is probably hard to define, but we like to kind of just break it down, and we help guide candidates through the campaign process because a lot of times you have really good candidates who have no political experience, which is actually what we need more of in America.
We need more normal people running for office, but then the political experience is a beast. And so we’re here to help them navigate through that process and make sure they’re doing something as simple as following their paperwork the way they’re supposed to so they can be on the ballot, to messaging, to kind of navigating that journey.
Gulbransen: I’ve often likened it to being a cheerleader, an organizational director, or sometimes a psychologist.
Evans: Very much so, yes. Sometimes very much a counselor throughout the process.
Gulbransen:Â And my editorial is also sometimes a nanny, because the long-running joke that I’ve got, and you’ve probably heard me say this, is when somebody runs for office, very often they will lose 50 IQ points in all sense of social skills.
So a lot of times these political candidates do need to be reminded that they need to be polite to people when the camera is not on. So you’ve been very successful.
I know you won a bunch of races recently – obviously, for many years at this point – but particularly recently in Georgia and Kentucky. And of course, the big thing that we’re looking ahead to is November.
November is coming, and it looks like the Democrats are going to lose the House, and probably the Senate. In these races that you’re running, what sort of issues are you talking about with your candidates, and what’s the feedback you’re getting from what the public and their potential or current constituents are concerned about?
Evans: Yes, absolutely. I think there are a couple of things that really came to light strong during the primary season, especially. And as we’re cranking up toward the general, I think it actually goes beyond just the Republican base as well.
And one of those facts is I don’t think it can be expressed enough how frustrated people still are. We’re kind of back to a very normal pattern of life in the sense of not having mask requirements and not having some of the shutdowns that we experienced in multiple states.
But, man, we’re still seeing that frustration with voters, where any chance they get to vote out even a seasoned Republican who didn’t stand and fight for liberty, and stand and fight against government overreach during the COVID stuff, people are energetically showing up at the polls to put these people out.
And I think we’re just really seeing that, and then obviously translating over into, the number one issue in any poll right now is inflation. It is Biden’s failed economy.
And I think the bad thing for Democrats and the great thing for Republicans going into November around the country is people are not happy with Biden’s America right now.
And it’s amazing, because you hear, even people who were somewhat critical of President Trump, they sure miss his economy. And so I think that’s the one really strong thing we’ve got.
I think that you’re going to see inflation, and then depending on where you live, crime as well. A huge indicator for November was this recall that just happened in San Francisco. This progressive literally ran as a “progressive prosecutor.”
His whole platform that he got elected on in San Francisco was basically gumming up the judicial process and being anti-law enforcement. And one of Soros’s hand-picked guys.
He just got recalled in San Francisco, and by Democrats, because their city is going to hell so fast they’re just sick of it. So between crime and between inflation, I think there are some really strong things for Republicans to message on going into November.
Gulbransen: How do we get to the point where, because it really is a binary choice at this point. The Democrats have made clear that when you go with them, Democrat control of anything, whether it’s the city, Congress, White House, equals higher gas prices, increased crime, and all sorts of bad things.
When Republicans are in control, gas prices go down, crime goes down. How can we get to cutting through all the noise, which is obviously the job of a political consultant?
How do we do that for the long term rather than, or attempt to do that? And get to the policy arguments rather than all the other fluff that surrounds it?
Evans: Yes, I think that’s the million-dollar question. And honestly, it is really hard. What I tell our clients all the time is in the campaign world, it’s not that we’re just competing against the Democrat or against the primary or whoever it is we are running against at the time.
We live in a fast-paced, busy world. People are just overwhelmed with a barrage of media and advertisements. It’s everything, major sports to advertisements that you’ve got to cut through. That’s always been the case.
Everyone is bombarded from the moment they wake up. And that’s one of the big challenges we have. You really do have to figure out ways to take really complex policy positions and issues and, honestly, I think this is one of the areas that President Trump excelled in by distilling that down into bite-sized things that people can get fired up about and understand.
And I think what we’ve realized is that you ultimately have to create that contrast of distinction. Most people don’t have the bandwidth or interest in the exact weeds of the policy as long as they know the overall direction of it.
And I wouldn’t say that’s a healthy thing for democracy or our Republic. We do need a more informed electorate. But at the same time from the campaign perspective, it is really just letting people know, hey here is the contract.
Here is what we are going to do. Here is what they are doing. And then earning the trust of the populace, because if they know they can trust you with the details and they can get behind the direction, that alone is a huge contrast right now with the Democrats.
The overall direction itself is a total nightmare and people are waking up to that. Even down to the polling numbers that we are seeing, also with Hispanics. It was under 30 percent that were even remotely pleased with Biden.
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
