The idea is simple and intuitively appealing: If we ran government like a business, it would be more efficient. People who study or work in government know this is a convenient façade that ignores the very real differences in how governments and businesses must operate. To minimize patronage, nepotism, and other forms of favoritism, government work is subject to myriads of regulations from hiring to contracting to public access that don’t hinder normal business operations. (Not that businesses aren’t subject to their own set of byzantine regulations but government agencies deal with even more.) These regulations exist because we don’t trust government to do the right thing. As a result, we slow government work down in hopes of achieving greater fairness or avoiding corruption or the perception of favoritism. Then we complain that government work is too slow and too costly.
For the same reason voters find the idea that government should run like a business appealing, they also find the idea alluring that a business leader should govern. This idea persist despite a long political history ripe with business leaders who have proven to be weak political candidates or bad elected officials. Donald Trump’s entry into the presidential race this year should serve as a caution for future business executives (are you listening Mark Cuban?) believing that their business skills will easily or neatly transfer into politics.
Here are some lessons we would offer from the 2016 Trump Campaign:
1. Leading a political party isn’t like leading a corporation: No one in the party establishment has to fall in line. Republican leaders like Speaker Paul Ryan have their own base of political support. Gaining their support requires effectively communicating that your interests and their interests align. Threatening them, campaigning against them, or endorsing primary challengers is not an effective strategy for gaining their endorsement or their cooperation.
The same can be said of winning the party nomination. Vanquishing your primary opponents by branding them as low energy or liars might be a short-term gain, but it almost certainly assures little or no support moving forward. Less than ten days away from the election and trailing in the polls, you might find that the support of your primary opponents (especially the Bush family) would be helpful. If you are winning the rest of your party may play a long; but if (when) you start to falter, they’ll be glad to see you fall of the cliff. If it looks like you are threatening the Republican majority in the Senate and House, they might even give you a push.
2. Your success in one field hardly makes you an expert in another. The idea that you don’t have to follow the rules of traditional campaigns might seem appealing, it might even explain your initial appeal, but it is an illusion. You need people who understand campaigns on your staff and who are able and willing to tell you when you are wrong. And because you are new to politics, you will often be wrong.
3. Campaign organizations are difficult to build and require time, patience, and money. You will need one. Understanding this at the beginning may help you avoid a rotating crew of campaign managers who never seem able to provide what you need because they lack organizational capacity. Later in the campaign, organizations are also critical for mobilizing voters. Your personal charisma may drive some voters to the polls, but others need to be asked (or cajoled). Bragging about not having much staff and still doing well in the polls may seem cool early on, like you are winning without really trying very hard, but you’ll need them later.
4. You might similarly think you don’t need to advertise because you are receiving plenty of free of air time on various news channels (even CNN), but as every candidate from every major party has learned before you, the news media are not your friends. They will provide airtime as long you boost their ratings, but they provide no guarantees of favorable (or even fair) coverage. There is a reason Hillary Clinton doesn’t trust the media. If you decide not to advertise you are at their mercy and eventually subject to their biases. With campaign advertising, on the other hand, you can communicate to voters without the media filtering your message or altering your campaign’s agenda.
In the end, crying about biased media when you didn’t bother raising enough money, creating and placing ads, or trying to communicate a coherent message through paid media is just another sign you are an amateur trying to play in the big leagues.
5. More generally, the election isn’t rigged if you haven’t played the game very well. And, let’s be honest, you haven’t played the game very well. It is a testament to the voters’ appetite for something different and to the deep polarization in the contemporary electorate that you have stayed this close for this long. If we were watching football, the analysts would say your offense is one dimensional and easy to defend, and your defense is porous. Sure, you are good enough to break off a long run every so often, and you might even might even get lucky and win, but you haven’t built a very good team. But it is even worse than that: You haven’t analyzed the film, looked for offensive or defensive tendencies in key game situations, or analyzed the data to know what play is most likely to work in what situation. For that reason alone, you don’t deserve to win.
At the end of the day, running a successful presidential campaign is harder than it looks. Successfully governing in a system of separation of powers, checks and balances, and divided government is even harder. As Harry Truman famously observed about Dwight Eisenhower’s military experience: “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.” Eisenhower adapted, but doing so required understanding that he needed a very different “hidden hand” approach to political leadership. The next business leader turned politician will need to be equally adaptive to a political realm where the rules are very different.
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