John Tillman joins the podcast to discuss what voters really want, especially the persuadable middle. With midterms behind us and a lot of data at our disposal, we analyze what’s going on and answer the question — do free market principles still sell? We also consider the importance of the right message, the right messenger, and the right amount of money.
John Tillman is one of the nation’s most prominent leaders in the free market public policy arena. He is CEO of the American Culture Project, an organization that attracts, educates, and mobilizes independent voters around the ideas of freedom and opportunity. John is best known for building the Illinois Policy Institute and is also the co-founder and chairman of Iron Light, a digital marketing agency.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
Welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode we discuss what voters really want, especially with the persuadable middle. Yes, we know that midterms just happened. They are behind us, but there’s so much data at our disposal and we’re going to break some of it down here, and answer a very important question, which is, do free market principles still sell? Also, how important is the right message and the right messengers and the right of amount of money? Well, we have someone who is going to break it all down for us. John Tillman is with us. John Tillman is one of the nation’s most prominent leaders in the free market public policy arena.
He is CEO of the American Culture Project, an organization that attracts, educates and mobilizes independent voters around the ideas of freedom and opportunity. John is best known for building the Illinois Policy Institute. And is also the co-founder and chairman of Iron Light, a digital marketing agency. John, a pleasure to have you on She Thinks today.
John Tillman:
Great to be with, you and so good to see you again.
Beverly Hallberg:
Now, I’m a little fearful that people may be tired of hearing about midterms. We’re about a week and a half out from that big Tuesday where there’s so much that we could talk about. But I think it’s important to take a look at what does this mean for the ideas of free market principles, the messages, the messengers. You’ve worked in this whole arena. You’ve worked in the nonprofit sphere, and you have a strong focus and experience and desire to talk about issues well. So, I thought we would just start by thinking about these ideas of free market principles. Were those on the ballot, and how would you say they played in midterms?
John Tillman:
I think part of the problem is they weren’t on the ballot to the degree they should have been. I think the Republicans, both in the House and the Senate relied way too much on the unhappiness that the American public had clearly signaled with respect to the Biden administration and the direction of the country. 73% of the voters were unhappy with the direction of the country, a 42% approval rating for Biden. I think the Republicans thought they were going to be able to ride their way to a repudiation election, and they forgot that they have to make a sale. So, one of the things I always like to talk about, Bev, is that when you’re trying to get someone to sign up for your new paradigm, you have to destroy loyalty to the old paradigm.
What the voters said is, “We don’t like the old paradigm.” So. There wasn’t a whole lot of work that needed to be done there, and yet that’s what the Republicans mostly focused on, instead of selling the benefits of a free market approach, restraining the growth of spending, curtailing the out-of-control debt, reducing the annual deficits to rein in inflation, and all of the above strategy on energy that would get us back to domestic exploration with a respect for climate, and to make sure that we had all of the above green approach. Obviously, still do solar and wind, but let’s get back to being independent when it comes to energy. Those are just a few examples that the Republicans were not out there selling as a solution set, and they should’ve.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, many times we’ll look at voters and say, “Well, if they’re unhappy about something, then they’re going to look to change it.” You talk about this idea of having to sell something to them, and the importance of it. Did you see any candidates selling what was needed? Who would you say stood out as having a message, because we know that Republicans did come out towards the end of the election season with their own version of Contract with America, where they tried to sell the four things they wanted to accomplish. Why did that fall flat?
John Tillman:
Well, I think that it fell flat, because it just didn’t connect in the way where people were living their lives. I think the best example of who did it just right, everybody’s been talking about it, so let’s not anoint him too quickly, but Governor DeSantis in Florida, his example truly is extraordinary for a number of reasons. One, is he has demonstrated executive competence for the entire four years he’s been there. Number two, he mastered the art that made Trump popular, which is that he’s a fighter, and he would take on the media and the punditry and the left, but he didn’t do it with Trump’s abrasiveness. He did it with some charm and firmness.
He didn’t stand down on the woke ideology.` He didn’t stand down on critical race theory. He took very strong actions, but he did it in a way that was consumable to independent and minority voters in a way that others have not. Then, finally, I think leadership matters, and he has a presence and leadership that made all the difference. The different numbers coming out of Miami-Dade, the Palm Beach, the movement, particularly of Hispanic voters in Florida in those areas is extraordinary. I think that’s a recipe that people should be looking for. You can be aggressive and capture the Trump vote, but also reach out to the persuadable, middle and disaffected Democrats by the approach that he’s taken.
There are a few others I think that did that around the country. I think Mike DeWine in Ohio, really a very big victory. He was a pretty strong lockdown governor, but he really pivoted off of that, and since then has demonstrated executive competence, and again, appealed to the centrist voters that you need to win significant majorities.
Beverly Hallberg:
Speaking about minority voters, and you mentioning what happening in the Miami-Dade area, you talked about Hispanics who went to DeSantis, also went to Marco Rubio. Is this purely on economic issues or is it about the culture wars as well? So, we know the Hispanic community tends to be very conservative oriented when it comes to family values. Are we seeing that persuadable middle, whether it’s minorities or maybe independent voters who do not like the woke ideology?
John Tillman:
I think it’s definitely all the above, but I think the culture issues really mattered. The thing that DeSantis did that was different, rather than just making an argument against wokeness, “I’m against wokeness,” he would explain it and talk about it, and that we could not have that kind of intolerance. We can’t have that abuse of children in schools where we’re teaching things that normally adults rarely talk about, and yet we’re teaching it to our children. He explained it and he never backed down. So, he was out selling and explaining and trying to win people over, and of course, he was also, I mean, he’s very energetic when he …
One of my favorite things he did is he went to Brandon, Florida for some announcement during the Let’s Go Brandon brouhaha over the summer, and I thought that was very fun. So, he had a sense of humor too. The other governor by the way, that did a very good job, and I think really navigated all of this very, very interestingly, is Governor Kemp, who Trump tried to take him out in a primary. He destroyed Perdue in the primary. So, he hung onto the Trump voters even though Trump was with Perdue. Won overwhelmingly there, and then wins a very large victory in one of the highest turnouts, I think it was the highest turnout ever in Georgia, and brought people in that obviously Herschel Walker was unable to do.
So, I think there are lessons with all of those. There are others who did pretty well. I’m a little surprised by the Arizona result, because certainly Kari Lake was, had a lot of those positives that I’m describing with DeSantis. But she’s a challenger. She’s not an incumbent, and I think it was, she was too associated I think with Trump for her to have the same benefit.
Beverly Hallberg:
I’m glad you brought up Trump. I’m just curious what you think this means long-term for the Trump effect for the next two years. So, everybody’s looking at Ron DeSantis as likely running. Do you think that enough Republicans are going to look to him as being the next leader or is Trump still have a huge pull with the Republican party?
John Tillman:
I think Trump still has a lot of influence with the Republican party, but I do not think it is immutable. I think it can definitely be, I think DeSantis can definitely win, because I think people largely misunderstand the Trump phenomena. Trump didn’t create Trumpism. It existed, and the parade was formed, and he got in front of it. Remember, this is a long secular thing we’re going through. The Tea Party, going back to 2006 with swing voters being disgruntled with Republicans, and that repudiation election, same thing in 2008. By the time it got to 2010, it swung the other way. Remember, that when Trump won, Bernie Sanders voters, many of them voted for him over Hillary. There’s dissatisfaction on both sides of the aisle with the elites and the establishment of both parties.
This all predated Trump. When the Tea Party started dying down after 2014, Trump recognized an opportunity, and he reinvigorated that dissatisfaction, that disaffection, that especially working class voters were feeling, and he got in front of that parade. What’s happened now is that parade’s still going on, and we saw that in this cycle as well, in this election, and what DeSantis has said is “I’m also qualified to lead the parade.” I think there would be a biggest competition, and if I was a betting man, I’d bet on DeSantis winning, because I think voters, it’s not that they want Trump, they want a fighter who can win, and DeSantis has shown how to do that. I think Trump’s hand was very badly played in this cycle. The DeSanctimonious felt completely flat and I think it could dull his appetite, and certainly his support.
Beverly Hallberg:
From a messaging standpoint, there has been so much to look at when it comes to Trump, and just the evolution of communication during his time, and even after his time as president. I’m curious of your thoughts on this. One of the ways I like to talk about it is that it’s important to talk tough, but you don’t want to cross that line into insulting people. I think as you mentioned, Ron DeSantis has done a really good job on that. I do have one exception, one example of when I think he did cross that line, and it was about a month ago. He was giving a press conference and he talked about Gavin Newsom, that his hair gel had affected his brain or something along those lines.
I felt it had that Trumpian aspect to it where it went into the personal insults. I would just argue that independence, it doesn’t resonate with them. It seems petty. I actually think that Lake in Arizona, she did a little too much of that. It was the personal attacks. How would you describe the difference between being a tough talker, stating the truth, but without going to those petty low blows that often, we’ve often seen in the past few years?
John Tillman:
It’s one of the hardest things to do in politics, and DeSantis overall has done very well. But I would agree with you that is, he doesn’t need to do that, and it is never additive when you do that. You might get a laugh, but one of the things I learned a long time in life is just because people are laughing doesn’t mean they think it’s funny. They might actually be a little uncomfortable. So, what the rules should be, and this is one of our rules that we try to live by, and none of us live by these rules perfectly, but our guidance on this is that we attack policy, we don’t attack people. There are times when you do attack people, but only in their role as a leader and a politician. So, you’re attacking them in terms of that, not in terms of personality traits, not in terms of their physicality.
Now, what some would say that, in argument against that point of view, that’s our point of view, and I think that’s the point of view we should take. Because I don’t think you have to do the other things for all the reasons you just said. I think it turns people off that you can otherwise recruit and get on your team. But others will say that part of the Trump’s charm was that he did do all of that, that he was personal and he attracted a certain element of an audience. But my point would be that that has an upside limitation. You can only rise so high with that approach. I think that got him the presidency in 2016. I think Trump’s fatal flaw as a leader was he never understood that what got him elected in 2016 was not what would keep him elected.
He told people, from the stories I’ve heard, that he was going to stick with what he did, because that’s what got him there, and he never made that adaptation that great leaders do, is that once you’re in the chair, you lead differently than what got you in the chair.
Beverly Hallberg:
I think you make a really important point. You can attack oftentimes an elected official or as DeSantis likes to, he attacks the media, and he’s very firm and tough about it, but it’s not those personal insults and like you said, the physicality of people, how they look, things in that matter, their intelligence. I’ve wondered, I really want to pivot now to I think the race that shocked a lot of people, and that is that Pennsylvania voters voted for Mr. Fetterman to be their new senator. Here is somebody who obviously struggled mentally due to his stroke, somebody who couldn’t speak effectively. I think for you and me, we are communicators, to think that somebody could win without communicating effectively is just a fascinating thing. What does this say? Do you think maybe it fits into what we are just talking about, which is it looked, to have any type of critique against him seemed too tough against him personally after having a very understandably difficult type of health issue.
John Tillman:
Well, I thought Oz himself was actually very gracious. [inaudible 00:12:40]
Beverly Hallberg:
I did too. Yeah.
John Tillman:
I think he really took the high road on it, as he should have. I actually think what happened with Fetterman prevailing in that race is I think it was the early vote. It didn’t become apparent and penetrate until that debate that was just so horrible and just really difficult to watch. But there had been, I don’t know how many votes exactly, about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of votes had been cast. That debate took place, and all those early voters were predominantly Democrats, many of whom might have swung the other way, probably voted for him. I think that was actually the difference in the race was the timing of that debate.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, I want to take a brief moment to talk to you, our listeners. You may know the Independent Women’s Forum is the leading national women’s organization dedicated to enhancing people’s freedom, opportunities and wellbeing. But did you know that we are also here to bring you, women and men on the go, the news? You can listen to our High Noon podcast, an intellectual download featuring conversations that make a free society possible. Hear guests like Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin discuss the most controversial subjects of the day, or join us for Happy Hour with At The Bar, where hosts Inez Stepman and Jennifer Braceras chat on the latest issues at the intersection of law, politics, and culture. You can listen to past episodes at iwf.org or search for High Noon or At The Bar in your favorite podcast app.
Now John, I want to talk to about something that people often struggle to even think about, the amount of money in politics, and we could get into whether or not having more money in politics is a good thing or not. But the reality is, it’s part of it. When we look at these races and who spent what, what do you make of the spending on both the Republican side and the Democrat side?
John Tillman:
Well, at one point, I don’t have the final numbers yet, but at one point there was 3 billion spent, and 2 billion of that was spent by the Democrat side and 1 billion was spent by the Republican side. So, the left has a massive funding advantage, between the unions, both public sector unions and private sector unions, the trial bar, and to be blunt about it, the less wealthy billionaire class is just much more focused on politics and puts a lot more money into it. The people that are big check writers on the right are amazing, and we should all be very grateful for them, but there just aren’t as many that are willing to write the gigantic checks like Zuckerberg did in the last cycle. So, there’s going to be a money disadvantage, and I would also say that just because we have a disadvantage does not mean we should suddenly decide we want government regulation, because money is speech, and I’m a huge subscriber to that.
So, we have a disadvantage. We’ve got to figure out a solution, and really what it comes down to is we have to build strategies that allow us to compete without that kind of monetary advantage. So, our ability to acquire what I’ll call, what I, it’s, this is a very non-marketing centric term, but I call it a data collection funnel. You build a variety of assets, that’s a funnel that attracts people to it. You get information about them, first name, last name, zip code, email address, their cell phone data, to the degree you can get it compliantly and all the rest of it, and you have to continuously be trying to attract people through the content you put out. We are in a content battle, a messenger battle, as well as a message battle, and we’re in a distribution battle.
Beverly Hallberg:
Let’s talk about marketing through the use of social media. One of the things that I’ve been asked about a lot is the value of using something like TikTok. Does it help candidates to use TikTok to try to reach out to Generation Z? I mean, you have those awkward clips where you see Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams dancing, and I made the argument recently that a lot of the candidates who decided to do a dance on TikTok lost. So, maybe there’s something that we should all learn that candidates should never dance, but this is where younger generations are. When you look at an app like TikTok, do you think that it’s a valuable tool for marketing or something to be careful about?
John Tillman:
Well, first I have to talk about dancing, because I really did enjoy that dancing, and I also have enjoyed how much money, speaking of the Democrats, advantage have poured into Beto and Stacey. I just hope they keep doing it.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah.
John Tillman:
Because money that otherwise would be spent on more competitive races. I think, and by the way, my rule on dancing is never before I’ve consumed, always after three drinks and when it’s dark. What I mean is other people have to have three drinks, so they can’t actually focus on me.
Beverly Hallberg:
I also add this rule. Never when there’s a photographer there, at a conference or something like that.
John Tillman:
Right.
Beverly Hallberg:
It never goes well.
John Tillman:
No. Right. In fact, what goes unwell is when you take the camera from them, and throw it in a glass of water. So, I think that yes, we should be using every tool available. I am, I believe deeply in a holistic approach. If you, now, having said that, what we try to focus on and we do a lot, is we model the voters deeply. So, because we have a monetary disadvantage, we have to be efficient. So, what messages resonate and get a higher conversion rate, a higher engagement rate, and then what distribution channels work really well for the segment of the audience you’re after? And within that channel of choice, which, what is the right message? So, a message on Facebook doesn’t work the same way a message on TikTok versus Twitter, et cetera, or a direct mail piece or a streaming ad. So, you have to make all those decisions.
But once you’ve made those decisions and done that analysis, which sounds much more complicated than it actually is, it’s fairly straightforward to do that. Then you should use every channel available, so long as it’s achieving your strategic goals. I think what people often do, especially if TikTok is the best example of this, is the new channel comes out. It was Clubhouse a year ago. Oh, Clubhouse, everything’s going to be Clubhouse, whereas Clubhouse has collapsed. When the new channel comes out, it’s the shiny new object, and suddenly people want to go do it. That’s fine. But make sure you’re doing it within the framework of your grand strategy, your marketing strategy, and the tactics you’re choosing and make sure it fits.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah, and before we go, I just was curious if you could give people who are listening, just your final thoughts on midterms. I think plenty of people are discouraged, and think that the American dream is dying, and the midterm results didn’t help that in any way. Are you optimistic about the future or are you fearful?
John Tillman:
No. Well, I’m fearful for the future, but I’m very optimistic, because these midterms were way better than people are realizing. First of all, if we’d all had in our head the expectations we had in July, and this was the result we got, we’d all be thrilled. What happened is expectations began to escalate as we went into the fall. The polling moved very slightly, but the polling still all showed everybody, practically everybody was in the margin of error, with the exception of Rubio and DeSantis. So, the individual races that were being polled did not show a big Republican blowout, but the narrative started to show a blowout. The pre-mortems by the leftist pundits started to show a blowout, and so expectations were risen. So, I think that people forget that the Republicans gained seats in 2020, combine that gain with the gain that has now happened, and that is actually a pretty good outcome.
So, we have, we’re a divided country politically. The Republicans and the Democrats, it’s a 50/50 country, and Republicans had overall a halfway decent midterm. More importantly, the most important thing is despite all of the advantages that the left has in controlling the American cultural narrative, the American people are rejecting in their polling and in their voting the left’s policy agenda, both in terms of hardcore policy on fiscal issues and on the social issues such as critical race theory, transgender radicalism, and all the rest of it. We should be encouraged that they’re coming our way. This is a long-term secular fight, and as long as we stay in the fight, we are going to win.
Beverly Hallberg:
Be encouraged, and stay in the fight. This is why we have John Tillman on the show, so that you can break it all down for us, and help us see midterms for what they are. We so appreciate not you just joining, not just you joining us today, but also all your work. John Tillman with the American Culture Project, thank you so much for being here.
John Tillman:
Great to be with you. Good seeing you.
Beverly Hallberg:
Thank you all for joining. Before you go, Independent Women’s Forum does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you. An investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and wellbeing for all Americans. So, please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org/donate. That is iwf.org/donate. Plus, if you enjoyed this episode of She Thinks, do leave us a rating or a review. It does help, and we’d love it if you share this episode so your friends know where they can find more She Thinks. From all of us here at Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for watching.
