NEW YORK TIMES, November 15, 2011 -- The Republican presidential candidates have served comedians a full platter of laughs this year — a steady diet of gaffes, misstatements, puzzled looks and long, awkward pauses.
To a remarkable degree, the candidates have turned the cringe-inducing moments to their advantage, asserting that they demonstrate an authenticity different from the slick professionalism of politicians in Washington.
But the embarrassing moments are piling up, and some veteran Republicans are beginning to wonder whether the cumulative effect weakens the party brand, especially in foreign policy and national security, where Republicans have typically dominated Democrats.
“It is an ‘Animal House.’ It’s a food fight,” said Kenneth Duberstein, a chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan. “Honestly, the Republican debates have become a reality show. People have to be perceived as being capable of governing this country, of being the leader of the free world.”
Even before his “oops” moment in one of the debates last week, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas stumbled his way through an answer about Pakistan and nuclear weapons. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has offered a series of historical goofs. And after mistakenly saying China does not have nuclear weapons, Herman Cain on Monday painfully gave an answer to a question about Libya in which he all but acknowledged having little grasp of the military actions that took place there.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said he was confident that the eventual nominee would enhance, rather than diminish, the party’s reputation for seriousness. But he acknowledged that not every candidate had demonstrated that quality.
“No one expects a person who hasn’t been commander in chief before to know everything about every topic. But Libya? Iran?” Mr. Graham said. “I think it’s fair to ask our candidates to articulate a position that makes us safe.”
Mr. Cain refused on Tuesday to apologize for his Libya response, saying it had merely been “a pause to gather my thoughts.” He added: “Before I shoot from the lip, I gather my thoughts. That’s all that was.” Mr. Perry said Monday night that “I’m the first to admit I’m not the most polished candidate out there.”
Candidates like Mr. Cain and Mr. Perry embrace their “newbie” status as they seek to tap into the antiestablishment energy of the Tea Party movement. Their political goal is to appeal to voters who reject the Washington-style politicians with all the answers.
But the mistakes under the klieg lights are the downsides of that strategy. What looks to a Tea Party voter like an unvarnished, authentic exchange makes longtime members of the Republican establishment cringe.
“It’s common sense,” said C. Boyden Gray, a White House counsel to the elder President George Bush. “People are taking all this stuff in stride, but at some point it accumulates and it hurts individual candidates.”
Mr. Gray added: “It’s a balance, and at some point the public picks up on it.”
Some of the most embarrassing moments for the Republican candidates have been the personal ones. Mr. Perry’s 53-second “brain freeze” on live television may have seriously hurt his campaign, but probably did little damage to his party’s reputation, Republicans said.
“Issues and ideology transfer from party to candidate and back again, but personal moments tend to stick with the individual,” said Dan Schnur, a former Republican campaign strategist who teaches at the University of Southern California.
And Democrats have made plenty of gaffes in the past, including President Obama, who once said he had visited 57 states.
But some veterans of past Republican administrations said the candidates’ national security stumbles could have a more lasting impact on how voters perceive the party in the future.
“This is the core of the Republican brand. You mess with it at your peril,” said Peter Feaver, a national security official under President George W. Bush. He compared the foreign policy flubs to reports about safety problems in Toyota vehicles.
“The whole reason you bought a Toyota was so that you didn’t have those problems,” he said. “It cuts directly to the essence of the brand. Republicans should be concerned about this.”
George W. Bush confronted some of the same concerns in his party during his 2000 campaign, especially after he was unable to name the leader of Chechnya, Taiwan, India or Pakistan. But Mr. Bush surrounded himself with veteran Republican foreign policy advisers who helped reassure the doubters.
Peter Wehner, a former speechwriter for Mr. Bush, said that “in the short run, you can do some damage to the so-called brand,” but he said long-term damage would happen only if the party’s presidential nominee made such mistakes.
“The key thing is the nominee,” Mr. Wehner said. “One worries, if you are a Republican, if you get too many statements like this.”
Mr. Wehner said many of the Republican candidates had demonstrated a “pride in ignorance and a lack of knowledge.” But he predicted that voters would not reward those kinds of appeals during the primaries and caucuses.
“There is a rhetorical style, an in your face quality that appeals to some people, the sense that the people are not cookie cutter, they are nonpolitical,” he said, adding that “at the end of the day, intellectual heft and command of policy and fluidity on the issues will carry the day.”
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, noted that Mitt Romney, Jon M. Huntsman Jr. and Newt Gingrich had not been prone to substantive mistakes, especially on foreign policy.
“It’s one of the challenges that someone faces who has not been in public office dealing with these issues every day like the rest of us have,” Ms. Collins said. “I can understand how it happens, but certainly we do expect that anyone who wants to be commander in chief will ultimately understand these issues very well.”
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Thursday, November 17th 2011 at 11:58AM
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