The Consultants Think You’re an Idiot. Don’t Prove Them Right

Georgia Republicans are being asked to confuse money with momentum, ads with authenticity, and a blank slate with virtue. Don’t. A record is not a liability. A record is evidence.

Georgia Republicans are being flooded with the best campaign money can buy. But money can buy ads, consultants, mailers, and slogans. It cannot buy a record.

I have been interested in politics for as long as I can remember. I have been involved in the actual Georgia Republican Party organization since 2009 — about seventeen years now, in addition to studying politics in college, before law school.

That is long enough to notice a few patterns.

There is the general public — We the People — who usually vote for the party that most closely reflects their values. They may not attend conventions. They may not read every platform plank. They may not know every county chairman or district officer. But they generally know which direction they want the country to go, and in November they vote for the nominee of the party that best represents them, and that party, statistically, tends to be the same one year after year.

Then there are the grassroots volunteers.

These are the people who show up for free. They go to county meetings. They knock doors. They read legislation. They fight over rules. They hold elected officials accountable. They care about whether candidates actually believe and enact what they say. They care about the platform. They care about promises. They care about whether politicians remember the party that sent them once they get into office.

And then there is the paid political industry.

That industry is not primarily made up of statesmen, philosophers, constitutional scholars, or public servants. It’s not made up of people who understand political philosophy, or policy, or history. It is made up of people who say they ¹know how to win campaigns. That is a different skill.

They know how to poll test a phrase.
They know how to cut a flattering ad.
They know how to buy enough television time to create a rags to riches story to make a stranger feel familiar.
They know how to make a candidate with no record sound like a movement.
They know how to make a man with a voting record look worse than a man with no voting record at all.

And most importantly, they know this: if they spend enough money, repeat the same message enough times, and flood enough mailboxes, a certain number of voters will eventually believe whatever they are told.

That is the whole business model.

The paid political industry does not need you to be informed. It needs you to be impressionable.

It does not need you to remember what someone has done. It needs you to react to what someone’s ad says this week.

It does not need a candidate with a history. In fact, a blank slate is far easier to sell. A blank slate has no bad votes, no hard choices, no public record, no years of decisions to defend. A blank slate can be whatever the consultants say it is.

That is why this governor’s race matters.

Rick Jackson is running the best campaign money can buy, just like Jeb Bush did in 2016.

That is not the same thing as running the best campaign.

When a billionaire enters a race and immediately becomes the landing spot for consultants, operatives, vendors, political professionals, and ambitious people looking for the next paycheck, we should all understand what is happening. The machine does not suddenly become principled because it found a new patron. It becomes motivated because the checks clear.

And when the people who used to be attached to failed candidates and failed political brands suddenly migrate to a new “outsider,” we should be allowed to ask a very basic question:

Is this really a movement, or is it a payroll?

We have seen this movie before.

A wealthy candidate appears.
A polished story is repeated.
The ads are everywhere.
The mailers arrive.
The consultants explain why this person is the future.
The candidate is introduced as “just like you,” usually by people being paid very well to say it.

And somehow, the absence of a record is marketed as a virtue.

That is backwards.

A record is not a liability. A record is evidence.

A record means you have actually had to choose. It means people can see what you did when the cameras were not perfect, when the issue was messy, when the pressure was real, and when the votes actually counted.

Burt Jones has a record.

That does not mean he is perfect. No politician is. There have been reasons to criticize him in the past, and there will be reasons to criticize him over the next four years. There are always reasons to criticize people in power. That is part of accountability. That is part of what grassroots Republicans are supposed to do.

But here is the difference: with Burt Jones, voters are not being asked to buy a mystery box.

They are not being asked to trust a consulting firm’s character sketch.
They are not being asked to substitute production value for proof.
They are not being asked to confuse advertising with substance.

They can look at what he has done. They can look at where he has stood. They can look at how he has governed. They can look at the fights he has taken on and be bothered by some and happy about others. They can look at his actual record and make a judgment.

That is how politics is supposed to work.

The great trick of the paid political industry is convincing voters that the candidate with a record is the risky choice, while the candidate manufactured by money is the safe one.

No.

The risky choice is the candidate you only know because you have been made to know him by money.

The risky choice is the candidate whose political identity appeared at the same time as the ad buy.

The risky choice is the one whose greatest campaign strength is that there is not much public record to examine.

Politics should not be a contest to see who can purchase the most attention. It should not be a competition between citizens and consultants, with voters treated like movable pieces on a board.

The question in this runoff is bigger than one candidate.

It is whether Georgia Republicans are still capable of telling the difference between a record and a rollout.

It is whether grassroots conservatives still matter, or whether every primary can be bought by enough television, enough mail, enough consultants, and enough repetition.

It is whether voters will reward service, record, and accountability, or whether they will let the paid political industry prove its darkest assumption:

That enough money can make enough people believe almost anything.

I do not believe that.

I do not believe Georgia Republican voters are idiots. I do not believe they are helpless. I do not believe they have to be led around by the latest ad campaign, the latest mail piece, or the latest consultant-approved storyline.

But the consultants believe some of them can be.

That is what this race is testing.

Burt Jones is not perfect. No one is. But he is a known quantity. He has been in the arena. He has a record. He has been vetted by years of public service, years of votes, years of criticism, and years of actual political accountability. He’s been endorsed by the Georgia Republican Assembly (GRA).

Rick Jackson may be selling a compelling personal story. He may have business success. He may have all the consultants money can buy. But this is not a corporate branding exercise. It is an election for governor and political philosophy and party loyalty matters.

Georgia does not need a governor created by mailers.

Georgia does not need a governor introduced to voters by a flood of paid media.

Georgia does not need the paid political industry, who would quickly become lobbyists to their client, to tell us who our grassroots movement belongs to.

So yes, the title is provocative: No idiots are voting for Burt Jones.

But the point is simple.

The people easiest for the machine to manipulate are not being pointed toward Burt Jones. They are being flooded with ads against him. They are being told that a record is a weakness and that money-backed mystery is strength.

Do not fall for it.

Look past the ads.
Look past the consultants.
Look past the polished story.
Look at the record.

And then vote accordingly.

1. No matter who you are voting for (as long as it’s a Republican), you’re not an idiot if you’ve read this article. The idiots are only those who are voting because of the paid political industry, and not because of their own wisdom and knowledge.