How my movement journey started
The detailed story of my 2016 insane effort to find an independent presidential candidate
Some of you have heard my story before - but many have not. How we tell our “origin stories” in the movements we care about is important. I’d love to hear yours. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
It was January of 2016. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling in the early dawn light, wondering if I’d live through what I was about to undertake. I felt alone. But I knew in the deepest parts of me that I had to do it. Something had to change. I just hoped and prayed that others saw it too.
I woke that morning with a deep and unrelenting feeling that I was supposed to get involved in the presidential race. It felt like a calling, or at least what I imagined a calling would feel like. This didn’t make any sense. I had been working in politics for ten years at that point but had never worked on a presidential race. I wasn’t particularly well-known as a consultant though I was the CEO of one of the largest Republican consulting firms in the nation. I had no national network to speak of. No one at Fox News or CNN knew me.
On top of that, the presidential race was a hot mess. Who would want to get involved in it? It all seemed absurd, really. A fanciful dream that I should ignore. I should just go downstairs, make my coffee and go on about my day.
As I lay there in my bed looking at the ceiling and blinking, my unsuspecting wife slept soundly next to me. She didn’t know what chaos and heartache I was about to unleash on our family. She would’ve rolled over and punched me if she did.
Eventually I did get up and go downstairs to make my coffee. But instead of the crazy thoughts subsiding as I began my day, they were strengthening. I couldn’t get them out of my mind. At work that day, instead of focusing on all the tasks and duties that came with being the CEO of a large consulting firm, I was googling like mad. I read everything I could about the state of the race. It seemed clear to me, even at that early date, that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would be the nominees and there were no other alternatives. Our nation deserved better. Something had gone tragically wrong that these were our only two choices.
Many people still pontificated about Trump’s inability to win. He was too crass. Had too many detractors. The next gaffe would be his last. But I sensed then what has become manifestly obvious now – he’s a brilliant man. His ability to read the day’s media narrative, then own it, is something we’ve rarely seen in history. It worried me.
On the other hand you had Hillary Clinton – a woman whose very campaign slogan was self-serving: I’m with HER. As in, “she’s not with us - we’re supposed to be with her.” Her policies (all 6,000 or so of them were painfully laid out in great detail on her website) lacked any unifying clarity, vision and in many cases any wisdom, justice or national pride. Bernie was interesting and sincere, but I knew the Democrats would never let him win. It wasn’t his turn – and he wouldn’t tow their line. Plus I’m not anything nearing a socialist, so there was that.
Add to this the increasingly uncomfortable role I was playing in the political world. As a consultant to Republican candidates and large trade and business interests, I was spending a lot of my time scaring voters and convincing them that the “other side” was evil and out to destroy the country or, at the very least, take their private property rights. As we are now seeing in full bloom, this kind of rhetoric plants dangerous seeds.
I didn’t like the way Republican consultants and candidates talked about people of color, Democrats in general, immigrants, those who care about the environment or basically anyone who they didn’t agree with. It all felt wrong. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” I kept thinking. “Can’t we win elections without this crap?” Every consultant I knew would tell you, “No. It works.” I hated that.
I was miserable, but didn’t really even know it. I was hungry for a new movement of people who really cared more about our nation than their partisan interests. For people who could disagree, fight hard and then go have a drink together. For friends who didn’t think and look like me but whom I knew would look out for me, and I for them. I was so hungry for this – and I didn’t see it anywhere.
Could I find an alternative?
Against this backdrop I began to wonder if it was possible to run an independent candidate for president at this late date. As I continued to research this possibility I began to discover a small but passionate group of people who were thinking similar thoughts.
Some had been involved with things like this before – Ross Perot’s campaign manager Russ Verney, Richard Winger, a kind older gentleman who knows more about ballot access than any person on the face of the planet, Peter Ackerman, Nick Troiano, Kahlil Byrd and Jim Jonas who had done so much with Americans Elect in 2012 to try to find an independent candidate.
Then there was a small, brave faction of conservatives who did not support Trump. Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson, John Kingston, Bill Wichterman, David French, Pete Wehner, Quin Hillyer, and so many others affectionately known as the “Never Trumpers.” Robert Saldin and Steve Teles have since written a book about this crew including the story I’m telling here - it’s called Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elites. You can grab it here if you like.
I researched all I could about these folks – not knowing a single one of them personally at the time. I also made my own lists of candidates I thought could pull it off. At the top of that list, for me, was Condoleeza Rice. I persuaded my company owner to give me some budget to run a poll in a few states to test Rice (and some others) against Trump and Clinton. What I found shocked me. Rice, running as an independent, was winning in Texas and a few other states. I thought maybe I was on to something but I didn’t know what to do with this information.
After a week or so I decided to test the waters and wrote a memo outlining a scenario, based on this polling, whereby Condoleezza Rice could become president. This was all done without Dr. Rice’s knowledge but I had always liked her and thought she’d make an intriguing and viable pick. I figured I better let her know.
There was only one problem — as I said, I wasn’t influential or connected at that level of politics. I was a small time consultant from Gainesville, Florida.
I’ve never been afraid to cold call anyone. Even the former Secretary of State. So, I looked her up. I found an email for her chief of staff at Stanford, where she worked for the Hoover Institute, and I emailed. No response. So I emailed again. And again. Then I called — a few times. Finally, I got a rather frustrated response from her chief of staff stating in no uncertain terms that Dr. Rice would not be running for president and I should leave them alone. Rejection number one.
Not knowing exactly what to do next, I decided to intentionally “leak” the memo to Politico. They bit. It was apparently noticed by a few of the others I mentioned above. I got a phone all from Rick Wilson who connected me with Bill Kristol and others and we began discussing other options for candidates. Bill had been floating ideas for a while.
Between us, we emailed, cold-called, met with and otherwise courted many well-known people. Former presidential candidates, generals, senators, congressmen, rich people, celebrities, leadership gurus. There were many different conversations and meetings. Rejections number two, three, four and some number higher after that. I lost count.
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