Big Ideas From Boring Old Stump Speeches

In 2000, millionaire publisher Steve Forbes ran for president. Forbes was a weak GOP candidate, but he started getting traction in the polls with his flat-tax proposal. George W. Bush felt obliged to match it, though the Texas governor himself had little interest in tax cuts for the very wealthy. The result was the plan for steep tax cuts for upper-income Americans enacted in 2001. Sometimes it seems everything in politics is connected to everything else. Seven years later, every Democratic candidate now wants to repeal those same Bush tax cuts and use the money to finance health-care proposals. We take this for granted now, but the center of gravity shifted on raising taxes when hardly anyone was looking.

Education is another area ripe for sleeper issues. In early 2007, when he was an asterisk in the polls, Huckabee distinguished himself from the rest of the Republican field in part by discussing the importance of art and music education in the schools. He explained how right-brain development is important not just to enrich the lives of students but to inspire the creativity necessary to help the United States keep its edge in the global economy.

At about the same time, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson sounded the same note in his stump speech as part of his call to end No Child Left Behind. Huckabee's surge has little or nothing to do with this fresh idea, and it won't resurrect Richardson's campaign. But both Clinton and Obama now mention the subject by way of explaining why they think No Child has tilted too far in the direction of testing. It's a strong applause line. Don't be surprised if a lot more money for art and music turns up in an education bill a couple of years from now.

The lesson is that some of what's said in presidential politics really matters, even if the candidate saying it doesn't win. So the next time you see a contender bloviating on TV about some minor thing, stop and listen. That little proposal he's mentioning might be pilfered by another candidate, one who winds up in the White House. Then watch what happens when the throwaway line you heard months or years earlier leaves a footprint so deep, even a podiatrist would be impressed.

© 2007