David Perdue on Donald Trump’s Ideology

Georgia Republican Senator David Perdue held a question and answer session with members of the Georgia Young Republicans at their convention Saturday morning in Augusta. The first question he received dealt with his ability to get elected by positioning himself as an outsider, and how Donald Trump was able to win the GOP presidential nomination in the same way.

Perdue admitted that when he learned that Saxby Chambliss’s seat was to become open in 2015, he called his cousin, former Governor Sonny Perdue, urging him to run. Perdue was concerned about the economy and the national debt. Sonny declined, but told his cousin that he could do the job. Although he had spent 40 years in business and had never been involved in politics, he decided to run.

Perdue described what happened next:

We tapped a nerve, and that nerve is in a vein of disenfranchised voters. They are more motivated by their frustration at Washington and at a lack of results in Washington than they are by ideology. You’re going to see at this conference today, if you stick around, you’ll hear debates about policy, rules, platform, and all that, and you’ll see the differences.

But always remember that, right now, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump aren’t on that ideological line, That’s one of the concerns of the true conservatives. I mean, I’m concerned. I don’t know if he is conservative or not. But you know what? I know he’s more conservative than Hillary Clinton.

An hour after got done, Perdue would appear before the main Georgia GOP convention. As he began his speech to the convention delegates, he took off his suit jacket, and replaced it with his trademark jean jacket. By the end of his talk, he had donned a red Trump “Make America Great Again” cap.