Gizzi: Consultant Who Wrote ‘Beat The Incumbent’ Tells How

There’s something unusual and unique happening in elections throughout the modern world these days: the established political order in many countries is falling, and candidates born and raised in the political class are increasingly losing to political novices who are best labeled, well, improbable.

Certainly, the stunning upset victory of Argentina’s Javier Milei in December is a case in point. In becoming the world’s first libertarian president, Milei — TV talk show pugilist, an economist whose sole stint in politics was one term in Congress — handily defeated the candidate of the ruling Peronist (socialist) party that had ruled Argentina for most of the years since World War II.

Milei’s refusal to comb his hair, his admitted passion for tantric sex, and his brandishing a chainsaw to demonstrate what he wanted to do to bloated government were all unprecedented in the politics of Argentina or just about anywhere else. But with an electorate fed up with four-digit inflation and record indebtedness to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), they turned to El Loco (The Crazy One), as Milei is called.

“Voters everywhere want to get rid of the political class, and they are now turning to some pretty unlikely alternatives,” veteran political consultant Louis Perron told Newsmax in a recent interview. The Switzerland-based Perron has overseen more than 20 winning campaigns worldwide — more often than not, for insurgent candidates against seemingly entrenched incumbents — and now tells how it’s done in his eponymous new book “Beat The Incumbent.”

Milei is just the latest example of a trend of outsiders taking on the political establishment and winning. He pointed to Donald Trump, reality show host and the first U.S. president who never held previous elective or appointive office, now leading incumbent Joe Biden in many polls.

Certainly, added Perron, [former Brazilian President Jair] Bolsonaro is an example “of an outsider who beat the establishment.” Narrowly edged out for reelection in a much-disputed race and banned from holding office until 2030, Bolsonaro nevertheless retains a fervent following and remains a force to be reckoned with in Brazil.

Another obvious outsider who took out an incumbent is Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a comedian who played a president of Ukraine on a hit TV series and then won the job in real life. He took office just in time to lead his nation against a Russian invasion.

Zelenskyy the comedian, Milei the combative pundit, and Trump the reality show host may at first glance leave observers wondering how they got to be taken seriously by voters, much less how they rose to the presidencies of their respective countries.

“The outsider is free to double down on issues,” said Perron, adding that the outsider is likely to embrace a controversial position and stick with it more than a conventional politician, “Change can be very frightening, so it is key for any agent of change to define it in the right way.”

Polls now almost universally show Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party running third in the next parliamentary election (expected in 2025) and the Christian Democratic Union (conservatives) in first place. But CDU leader Friedrich Merz, 68, is still widely seen as a traditional politician.

“Merz must reinvent himself in order to become chancellor,” said Perron, “He must be seen as an agent of change.”

“Beat The Incumbent,” Perron insists, will be a how-to book on how the growing number of political insurgents can do just that in a world of growing uncertainty about politics and governance.

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.