But more specifically, I don’t see how thirteen28’s Props, for example, are atomizing the problem and creating an amorphous, swirling blizzard or indicative of lacking standards or reinventing the wheel or being rootless or squishy.

They are simply clear, individual propositions that a majority agrees upon. They are consistent with Conservative values. They provide for incremental improvement, rather than all or nothing.

My basic point is that each minute issue has its own “center”, and the more we tie multiple issues together, the less likely it is that their intersection will form a majority.

…the tendency there is to atomize the problem…it goes from being a society to an amorphous, swirling blizzard of problems. I find that folks *tend* a particular way. They have sets of standards by which they measure the unknown when it comes up.

That’s been the problem: our friends on the Left have been casting doubt and aspersions on anyone even *having* standards. Look at all the grief and snarky backhanded comments Bush gets for being religious. He’s portrayed as a close-minded ideologue who thinks that he doesn’t have to think. What he *has* is a set of moral guidelines which helps him navigate from the known to the unknown by defining right and wrong. That sort of thing used to be common back 50 years ago. It’s been chipped at and chipped at, and nothing’s been put into its place except…well…*ME*.

It’s all “me, Me, ME!”, all “me”, all the time. Improve yourself, love yourself — Whitney Houston even sang the theme song for this — explore yourself, worship yourself. Don’t let anyone get in *your* way…forgetting that maybe the other guy’s got a “me” which is just as important to him as yours is to you.

The Left sells an atomized society, all nebulous and rootless, rudderless and squishy. Handle each problem as if it’s the first time it’s ever come up. They expect to constantly re-invent he wheel each time a wheel is needed.

It’s insanity.

I blathered all that to say this: you need to find out what the people want, how to serve them, and do *THAT*. There’s your center.

I agree, and I think EFG and thirteen28 have identified (some of) what people want (70%+) that has strangely gone unanswered (is this what you meant by “we need to find ‘em first”?).

My basic point is that each minute issue has its own “center”, and the more we tie multiple issues together, the less likely it is that their intersection will form a majority.

Perhaps I’m being redundant. I think we basically agree, unless you think I’m missing something?

So many folks think of politics as some sort of a bunco game…”What line works with these marks?”…as opposed to speaking from in amongst them. The electorate isn’t a collection of sources of potential income or influence. They are the foundation of the duties to which you’ve been empowered…nothing more, nothing less….

Well said.

I blathered all that to say this: you need to find out what the people want, how to serve them, and do *THAT*. There’s your center.

EFG mentioned Kos…Kos and his ideological bed-fellows speak in terms of “here’s what you *OUGHT* to think” (not “believe”, as that word seems to give ‘em the willies…although the do talk of “passion” a lot, which is a window to their souls). They make up *THEIR* minds, and folks seem to think that this stakes out one end of the spectrum…and put folks like me on the other end of the spectrum, draw a line between, and arranged folks along that line, with some imaginary point in the center, moderates arranged amongst and on either side of the center.

That notion is false.

Find out what the folks think. That is the “center”. Rather than a line, it’s a range of concentric circles out from there. The further you get away from what the folks believe, and will put up with — usually because you’ve decided for yourself what these benighted people “ought” to believe — the further from the center you are.

It isn’t a matter of linear position, it’s expanding the circle you can include among your supporters…or, rather, among the people to whom you owe *YOUR* support as a politician.

It’s a matter of inclusion, not position.

So many folks think of politics as some sort of a bunco game…”What line works with these marks?”…as opposed to speaking from in amongst them. The electorate isn’t a collection of sources of potential income or influence. They are the foundation of the duties to which you’ve been empowered…nothing more, nothing less….

Bill Clinton says election was a win for centrists and not “necessarily to legitimize the whole Democratic agenda”…….

I think that definition is valid, since “centrists” and “moderates” are never mentioned when there is already a majority opinion on an issue. Who are the “moderates” when 70% agree on the individual AZ Props that thirteen28 mentions?

EFG pointed to a bunch of issues that most people agree upon, and my curiosity is why can’t we make progress on these issues?

Remember, you need at least 51% to win a two party race. If what ever part of the political spectrum can’t appeal to at least that many, you will lose your race.

…and, I’ll remind you that you only need 2% of your target audience committed to win any revolution…they’ll bring 49% along with ‘em, most times.

…moderate can also be someone who doesn’t care to keep himself that well informed; and a centrist someone who can’t decide, either because he has no views of his own to start with or because he has issues with commitment.

Kos screwed the pooch — and, happy to say, will continue to do so — because the part of the non-negotiable spectrum he’s staked out is socially extreme, unproductive, and a proven loser.

The words “ideologue” and “extremist” have lost any meaning. Goldwater pointed out that extremism in the service of democracy was no sin, and lack of it no virtue. He was a loser, but his views weren’t. Those are the views of the majority, when it’s pointed out to them. Most of the electorate holds rather firmly to “their” issues, and there are a few issues which they share in common. Some things are non-negotiable.

The problem is this last election that those things weren’t addressed. It was “business as usual” running against “business as usual isn’t good enough, but we haven’t got any alternatives”. It was Kos’s worldview — fringe, impractical and annoyingly smart-alecky and cutesy — in the background, pretending to have some juice, but he was, as you point out, ineffective…because *HIS* base is not anywhere near the majority. They were selling rotten left-over Halloween punkins, and the electorate in Connecticut could see that.

…politics may be the art of the possible, but when the possiblities you’re shooting for don’t extend much beyond getting the job, you’re apt to find that the guys paying your paycheck quickly sour on your job performance…because, as often as not, folks caught in endless election cycles haven’t enough butt in their britches to perform once they arrive.

…for an example, I’ll see you a Kos, but raise you one Clinton…I have one more in reserve, by the way.

The “center” is an illusion. You need to find the *center* of the majority’s home ground and speak from there, in their native tongue…and you’d better not be putting it on, as when Hillary claims to be a Yankees fan. *THAT* center exists. Some fictional “center” between some fictional extremes does not.

*THAT* is what the Dems did…or appeared to do…the extent of their deceptions, appearing to be “one of the folks” will tell in time.

Find out where the people live, an’ you use that as a point of departure. *THAT* is possible.

This isn’t political science. I can’t graph it, and I wouldn’t get much of a grade. It’s pragmatism. There are no grades except pass and fail. If you blow it you fail. If you don’t, you’re still in the game.

…we need them a bit tautological. — Kevin

…trust me, when EFG talks, I listen.

It’s good to be practical, but part of the reason that the Republicans lost this time was that they were *TOO* practical…they allowed others to define them, and made that easy by being the “party of the practical”, bipartisanship, and all that…while not effectively defining themselves.

To define oneself, one needs to have a center…not this fictional “center” I hear people claiming to be appealing to…but a core set of beliefs…you know…like “The US is good because…”. They came out with “The US is good…”, but seemed to go wierd, washy and wobbly because they forgot *WHY* the US is good.

The base of any political party should certainly expect to be a little more than “reasonably happy, but grumbling about some issues”…that’s why they’re your base. If you take them for granted — as the Democrats have been doing with the black bloc vote for two decades — they’ll find their base bolting as soon as a reasonable alternative presents itself.

I was trained in propaganda — not rhetoric, forensics, journalism or logic, but *propaganda* — by the Army. I understand how to mount and run a campaign. I know what a message is, and know how important it is to stay on-message, lest you lose your audience. The Republicans lost their audience this time. If your audience’s alternatives are Democrats and Republicans who look like Democrats but don’t seem as smart as Democrats, you’ve lost.

One thing: until you used the word “tautological”, I’d heard it around, but it wasn’t part of my vocabulary. As it was a pivotal word in a sentence which framed your argument, I looked it up.

tautology, n. 2. (Logic) An empty or vacuous statement composed of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it logically true whether the simpler statements are factually true or false; for example, the statement Either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow.

…is this what you meant?

If this is a way of saying that we’ve got to help the base along toward understanding that they’re to be placated, but that they’re only as important as they get “us” close to winning, I’d have to point out that the base isn’t that naive. It’s naive, but not *that* naive. Most folks smell receptors can pick that one up.

The socialist agenda is a lot like the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes. It sounds like a good idea. It has rather nice, soothing people shilling for it…a harsh word to use about a nice guy like McMahon, but I move along. It’d be nice to win…socialism would be nice if it worked.

The problem with that sweepstakes is the other eighteen gazillion folks who *ALSO* entered (no purchase necessary to win). The problem with socialism is also people…but, this time, it isn’t only numbesr (numbers of recalcitrant poor, numbers of unemployed ideologues after the “revolution”), but with the people themselves.

Socialism is like Christianity: it runs counter to human nature. One teaches us to obey God and love our neighbors…Calvin pointed out that the “loving your neighbor” was *harder* than the obeying all of God’s commandments perfectly. Socialism relies on the organizational skills, often times, of some of the *LEAST* organized people imaginable, as well as the good natures of those not among the nomenklatura. It’s a society run by coffee klatches…and damned argumentative coffee klatches.

Unlike socialism, though, Christianity has divine guidance, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the strength of the Author of the Universe behind it. It’s a done-deal. Christ’s won, Satan’s lost, and we’re just waiting for the field to be cleared and the goal posts to be burned. Socialism, on the other hand, has failed in almost every place it’s been tried, and those failures have sometimes been *spectacular*.

…so, socialism is not only counter-intuitive, it’s inefficient, impersonal, sterile, and inhuman (and not in a good way). The only thing going for it is a willing and energetic sales force…most of whom, if history is correct, will be the first casualties of any regimes they bring into being.

…you have to be careful about sales pitches…Enron and dot-com stock used to be safe bets, once upon a time….

Does someone want to define a “moderate” or a “centrist” for me?

Moderate: In politics, a moderate is an individual who holds an intermediate position between those generally classified as being left-wing, liberal, or socialist and those seen as right-wing, conservative, or capitalist. An alternate definition, and one widely held among swing voters, is that a moderate is one who has firm convictions on all issues, yet some convictions fall just to the left of the spectrum and some fall just to the right.
Centrist: In politics, centrism usually refers to the political ideal of promoting moderate policies which land in the middle ground between different political extremes. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of Left-Right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between left-wing politics and right-wing politics.

An alternate definition is to assume that the two poles in question (e.g., Left/Right) are well-defined, and then (i) define as ‘centrist’ any position which the Left considers too far Right and the Right considers too far Left, and (ii) define as a ‘Centrist’ any person who self-identifies more with those positions than either the Left or the Right.

Remember, you need at least 51% to win a two party race. If what ever part of the political spectrum can’t appeal to at least that many, you will lose your race. So the whole “screw ‘em” approach may not lead to the results you were hoping for. But that is pretty much the approach Kos took, and look what it got him. Lamont the loser. The democrats who kicked our ass in this last election seemed to have staked out positions away from Lamont/Kos. And now they control Congress.

Freelancer, thanks for the pop quiz, I learned something. It looks like Benjamin Franklin said something similar. Karl Marx also wrote it. 26 refers to the letters of the alphabet. Effective propaganda is key, and only despicable if it is false. Sadly, it does seem we are losing the propaganda war.

As I was taught, the only things you find in the middle of a road are yellow stripes and dead skunks.

And yes, Laura, it’s an uphill battle against the socialist agenda which gets the lion’s share of media play.

Pop quiz. Who said, “Give me twenty six lead soldiers, and I will rule the world.”? And what does it mean?

If folks couldn’t reconcile their principles to the choices offered on the 7th, it just might be that they *HAVE NO* principles.

The vast majority of people in this country are like my mother. She watches The Today Show before work in the morning, and Katie Couric at night, reads the front page and the Living section of the paper, and considers herself well-informed. People like her are steered and controlled by the media, because they believe the “facts” that the media puts out.

What we really need is a plan to combat the media, so this “macacca” and “domestic spying” and “Katrina is all Bush’s fault” type coverage isn’t the only input most Americans receive.

center/undecideds/moderates

…screw ‘em. Does someone want to define a “moderate” or a “centrist” for me?

As to “undecided”, a more accurate description would be “unfocused”. If folks couldn’t reconcile their principles to the choices offered on the 7th, it just might be that they *HAVE NO* principles. They’re kites without tails. In that case, the color of your candidate’s bumperstickers and the background music in his commercials is as important as anything he or she may say during the campaign.

You can’t reason with a jelly.

…and, in that case, the Left has an edge, anyway…they deal in squishy, amorphous, feel-good rhetoric layered over bigotry, defeat and moral vacuity…they *are* the Party of the Undecideds….

If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.

I for one would like to see every tyrany in the Mid East overthrown and their schools and medias to teach and support secular democracy. But I can’t do that. So I try to achieve smaller goals.

Also, you are right. The base is important. If the base adbandons us, we lose. But we need the center/undecideds/moderates too. If we lose them to the democrats, we will lose also.

Basically, I think a winning platform will have the base reasonably happy, but grumbling about some issues, and the center/undecideds/moderates happy, but grumbling about some issues too. And when we have both of them, plus those inbetween the moderates and the base, then we will have our 51%.

But yeah, I agree with you. We can’t betray our principles. Doing that is part of what cost us this election.

Say what you will about his character and lack thereof, but Clinton is a BRILLIANT politician. — Kai

…that’s like saying that Willie Horton was a first-class felon, Ken Lay was a sharp money-maker, and complimenting Sandy Berger on the capacity of his socks.

Isn’t there a fat girl we could give him…keep him occupied…get him to shut up.

Schoeder was wrong…Reagan wasn’t the “teflon president”…Slippery William is.

If you combine these three, what happens? You cut down on the ammount of illegal immigration, and you weed out the bad apples of the ones who are here already (the criminals and the freeloaders) The ones who are left are those who aren’t going out doing felonies, and who are working. In time, they will slowly assimilate and integrate, and their children will do so even more. And the kids who are born here? Well heck, they are citizens, so that takes care of that.

Anyway, I think we can get a 51% on that.

But I don’t think we can get 51% if we are saying “deport ‘em all,” so why try to push that?

Yeah, I know someone is going to say “yeah, but that won’t do any good, because those liberal judges will just over turn those laws.” Well, there is some truth to that, but don’t you think those same liberal judges will even more quickly overturn laws that are deporting millions of families? Yeah, the judges can be a pain, but they can’t stop us forever on this. If they overturn a law on some proceedural ground, or some legal point, just pass the same law again, but take what they said into account in the second bill.

Politics. It’s all about compromise, and what is possible, not what is perfect.

EFG on November 9, 2006 at 2:22 PM

In AZ, they got greater than 70% on all these:

Arizona Prop 100. Denies bail to illegal immigrants.
Arizona Prop 102. Bars illegal immigrants from winning punitive damages.
Arizona Prop 103. Makes English the official state language.
Arizona Prop 300. Bars illegal aliens from receiving state subsidies for education and child care.

California voters passed Prop 187 (restricting public services for illegals) by a landslide, and then Gray Davis with the support of the CA supreme court set it aside. Yes, we need to keep trying, but we’re fighting against judicial activism as well as the opposition.

I personally don’t agree on the baby-steps, compromise concept.

The conservative based needs someone they can trust to be a true conservative. That’s all. We were betrayed by the likes of McCain and Chafee, and they are the tip of the iceberg. It turned off the base, and cost us the majority.

In 2000, the two biggest issues to point to regarding Bush’s victory were 1) Eight years of Clinton scandals rubbing off on Gore and 2) Values voters. Those two dovetailed into a win, not for Bush, but against corruption and the erosion of morals. This thread continued in 2002, generating an unprecedented gain for the White House party in a mid-term election.

In 2004, the two biggest issues to point to regarding Bush’s victory were 2) Bush as a wartime president, having just subdued two terrorist-run countries in record time, and 2) Kerry’s treasonous past. Again, the two issues dovetailed, because just enough people didn’t want a president during war who had proved himself to be anti-military.

That said, I cannot accept the thought of Guiliani, McCain, or even Romney as an ‘08 candidate. Take a look at the county-by-county map, conservatives are far stronger than this election result can be spun to suggest. Give the conservatives a real champion to back, and watch what happens.