Technology without Principles, and candidates who are clearly on target, on message, is nothing but cheap entertainment, and lousy entertainment at that.
coldwarrior on December 5, 2008 at 1:22 PM

Agreed. It won’t matter what tool we use to get out the conservative message if the guy at the top of the ticket is one who’s made his name over the last 10 years figuratively pissing on conservatives and conservative ideas, then tries to tell us on the right that it’s just rain. Our problem started in NH, when people from the surrounding, leftmost-leaning states were allowed to come in and basically hand-pick a stooge who could be defeated in the fall with minimal effort – because he’d simply keep the Republican base at home. And if you look at the tabs on exit polling and post-election polls, that’s exactly what happened. 2008 was just 2006 writ large, with the actual conservatives staying home thinking we were unwanted. It is, of course, our own fault in that we had a handful of almost-conservatives to pull for in the primaries, and those guys split the conservative vote so finely between themselves that it was a virtual lock for Rhinocrat Mac to take the nom, but that simply points to the fact that we need to become more involved at an earlier stage of the game – from local politics on up. The thing that Done That said at 8:54AM is the only way we can fix this – pure grassroots effort and the hard work that demands. That’s the kind of thing that I thought we conservatives are supposed to be all about – or did we lose something since the days of Reagan and Goldwater?

Till you have a clear path and track record in regards to your message, worrying about delivery is a waste of time.

Dr. Dog on December 5, 2008 at 4:50 PM

why must I agree with this? to twitter or not to twitter is a dizzying conundrum. Who is the idiot that thinks all roads to victory flow through twitter and text messages instead of through the fundamentals?
Are we really supposed to believe that conservatives aren’t using the internet and technology to get their message out? I refuse to believe that a loss equates total incompetence and lack of connection with current trends.
however, I do agree that old idiots should move aside and let the younger generation take the reigns.

Till you have a clear path and track record in regards to your message, worrying about delivery is a waste of time.

Good grief. The door of history is closing on your (conservative’s) ass.

indythinker on December 5, 2008 at 11:17 AM

Ron Paul? Just a guess.

btw, I am definitely with you on the lack of attention to Obama’s Constitutional eligibility.

If this were to be broken (I don’t know if he’s eligible or not, but why don’t we KNOW?), then we are officially no longer a nation of laws. It was debatable before, but no longer if this happens.

There’s a Pulitzer waiting for someone…Bueller? Anyone?

btw, for the first time in my adult lifetime: I looked at a check that I received from a client yesterday and thought of ways to not tell the government about my income.

To see our future and get a reality check: read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I liked it so much I’m ordering up a hardback copy from my kiddies for X’mas. I want to be able to make notes.

Who is John Galt?

Let’s roll.

ErikTheRed on December 5, 2008 at 12:12 PM

Republican party:

Yes, if we just wire up those Deck Chairs on the Titanic, it will solve EVERYTHING!

Want to really get this whole Conservative thing back on track?

We are now the outcasts… we are NOT the Establishment, the Dems are… we need to promote ourselves as REBELS… in the same vein as Washington, and Jefferson, and my fav, Benjamin Franklin.

Next generation is all about Freedom… we just need to equate that with Liberty… because they are NOT HAPPY with the PC status quo.

Slow down the Social Con agenda for awhile… bring back limited government, and the next generation will be conservative.

This whole Twitter thing seems to me to be pathetically narcissistic.

“Look at meeee!!!”

pseudonominus on December 5, 2008 at 11:15 AM

Well, yes. But it’s how a whole lot of people under 30 communicate with each other, and receive information on what’s going in the world. Traditional media just doesn’t cut it anymore.

(specifically, anystreet.org)

ErikTheRed on December 5, 2008 at 12:03 PM

There are good eCampaign people at the RNC, but I’m pretty sure they don’t see Twitter as a magic bullet. I bet they’re watching to see how it turns out. The Twitter phenomenon is powerful because it’s organized from the grassroots.

The Twitter effort is about building a communications infrastructure needed to compete with the Left. Without such an infrastructure good messages (which are sorely needed) won’t be communicated. When it comes to communications vs. message it’s not either/or it’s both.

Twitter? I’m in a lather. I passed twittering a long long time ago. Uncontested? Says a lot about the ossified GOP organization in this state.

Get back to the basics…nail down the Principles…curry, select, promote, raise up candidates who have shown by their actions they understand the basics, the Principles, and are more than willing to walk the talk.

Then…get the message out, daily, several times a day, long long before the election cycle starts to ratchet up…base all of it on simple basic Principles. Cull our ranks of those who claim to be GOP or Conservative and act like they are direct from the salons of the Dem fiefdom. Broke no stupid antics, either, among GOP candidates. Have a GOP candidate running in your district who can’t keep his fly closed? End his candidacy immediately. Put in a replacement who actually walks the talk. Same with those who live on earmarks and spend too much time with lobbyists instead of their constituents.

Then, we can scrap the mimeographs, adapt to more pervasive technologies, and start winning at the local and state level and along the way claw our way back to the national level.

Technology without Principles, and candidates who are clearly on target, on message, is nothing but cheap entertainment, and lousy entertainment at that.

Plus, remember that the voters who decide elections are the uninformed, superficial types you so deride. WE didn’t decide the election — the highly informed, plugged-in partisan types are always solidly on one side or the other. Obama won because Facebookers and Twitterers thought he was cool. Obama lovers were incredibly active and effective on Facebook. We can’t and shouldn’t cede that battlefield because we see ourselves as intellectually above it.

But, if it works….

First you have to remold every college kid’s brain from its present leftist bent to a rightist bent. Good luck with that one.

keep the change on December 5, 2008 at 11:14 AM

So long as the Left keeps a lock on public education, we’re all in the proverbial handbasket, rolling quickly into a very real hell.

Vouchers now. No more waiting.

Why don’t we just post lolcats for the completely illiterate?

dinobalz on December 5, 2008 at 12:34 PM

Sadly, I think it would win us back a significant portion of the youth vote if we did that. I’m totally not kidding.